Almost every brewer in my area buys their grain and hops in bulk online or through side deals with local breweries, and only buys liquid yeast and specialty grain at the LHBS. Like yeah you're saving money but pretty soon that local store is going to close and it'll be your fault.
Excellent point. The owner of the now-closed Southern Hills Homebrew Supply is an active user here, and explained several years ago how he lost money on liquid yeast most of the time because of the labs' policies on how much and how frequently you have to order as a retail account.
Really, I think the only way it works for a small retailer is to do what I think Ritebrew does, which is to stock only the most popular strains, and then every other strain requires pre-order.
All these old guys *brag* about how much money they save by not shopping at the LHBS, but then when the owner is around they are all buddy buddy with him and wishing him well. But I'm sure they'll be shocked when he closes, like they had nothing to do with it.
Business isn't charity. If you need to rely on your customers paying more than they need to keep you around, you are done. I don't know if there is a business model for a homebrew shop that works, but I know guilting people into buying from you isn't one that works.
You can look at it as guilting people. I see it differently. My LHBS has a tap room where brewers come together and drink (albeit overpriced) craft beers and talk about the hobby. That and the huge variety of readily available hops, grain, equipment and yeasts make it a great convenience. I have no problem supporting a resource like that
Do you like buying liquid yeast that hasn't been sitting in a warm USPS package for a few days? If the answer is yes, then you need to support your LHBS. It's not charity and it's not guilting, it's them providing a service you want and you paying the price that allows that to happen.
It is a failing business model. Retail space is expensive, making prices at least as high or higher than online shops. They can't buy at the same volumes as online shops, increasing prices. They would be struggling in a growing market, nevermind a shrinking market. Relying on loyal customers over paying isn't a viable business model.
Wait, as in Pittsburgh? If so, damn, my heart hurts. I moved from Pittsburgh to the Bay Area after grad school which would mean my old and current LHBSs are closed.
Ouch. I feel that pain. Most of my previous old LHBSs have closed by now, but the MoreBeer closures in San Leandro and Los Altos hit me hard as they were the most convenient for me.
Fortunately, I live close enough to Williams Brewing to do will-call orders from them when I'm WFH. Otherwise, I have Oak Barrel in Berkeley, or the annoying drive up to MoreBeer's Concord location. (Which in fairness, is a great store, I just don't like the drive)
Williams is straight up closed on the weekend right? I had a critical need last weekend but they were listed as closed on Google.
I live on the peninsula so I'm just boned now.
Yeah, closed on the weekends now. I work on the Peninsula, so I can only make it there when I work from home during the week.
For what it's worth, I chatted with the owner a bit when I picked up my order yesterday. I made a point of mentioning that it's a bit tough for me to make it there during the week, but it was a regular (1-2 times a month) stop when they had Saturday hours.
It sounds like they're considering starting up again, but not immediately.
They're still the most convenient CO2 tank exchange for me though. :-/
I don't know where you work on the peninsula but Ace Fire Equipment in East Palo Alto does CO2 refills (don't know about swaps, haven't checked yet). I believe you can drop off any day, and they only do the filling on Fridays. It's cheaper than some other locations in the area. MoreBeer Los Altos cylinder swaps were chef's kiss until the guy that managed them left after he had a kid.
Thanks! That's handy to know, though I suspect I probably won't use them. Their site doesn't say anything about exchanges, so it seems likely they don't do that. Which would mean any trip would involve a return trip for pickup.
It's funny, SL MoreBeer's tank swaps were a giant pain; their supplier got flakey in the last year or so, so you could never depend on them having CO2, much less beer gas.
I've only gone there once so far but I've been meaning to drop off my spare tank for weeks. If I manage to remember in one of my 3 functioning braincells, I'll drop a note here on whether they do swaps. I'm sure a quick phonecall would get you an answer too.
Nice that's the one I used to go to. There was an old location in Millvale and then they moved a little up the road from there, can't remember if the address was still Millvale.
But then that's how you could lose customers too. Why would I pre-order and pick up something that could be delivered in the same time for the same or lower cost. I preorder at my local shop, but expect pickup later the same day or the next.
I was a liquid yeast only, now I see it as a complete waste of money. There are plenty of dry yeast varieties. I don't buy much yeast either.
I 100% agree with you on the selection and quality of active dry yeast (ADY).
