In the last year, Evansville, Indiana, a city of about 120,000 in SW Indiana, has lost two stores that carried basic brewing supplies and equipment. Now we’re pretty much dependent on internet ordering. Some of the local microbreweries will sell you a full sack of base malt on occasion, but if you need just a few ounces of crystal or an extra packet of yeast you’re probably out of luck.
If you can plan ahead and stick to your plan, you can get some decent prices on the internet provided you meet minimum purchase requirements for free shipping. My problem is I enjoy reading the latest issues of Zymurgy and Brew Your Own; they are always full of articles that stimulate ideas for new brews that, of course, are guaranteed to include ingredients I don’t have in my inventory.
Do I then bite the bullet and pay shipping for small purchase amount, or wait until I can meet the minimum purchase amount for free shipping?
Am I the “Lone Ranger” here, are do some of you occasionally have this problem?
I’ve never had a good LHBS near by. The only one that was close (it’s gone now) was only good for hops and dry yeast, but I stayed clear of the shelf that had their shady looking “grain in plastic buckets”.
I source 90% of my grain direct from an excellent PA malt house and can only justify the cost of shipping by ordering far more than I really want to buy. I’ll get my other 10% of grains, yeast, hops and miscellany from More Beer.
So that make me a plan ahead brewer, usually 6 beers in advance. (6 brew days for me, is 4 months of brewing.) I will always order extra base malt and one extra pack of yeast - usually BRY97 - in case something pops up and I can piece together another beer with my inventory. But if I want to brew something and I’m not sitting on the right ingredients, it just has to wait until the next time I order. Doing it this way certainly limits what I can brew so I take my time deciding what it is I want on tap. But the positive side to this approach is that I’ve really slimmed down my useless inventory…no more pounds of strange grains and countless bags of hops lying around. I have found planning ahead to be the best change I have made for increasing my brew house efficiency.
We have a mediocre one that has been in business since I began brewing in the mid 90’s (and actually long before that). It’s a health food store with homebrew and wine ingredients on the side actually.
Every other one that opens is usually closed within a year. And there have been three since about 1996 aside from the afore mentioned.
In the past several years we have had two in the area stop selling homebrew supplies. One was a beer and wine store that had a small selection of grains, yeast and a few extract kits while the other was a brew pub that had kits behind the checkout counter. No big loss in either of those. At the same time two local homebrewers opened a dedicated store. There is another that just opened in a neighboring town about 40 minutes away. Both have anything I could ever want or need so I guess we are pretty lucky.
I am a “plan ahead” brewer as well. I usually line up 10 or so recipes and then source the ingredients online, usually via Morebeer. I live very close to Morebeer’s NorCal location and I always get orders within a day or two of placing them (in non-pandemic times).
But I also maintain a large inventory of an assortment of grains, hops, yeast, etc. I like having the freedom to brew what I want when I want, and I brew often enough that I’m constantly rotating the inventory. Partly this mindset originated because my local LHBS, which is only about 2 miles away, is frequently out of stock on even the most basic of ingredients, and it’s always more expensive than Morebeer. So I started stocking up on ingredients bought online in order to always have what I need when I need it. My LHBS is just too unreliable for how I brew.
You don’t need to plan too much. You only need to reach $59 to get the free shipping. This is only a couple batches worth. Then you can tack on those small amounts.
My closest LHBS is open weird hours and the guy who runs it is still giving outdated advice and just kinda rubs me the wrong way. Years ago when I mentioned that I was brewing 3 gallon BIAB, he told me that when I was ready to “get serious” about brewing that he’d set me up with a 5 or 10 gallon fly sparge outfit. At that point I probably had about 100 batches under my belt, so that comment went right up my ass.
I always have a few batches planned out, but I may change my mind on a whim. I keep enough grain on hand so I could whip out just about anything that doesn’t involve a large amount of a specific base malt. I keep enough hops on hand to run a small homebrew shop, and I have a couple packets of all my usual yeast strains.
I typically use MoreBeer as my “LHBS”. When I place an order I make sure I spend enough for free shipping and I usually get a few extra 10 pound bags of base malt. I do keep an eye out for sales on sacks of grain at various online shops, and I’ll buy something I’ll get a lot of use out of if the price with shipping makes sense. I only brew 3 gallons about once a month, so I try to balance the “ooh that sounds cool” urge with “when will I actually use that”.
I’m also lucky that my local hardware store has a homebrewing section. It’s not perfect - dry yeast and hops are stored at room temperature, but it’s nice if I need an extra pound of grain, or I just ran out of StarSan, or something like that.
I pre plan 4 or 5 brews ahead and order the grains and yeast for all of them to make the free shipping threshold. I keep a good variety of hops on hand, so usually only order once a year unless I find a deal I can’t refuse or just need an ounce or 2 of something I seldom use. If I find a recipe that I really want to try, I just put it in line for the next order.
We 're very lucky that in a relatively small metro area we have 2 shops. One is just OK, the other is amazing in terms of stock of ingredients and equipment. The owner and employees are intelligent and well versed.
The closest two shops to me are both 90 minutes away one-way. I do mail order except for the rare occasion when I’m near one of them for another reason.
Aren’t there some shops in Indiana that are close enough to make shipping cost reasonable?
In Chittenden County, Vermont (Burlington area) I have two, although one has a website that went away so might be on it’s way out. The one I primarily use has been around for decades, is very very small, and the shop could use an update. They are smart business-wise by carrying a very good but not exhaustive inventory of supplies and ingredients, keep their overhead low by having reasonable rent, and move a lot of ingredients so stuff is fresh. We are fortunate- the “buy local” ethos is very strong in this neck of the woods. If you have a shop that you like well enough to keep around- make sure that you support it.
There are 2 near me in a 15-20 mile radius. One is filthy as filthy can be so I don’t use him. The other guy has a well stocked store for adjuncts, dry yeast or other small items but I always have to order 55lb sacks of grain which is not a problem for me. LD Carlson is a short drive for him so I usually get my orders within a weeks time. I have become friends with the head brewer and the owner of a brewery 15 minutes from me and I can always grab something from them in a pinch. I always take some samples for them to try when we visit for an evening out.
+1. I recall the crazy lady that used to run it yrs ago. The new lady is a lot more down to earth. They seemed to stock up a while back but the inventory is thin again (as of a cpl weeks ago). Though I couldn’t tell by the lack of inventory, I asked if they are planning to continue to have the HomeBrew corner of the store and they said they were. We’ll see.
I’ve whined enough in the past about our last LHBS closing 2 years ago. :
I’ve basically made a retailer in the Omaha, NE area my “Local” supplier. It’s about 2-2.5 hours each way. I make a big run once a year and if I happen to be in Omaha for some family thing I can stop and pickup smaller stuff. Online gets me yeasts and gee-wiz type stuff when I need it. You can make it work.
The LHBS in Savannah closed over a year ago. Like Paul, the closest is 2.5 hour drive each way (in Charleston for me).
When I worked in Ohio, there were multiple good shops on my commute. It forces you to plan ahead, which is a fairly good thing, plus I can generally support businesses I feel are doing things the right way.
Not sure which crazy lady you are talking about! Hahahaha! Myrna at the old location was an absolute wack job. This is the only “health store” where the owner chain smoked behind the counter. The entire store reeked like a hippy bar: cigarettes and patchouli. The joke among the Rocket City Hombrewers was that every malt they sold was smoked malt.
Then there was her daughter, sweet heart but died of alcoholism. There was another one and she was less crazy but still a chain smoker but at least she smoked outside.
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