Northern Brewer

I haven’t used NB in a while, and given the recent changes in mgmt, I thought I’d give em another shot.

The website has always been easy to use, the selection is outstanding, and the free shipping is attractive but it took 14 daze to receive my package. Upon inspection, two pounds of the grain I ordered was not included. After contacting them, they sent another package. The two pounds of grain showed up in four daze or so.

However, I just sent this note to them concerning today’s brewday:

“I recently ordered two oz of East Kent Goldings from you. When I weighed the contents of the packages neither were a full oz.

I realize scales can be off so I checked the qty on three different scales and the heaviest of either package on any scale was .9 oz.

I also realize .1 + oz light per package in a 5 gal batch will probably be undetectable, but the fact remains that I believe I did not get what I paid for: two full oz of hops.

Given the fact that my order was short two pounds of grain that you had to resolve and now to find out it was also light makes me begin to rethink using Northern Brewer in the future.”

We’ll see how they resolve this.

So they repackage their hops?

Yes. They repack grains, too. I didn’t check the weight on the grain.

AFAIK, most do repackage.

As far as I have experienced, most don’t.  All of the LHBS around here, as well as Morebeer, have the prepackaged bags now in 1oz and 1 pound.  I’d rather not have an intermediary repacking with what is likely not as good oxygen purging practices.

Edit: Actually not sure about MoreBeer, I thought I had thrown a few ounces of hops on a recent order but it looks like I didn’t.

Interesting. Both HBS here buy in bulk and repackage.  So does Brewcraft on a larger scale.

It probably does save money for bigger stores.  Not a deal breaker but if they’re shorting you 10% that’s no good.

I haven’t had any issues like you describe, yet.  The thing that has been bugging me is the shipping timeframe.  I submitted an order of 4 items that are prepackaged and should just be packed and shipped on Monday.  It wasn’t shipped until last night.  Three days to ship an order in this day and age?

I will admit the package is supposed to arrive today and that I don’t have an urgent need for the items but the delay seems odd.  The last order was the same timeline.

I can understand waiting to ship liquid yeast until Monday if ordered on a Thursday or Friday (at least in the summer) because of hot trucks and all.  I don’t really want to complain but other sites don’t have built in shipping delays.  It would easier to understand if they stated it when you place the order.

Paul

All of the hops I’ve gotten from MoreBeer were pre packaged and labeled by Artisan Hops, which is a MoreBeer trademark according to a search I recently did.

Which says to me they buy in bulk and repackage.  It makes no economic sense to do otherwise.

+1. I can only hope the shortage was unintentional and not a routine practice.

It reminds me of the story JZ tells in BCS, ‘No Short Measure’.  Interestingly, I was brewing an ESB based on his recipe when I came across the ‘short measure’.

It all really depends what the markup is by the distributor.  It’s not like the grocery store is buying 55 lb bags of M&Ms and breaking them down into ziplock bags for resale.  The big hop companies are already taking their bulk product and packaging it in 1 or 2 oz bags for the consumer, and depending on their volume it just might not be worth their time and effort for the store to do it themselves.  For MoreBeer I’m sure it is, for other stores maybe not.

This is one thing that my local store does that I don’t like.  They buy in bulk and then weigh and package into one ounce mylar sealed packages, which are put into the refrigerator.  They look as if they’re well cared for.  The problem is that the bulk hop bag is then not particularly well sealed and stuck back into another fridge.  No marking is evident for the harvest year and I suspect the bulk bags are getting oxidized.
So I have been buying by the pound from Hop Heaven and keeping the packages vacuum sealed and in my own freezer.

I agree jeffy. The only time I don’t buy pound packages is if it’s a hop I seldom use. Most everything else I get from Yakima Valley Hops. I have bought pound packages from MoreBeer when I overlooked including a variety in my YVH order and need some quick.

I think the lesson here is to buy your hops from Hop Heaven. I really believe they taste better and the packs are definitely not under weight.

Here is the response from NB. Very generous.

“We really appreciate your order and completely understand how we have made you doubt us as a future supplier.

The really bad news is that there were two different errors in your order.  The missing grain was likely left out of the order during fulfillment, while the hops issue was in our packaging department.

We repackage our hops to control freshness.  They stay in the freezer, in sealed bulk packaging, from the supplier.  This allows us to know exactly how the hops were handled before being shipped to you.  Great ingredients make great beer.  We do calibrate our scales regularly but I am going to bump this to the operations team to make sure they do it again, as this is concerning.

It is always a good idea to weigh pre-packaged ingredients.  We do allow for variances but try to make sure it is only in excess.  We use grams when measuring so often times there is 29-30 grams in a package versus the 28.35 g that equals an ounce.  A couple of pellets is all it takes to swing that and while you might not notice it in a batch, if consistency is your brewing goal, measuring on your own is a great practice to help that.

All that said, I am going to suggest a resolution and hopefully have you give us another shot.  I see that you ordered 3 ounces of the East Kent Goldings and a few other hops as well.  Were the other 8 ounces on the order over the one-ounce mark?
I was thinking I would offer a $50 gift card, so we can cover all (or most) of your next recipe order.  Would that be fair?  Our goal here is to help you make awesome beer, if you have concerns about the two short hop packs affecting this batch, I would be happy to replace those as well.

My apologies for trouble with this order and I look forward to getting this resolved for you.”

Dang! Dwain,  you’re gonna put them out of business! :wink:

Hahahaha! I’ve always found the folks at NB to be fair, even when they were owned by Bud. Tommy, thanks for reminding me about Hop Heaven I had forgotten about Ted! I used to buy YHs hops from him in the beginning. They were incredible hops just I couldn’t afford them for large application brewing.

We have gotten repackaged products from Country Malt (50 and 55 lbs sacks) that were 4-6 pounds light so this happens. I have seen 11 lb hop bags weigh in at 10.76ish more times than I care to count.

Just looked at Hop Heaven’s ebay store. I do wish he would update his packaging to mylar. He had said years ago that he was planning on it.

Hop Heaven is for sure the way to go.  Generous weights aside, I have found nobody can equal the freshness of Hop Heaven.  I buy in one pound increments and it’s always an especially good day when I open a pound bag for the first time.  Oh the smell, enough to make my mouth water.  I prefer whole cone hops and HH has an amazing assortment of domestic and imports.  My imports from the pre-season order should arrive any day now.  I buy enough for the entire year so I’m certain to have what I need when I need it.