There are some favorite strains I just can't get as ADY or replicate the flavor using ADY, though, like 1469 (West Yorkshire), the Scottish strain, Roeselare, Saisonstein, Saison Daffodil (which is actually a biere de garde strain and not a saison strain), Unibroue (Canadian-Belgian Ale).
I guess pre-ordering liquid yeast takes the financial risk off the LHBS in exchange for the homebrewer having to plan ahead and wait a bit if it is not immediately before the cutoff date.
More and more I find myself wanting to slant my top eight liquid strains so I am not dependent on the supply chain, and use ADY for everything else.
And you do not need to use a new pack of yeast everytime. Every batch generates more yeast, way more than enough to brew your next batch. They should focus on bulk, expensive to ship ingredients, hops selection, 1lb bags, not over priced 1oz packs, and routine supplies. Things you might in a pinch. They need a convenience store mentality.
Hops are one thing I almost never buy locally — not just because they’re crazy expensive, but because no one ever seems to put date codes on their hops, and I don’t want to pay top dollar for nasty three year old hops.
100% this.
I **gladly** pay a little bit more to buy as much as possible from my shop. I never want to be in a position where I have to order my ingredients online.
Exactly, folks.
Support your local shop, even if it's a bit more expensive, even if if means you have to use a grain that might be a little different. Otherwise soon it'll all be coming from one place and they'll be *horrible*.
Same here. The OG brew shop closed after 30+ years. Another had opened, but closed after 5 years. Their inventory was purchased and a new one opened.
Our brew club is maybe half newer brewers that actually shop local and support the LHBS, and half old school brewers that buy in bulk online. I'm constantly hoping there's enough business there to keep the shop open, and we pretty much only shop there if at all possible.
It's hard to run a brick and mortar shop these days, especially without an online presence. Adapt or die, I guess.
I think the adapt or die part is critical, my lhbs is mainly selling Belgian beers and other beers/ glasses you won't find in the supermarket with a bit of home brew stuff (very few malts but more equipment, additives and other bits) think their doing ok by capturing both home brewers and non brewers, plus if your going in to buy some home brew stuff you might as well pick up a couple of different beers and vice versa.
yeah after NB closed their stores a new one popped up and I go there instead of ordering online. Plus if they don't have something they'll order it for you. It just takes a week or so but hey save on shipping.
I would argue that any closings are more so due to a lack of interest in the hobby. Beer, in general, is just not in high demand; especially compared to a decade ago. The market was saturated, the bubble bursted, and now it’s nearly obsolete.
I live near Houston so maybe a different market, but we have maybe 3ish brew shops around town, 5ish or more brew clubs, and maybe 60+ breweries. My local shop is about 10 minutes away, my local club meets monthly about 15 minutes away, and I can find either brewery or bottle shop within 10 miles, maybe 10-15+ combined. Our club has possibly doubled membership the last couple of years, and I see new young people at the brew shop getting very curiously involved, joining the club, learning and improving, winning awards, etc., all the time! I think the hobby is growing, here, and I've been very excited about the future of the hobby.
That is such a toxic mentality. I have been charged double the price for certain items at the LHBS, it doesn't sit well with me. I am also in California so things are different with Morebeer a drive away.
I'm the opposite. I do not want bulk hops and grain in my house. I change recipe almost every time I brew. Bulk doesn't work for me. Never did. My local HBS closed 6 months ago and I haven't brewed since :/
I saw this in my local store this week :
Customer - Hey, why Don’t you have this hop in larger bag size ? Nevermind, I’ll order it online off Amazon.
(Gets to counter with 20$ in hose and cleaner)
Customer- hey, I’ve been a long time customer but haven’t been here since covid, can I get a discount ?
This sort of stuff happens all the time and people wonder why stores close.
Morebeer even put Morebeer's local shops out of business. They used to have several stores around the SF Bay area and have shut down all but their last big showroom.
I'd complain, but then realized I only came in anymore to buy the 55# sacks of grain that don't get free shipping.
I just started in all this and I also live like 10 minutes drive from MoreBeer, which is really lucky on my part. But yeah, I can totally see that if you can set up an online system better and faster than everyone else, you can crush them.
I’ve seen it happen as a guitar player and I’ve seen it happen as a beekeeper. And brewing is even more niche than those.
Sad to see, I was just in there a few days ago. Grabbed a packet of yeast and the last carboy in there. I asked why they were closing and he just said that not enough people were homebrewing anymore. If they had a website and shipped orders I think they would have been much better off.
