My impression of Airgas is they are built to serve corporate customers. They will sell a tank to a homebrewer, but we aren’t the target market.
I think most of their sales are deliveries.
PS. Every time I go to Dairy Queen (ice cream) I see their 200+ lbs tank of CO2 sitting outback unguarded. I want to go back at night and fill my tank myself.
For what it’s worth, the Airgas in Joliet, on Jefferson Street, is still in business. Perhaps you could buy several smaller tanks of CO2 and only have to return for refill once in a while. Just a thought….
Well, I guess if CO2 became unavailable or too expensive I could always dust of the cases and return to bottle conditioning. I live in the country so an hour drive to my “local” HBS is standard. I’m sure that they would never survive on the sale of brewing supplies alone, but it’s also a garden shop that sells sells such things as pet food and bird seed. There’s a welding shop near the LHBS where the recent swap of my 20# kegerator tank ($25) and fill for the 5# traveler ($13), though reasonable, was the highest price I’ve yet paid.
I started exchanging tanks a long time ago and never looked back. There’s nothing special about the tank, so who cares what it is as long as it serves the purpose.
I have always exchanged, but the first time I did it I was irked. I bought a brand-new empty tank and immediately had to trade it in for an old one.
I had a spiffy tank I bought from Williams that I refilled for a couple of years until deciding exchanges made more sense. When I shared my sadness with the LHBS about losing that tank, they walked me into the tank area and let me pick a spiffy red tank that I enjoyed seeing in my fridge until a bad leak suddenly depleted it. I’ve probably had its replacement for four to five years?? and though it’s not that fun, it isn’t some old battered thing either.
unrelated to original post other than “punch to the gut”. just checked my online homebrew store and it looks like they did a site wide ~20% increase on price of everything.
pretty annoying.
that was on top of general slow increases over the years. a pack of US-05 is now $6.50.
I guess I’m the outlier here, but I like Airgas and have been exchanging tanks there for a decade (maybe longer).
I mail order everything else from Morebeer since their warehouse is fairly close to me, and my LHBS closed years ago.
Hey all,
We’re Gnome Brew in Chicago, we’ve been around for 6 years.
We offer CO2 swaps and fills for pick up.
We’re located at 2026 W Montrose Ave
As for ingredients, before you go to the big guys, we have over 100 malts in stock, tons of draft supply, yeast and hops. Inventory is live and up to date on our website: https://gnomebrewshop.com/
We offer national shipping and local delivery for ingredients and parts.
Stop in the store and put your recipe together if you’re local, or use our recipe builder and we’ll put the order together for you for pick up or shipping.
We offer monthly bottle shares, beginner classes and bi-monthly talks by professionals.
Lallemand is coming by the end of this month- attend virtually or in person!(free registration required)
Cheers!
$72 to exchange two 5 lb. tanks at NexAir today.
I asked the guy about 20 lb. tanks. He said they are only $8 more than a 5 lb. exchange. I may move that direction. To do that I need to drill a hole through my fridge wall to be able to store the tank outside the fridge. I think it’s time.
I live in S Jersey and when I started brewing 10 yrs ago there were 4 retail outlets (plus one near Penn). All gone. I have moved my brewing to S DE and there use to ne 4 there too. All gone. Retail businesses have a tough time unless their demand keeps rising. Between a slow decline in home brewing due to the availability of almost any style as the result of the explosion of local craft breweries; and the ease of ordering online; its easy to see why these local stores struggle and eventually fold.
It may have provided a decent living when started, but no longer. Their options are limited, but I will continue to use the last one available to me until he is gone.
Two tanks is a good idea. I have three: kegerator, brewery and back-up/exchange. Be aware that Airgas and other commercial shops may enforce no co2 carried inside car and may require a truck for pickup.
As a Homebrew shop owner, sales are definitely down and have been dropping since COVID. Amazon, Northern Brewer, and Morebeer don’t help the LHBS but I find that having a good wide range selection of Malts, Hops, and Yeast helps and of course good customer service. But we can’t compete with the big sales either. When the “big boys” are getting rid of 2022 hops for half the price, I just can’t compete.
We also do C02 swaps and I go out of my way to beat the gas companies around me but that means my margins are super low. LHBS is definitely not for someone who wants to make a lot of money, it’s for the love of the craft!
FYI: the brewing shops in my city that survived did it by focusing heavily on producing brew-your-own wort and must for customers. tbh i have tried calling these particular stores asking if they sell stuff for homebrewing at home and 2 out of 3 said they dont. they are just there for people to come in, order a wort, then add the yeast themself. tbh i think theyre doing this for people who want some alcohol at a cheaper price point and don’t care too much about the quality. but they have definitely survived while LHBSes have closed down
Wow, I actually have never heard of anyone providing wort besides some type of wort share through a brewery for homebrewers. Interesting.
It’s very common in Australia and New Zealand.
Apparently in South Africa, too.
I got very confused by a reddit thread once until I figured out that this is what they were talking about.
Luckily here in Minneapolis/St. Paul, we have Toll Welding which is employee owned and a great local business for CO2 supplies. Always friendly people and super easy to exchange. I went to 10 lb tanks (have three now) years ago as it made more sense financially.
While I am outside of your delivery zone. I need to make my way over to get a bag of #19.