Comments on: Switching Local Home Brew Shops

By: Channing

Channing — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:54:20 +0000

My problem with my LHBS is that they’re a small scale operation and their prices are incredibly high. I support them by buying small items that I need, but do the bulk of my ordering from Northern Brewer. They are the absolute best place I’ve found online to buy kits and supplies from. I will say that if you want to buy kegs though, the ONLY place to get them is from adventuresinhomebrewing.org. I got 3 5gal Corny kegs for 17 bucks each. I’m all for supporting my LHBS but I won’t kill my bank account to do it.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:24:03 +0000

I went to beer and wine when I first started all grain, then moved on because as Mike said their prices are insane. I generally spend anywhere from 40-80$ for a 10 gallon batch, as I buy my hops online, and reuse my yeast at least 2 times. I would come out of beer and wine with a 120$ beer Tab. I would hide it from the wife, I was that embarassed about it.
If I have unexpected time to brew, and didn’t order my malt online, I go their. Now it’s Morebeer.com, or Northern brewer, depends what i’m making

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:20:45 +0000

I am fortunate to live in a town that has a malting company right downtown. ( United Canada Malt ), in Peterborough, Ont. They sell 25kg of most malts, 5 lb. bricks of hops and 500 gram bricks of yeast. The problem is getting equipment. I mule it up from the US. A lot of things you can’t get here in Canada. Shipping is usually more than the product, so if you really need it, take the hit I guess. LHBS? Nope. They are all 90% wine. A small section at the back of the store has some 10 year old cans of beer kits and yeast under the cap. No specialty equipment for beer and especially all-grain. All the good homebrew stores have closed down in Canada. I guess there just aren’t enough brewers out there to keep them going.

By: Marc

Marc — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:45:00 +0000

I frequent The Witches Brew in Foxboro for most of my basic brewing needs. They have most of what I need: dry and liquid yeast, 30 varieties of hops, several base malts and probably 25-30 specialty grains plus odds and ends like wine thiefs, bottle caps, etc. For the most part the prices are good but not always and they don’t always have everything I need. I love shopping there but probably only buy about 75% of my total brewing supplies there. The other 25% is made up of bulk grain buys or online purchases (@ Northern Brewer, Austin Homebrew, Brewmasters Warehouse) for things like Star San and specialty ingredients that can’t be through my LHBS. I usually take advantage of these purchases to order other things that are cheaper in comparison to get the most out of my flat rate shipping.

By: DT

DT — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:17:25 +0000

I’ve been pretty disappointed with Beer & Wine since I started going there. Due to their poor service and lack of variety, I just stopped going.

All my base grains come from doing bulk grain buys with the local club. Anything else I need I can almost always find from Modern Homebrew Emporium in Cambridge. They carry Wyeast, White Labs, and dry yeast and they’ve expanded their grain selection over the last year to where they have almost every kind of grain I can buy online. They also keep a good stock of hops in the fridge and they had them with no restrictions during the hop shortage. The only thing they don’t carry that I wish they did is the dark candi syrup.

Another positive, if you’re the type of person who likes to bargain talk, they’re usually game…

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:40:54 +0000

The sad thing is I have done a comaprison in the past between Beer and Wine and some of the online stores. It is cheaper in most cases to have stuff shipped from California than it is for you to pick it up personally in Woburn! Insane!

Hey its a global economy. If you have a computer and an internet connection every mail order shop in the world is your local shop! That’s the way I feel about it.

If you have two coffee shops side by side in town and you like shop A’s coffee more that B’s then you are going to go to A’s. But if shop A is the only one in town why wouldn’t you phone in your coffee from Columbia if shop A’s stuff didn’t fit your needs?

By: John

John — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:20:48 +0000

Hi there,

Thank you for all of your thoughts. I appreciate the conversation.

I think the first step is to start buying “special” items or ingredients that I know I will not be able to get from the LBHS online. I am cool with buying things online. I just don’t like paying for shipping when I could pick it up myself.

The second step is to talk to workers at the LBHS and ask them if they have plans to expand their ingredients list or just give them feedback on what I would like to have them carry.

By: Lucas

Lucas — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:02:10 +0000

I will second what DH said . . . I now get almost all my supplies from Austin Homebrew. The flat rate shipping is great (especially on larger orders) and they have an excellent selection across the board. If I have issues with my yeast not taking off or needing extra bottles I go to the local shop, but that is about it now.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:06:27 +0000

I am still a beginner but I have had the same problem with my LBS. Mainly it is their hop selection. It is not consistent and they don’t keep the same hops in stock. I’ve had to make substitutions on the fly but I’m ok now with going with the flow as I learn. They are still fairly new and go above and beyond with providing knowledge, services, and other community outreach (they recently hosted a free beer brewers meetup) and that will keep me coming back and supporting them. But as I start to demand certain items I will have to supplement my shopping with an online supply store.

By: Al

Al — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:05:38 +0000

I agree w/ DH. I will expand on that by saying two things; First is that I always strive to support local business. Second is that my LHBS is 45 minutes away. Does that still count as local? I would go mail order from them but for some reason it costs me less shipping to order from Midwest or similar than it does from LHBS. I still can’t figure that one out. In addition, I work a very demanding job, attend night school and have the role of husband and father. 2 – 3 hours round trip to hang out at an overly crowded shop with very small isles is not my preferred Saturday afternoon. That being said, if I ever find myself in the neighborhod, I always take the time to stop in…assuming they are open.