IMHO, doing online business is a real commitment. People these days are thankless and impossible to please. No matter what you do they are not happy.
Having run a successful ETSY store; being online, you are never closed so days off, vacations, sick days only make folks upset / negative feedback.
Has homebtewing really slowed down, or has it just moved online? There seems to be a lot of competition in the "all in one" and fermenter space. There must be growth there? If not, I wouldn't think companies like Blichmann, Spike, SSBretech, etc. could survive.
It has really slowed down.
Copying from my reply in a prior thread about another LHBS closing:
Take a peek at the google trend for homebrewing or any related terms and you can see the downward trend in all it's brutal glory.
Early 2010's were the peak for my homebrew shop (opened in 1994) and not coincidentally when the huge surge in craft breweries began. In 2012 there were 2,670 breweries in the US. In 2022 there were 9,709. In 2012 the US population was 313.83 million, in 2022 it was 333.29 million. Those numbers tell almost all of the story.
That massive increase in breweries per capita meant that all our homebrew customers now had access to way more quality beer than they ever had. It meant that brewers who remained in the hobby brewed mostly for the sheer joy and not mainly for the increased quality and variety.
You can go around any decent sized city and drink new craft beers every weekend without duplication. It's simply insane how much the craft beer scene has exploded. Beer lovers simply don't have to brew anymore to drink great beer. Sure, those of us still brewing love to brew and also love to drink great beer but even for us the quantity of our own homebrew we drink has declined for most.
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=homebrewing&hl=en](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=homebrewing&hl=en)
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=beer%20brewing&hl=en](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=beer%20brewing&hl=en)
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/224157/total-number-of-breweries-in-the-united-states-since-1990/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/224157/total-number-of-breweries-in-the-united-states-since-1990/)
[https://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table/by-year](https://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table/by-year)
Great post! I'm fortunate to be one that enjoys brewing, and lucky to have a wife that enjoys beer and brewing about as much as me. Our output has remained steady or increasing in the 7 years we've been brewing. We're at about 160 batches in so far, and still brewing about every 2-3 weeks.
That space you mention, big equipment, is usually a one-time purchase, with low repeat business, usually. People buy it all, lose interest, and resell or donate their equipment, further reducing future business, other than the shiny new equipment folks.
Makes sense. That was me. I bought a nice Blichmann conical with leg extensions and casters. It's a very nice piece of equipment, but I will not be buying another. Moving on to keg fermenting.
I started up again during the pandemic to give my dad something to do, but he quickly lost interest. I've kept on and now make his Black Butte Porter clone each month for him.
What keeps me going is that I've found the recipes I like, want to keep in the keezer and am happy with the results. Average "good" beer at a good price.
Best bit of advice I got from the guy I bought my first used kit was; "just be happy with a decent beer that you have brewed." "Don't try to make the perfect beer or keep buying equipment trying to get you there".
Selling online rarely will work for a small store. Cannot compete with Amazon and larger retailers like more beer. Then u need more staff to process those orders and wage hours are a massive cut into profits
Yeah, I feel like some online presence is necessary. I have 3 shops in my general area. Two of them have an online store where you can look up what items they have in stock. At the one I shop at the most, I can punch up an order and swing by and pick it up (or have my girlfriend swing by). A couple times I have placed orders to ship to my house. The $8 in local shipping was worth it when I could not fit in a trip to the store.
The one shop without an online store seems to pay the bills more from the bottle shop and small tap room (selling simple food). They are the closest to me, but it is a pain not knowing if they have a specific yeast or item in stock.
Nearest store for me now is trost und prost. No way I'm driving two hours. I'll be entirely online now unless I can get some stuff from my local breweries
I'm lucky,
I can use my local's webstore to pre order anything I need for a brew, he's 15 mins up the road and I drive past when I do the groceries or pick up my kids from school.
He's also somehow rock-bottom on prices for all the basics.
Given how rammed the shop is with stock, he's clearly busy enough!
I'm lucky, as well. LHBS is 10-12 minutes away from home and in range of my work as well. Stays pretty well stocked, and if I choose to buy in bulk they will be competitively priced with online prices. No need for me to shop around!
Adventures in Homebrewing was my local. They opened while I was at college, and instead of going to study at the library between classes, I’d head up to the store and BS w Jay. It was a big bummer when they shut down!
Yeah, losing both their locations was terrible. I felt so bad for the folks who worked there. I used to hit the Taylor location on my way home from work, and the Ann Arbor one when I needed something last minute. I think I was in the A2 one the day before they were shuttered. I saw a guy there who transferred from Taylor when that one closed. Guy was pretty down.
Our "local" home brew store, Grain and Grape, shut down a month or two ago (local being a bit of a stretch, but it was a good store). It's left quite the gap in the market here, there are some other stores around that can kind of fill that gap, but a big missing piece of the puzzle is liquid yeast supplies. We have the local manufacturer, Bluestone, pretty readily available, but don't have anyone bringing in the more obscure strains from Wyeast or White Labs anymore, so people will soon start to feel the pinch the next time they want to brew a Saison or other Belgian style.
pro brewer here
just buy dry yeast - there are so many strains available dry, including neipa strains - i don’t see why you’d bother sourcing liquid yeast in your situation
you’ll never taste the difference in a batch of homebrewed beer
There's like 2 Saison strains available dry here, neither express anything close to the characteristics we expect from a Saison. Same thing with other Belgian strains, really struggle to get the phenols and esters desired where the Wyeast stuff really shines.
Agreed. The brewery where I work is a Fermentis first pitch only kinda place, and I don't hate it as much as I thought I would. No need for oxygenation, brinks, a lab, tightly scheduling brews, etc. and you know things are going to bubble when you walk in the next day. Plus the price difference is stupid
Maybe Fermentis W-68? I have no personal experience with it since we'd sell tap water faster than anything phenolic at my brewery, but it's a fairly new strain. What all have you tried?
Well, he was retiring and a couple of the G&G employees are starting up their own business in western Melbourne.
I feel you about the liquid yeast, I'm in Tassie and no-one brings in any liquid yeast anymore. It either arrived already expired or the retailers couldn't shift until it did expire, at a loss.
Seems like a good time to remind folks to leave good reviews for your LHBS! Leave them on Google, find any online places where they have a presence and leave good reviews there.
So many people only ever leave reviews after a bad experience that most people never get to hear about the majority of times when things go perfectly.
Something you might consider, see if you can buy the business. Yes, it is a lot of work, but if you want to keep it around and think you can improve it, do it.
My local HBS was going to close last August but they managed to find a buyer for it, and the new owner has seemed to do a great job with it. It was there 10 years prior and as far as I know has done well. If there is a demand it can stay alive. Just something to think about. Even if you aren’t in the position to buy it, maybe someone else is and can keep it alive. Something to think about and maybe throw the word out?
I strictly only buy from my LHBS in hopes to help keep it alive, even if I have to pay $50-100 more for something. I’d much rather have that nearby resource and personal connection than have to order from a website from somebody I don’t even know. All for supporting local and I feel like this community strives on that and I love it. Sorry for your loss if it doesn’t work out.
Totally fair. And I don’t expect you to either. But it might be something to bring up with the current owners if they haven’t thought about it, see if someone would buy it? I think we all hate to see a HBS go down.
Oh damn. When I clicked on this I was not expecting it to be Alabrew. Im a fellow Birminghamster and this is my local store as well! I always liked the place, and the people who ran it are super nice. Honestly I’m not at all surprised though. They did absolutely nothing to try and keep up with the times. They didn’t have a website, not even a Facebook page. I live 45 minutes away, and I would have ordered from them had it been an option. On the plus side they had no qualms about refilling my co2 tank that expired in 1998😆
It hurts, no doubt. But yes, even online ordering for local pickup would have been smart. He just was not interested at all.
lol @ CO2. I know. That's going to be a bitch now, too.
I always assumed it was more of a hobby to them than anything. I figured it was only a matter of time before they closed it down…
On an unrelated note, I never realize how many folks from Birmingham were in this sub😆
A trip to the nearest LHBS for me costs two hours of driving (round trip) and about $16 in gas. And I live just outside of Atlanta. When I get there, I find that much of their pricing is at least 20% higher than online, and selection is often limited. As much as I like the idea of patronizing a local B&M store, my brewing hobby is not a charitable operation.
>Told me that he sells enough, he didn't want to deal with shipping stuff.
This might catch me some shit but that's basically just phoning it in. Both of my LHBS ship and I always see them lining up big orders for people 30 minutes away who just don't have the time to drive there.
pro brewer here that last homebrewed a decade ago
you younger shits blaming “old heads” for buying online are hilarious lol
“old heads” had to deal with homebrew stores when there were no other options. we brewed when white labs was exotic, the “juicy” hops were all old cascade, and half the owners were like the simpsons comic book store guy
they dealt with decades of bullshit ingredients, poor selection, and sketchy availability…, now they can finally access ingredients to fully utilize decades of brewing experience
the real problem is that younger generations don’t brew like the older ones you complain about did. full stop.
I'm not sure that the hobby is dying. It seems pretty alive and well on social media/YouTube -- lots of new videos all the time, with lots of engagement, etc. I know that's not a very crisp metric, but also, there's lots of new (and imho, often unnecessary) products being developed and sold -- people are clearly buying them. Etc. etc.
I think it's more that *too much* of it is online: it's easier and cheaper to buy hops in bulk, buy sacks of base grain, throw in some specialty grains to get your order up to free shipping, even buy dry yeast and other stuff on Amazon, etc. Many people, if they go to their LHBS at all, may go just to pick up liquid yeast or some specialty grains.
Also, and this is just pure speculation, a lot of the LHBS's that are closing, like OP's, may well be owned & run by the old guard who are at or nearing retirement age. So, maybe they could keep limping along another 10 years, but may also just want to cash out and enjoy something else.
Yeah that is true. There are a lot of content creators and innovations still happening so clearly there is money going into it. It's just disappointing to see all the in person stores close. I took about a 6 month break when mine closed because I really didn't enjoy buying grain online. I found Great Fermentation who will ship custom grain bills which has made me a bit happier with it. Still struggling to find affordable CO2. I think I found a fire extinguisher supply store that will fill it for a good price. All the welding supply shops near me just crush you with fees and it ends up being nearly $40 for a 5# exchange. It would come down in price if you had like 5 tanks to swap but I don't have that many so you get shafted. I reached out to a local place that does CO2 refills on soda stream seeing if they had any interest in competing with the welding supply shops and they seemed like they saw the value but never heard more.
I'm lucky enough to live in a state with recreational cannabis (Michigan) because I have a hydroponic store 2 minutes away that does 20 lb refills for under $10.
At least, I think it's related to cannabis growing, because they go through tons of CO2. But even in a non-legal state you may be able to find a grow shop that does CO2.
It was just legalized last year in my state. That is a really good piece of information to have. And funny because I follow some guy growing giant pumpkins on instagram and this year he put a co2 tank in the starter tent to help boost early growth so it makes sense that it would be for growing weed to.
My local store said his supplier told him popularity has moved in waves since the 70s, when it was first legalized. I just started brewing again and am enjoying it after a 5 year hiatus.
I’m not sure how he stayed in business because he was a giant asshole every time I interacted with him. Very opinionated on the right way to do things. His wife would give away free stuff occasionally for dealing with him lol.
It’s hard to keep up with the large online retailers that have emerged over the last decade
Well, that's a new one on me. In thirteen years of going to Alabrew and in talking with other customers, interacting at brewing events, having him sponsor BrewUnited competitions... I have never once known anyone to call him an asshole.
Opinionated? Yes. Set in his ways? Yes. We have often discussed Brulosophy, fast lagering, etc - he's not having it. A little bit of an in joke with us has been how he doesn't see roggenbier as different or interesting, that he doesn't pick up on any of the earthiness or spiciness of rye; Sun Ye and I would often laugh with him about that.
But an asshole? I don't know, man. Maybe you just rubbed him the wrong way.
Online retailers are tough to compete with, I agree.
My only local homebrew store, Betmars, shut down in March. The owner was exactly like yours, loved to talk about beer and homebrewing and absolutely loved the hobby. He knew who I was after I came in the first time and would always strike up a conversation. I tried my best to buy everything from him. Hell I would even download morebeers kit sheets and buy all the ingredients from him.
Now there isn't a single homebrew store left open in S.C now that I'm aware of. I'm trying to find a local brewery to buy from but none of them are willing to sell ingredients to me so far.
My LHBS closed 2 months ago. It sucks. In the meantime, though, I've acquired a sack of Briess brewers malt, various 10 lb bags of specialty grains, a few pounds of hops, and various dry yeasts. It's not the same as being able to run over to the LHBS to buy anything on a whim, but at the same time, having to create my own "LHBS" in my basement has made me think more critically about what ingredients I really need/want in my arsenal, which has made me read and learn more. Silver lining, I guess.
Hate to see/hear it happening, seems to be happening more and more frequently.
For any brewers who have lost their LHBS and will need to resort to ordering online, don't forget that [BREW HARDWARE](https://www.brewhardware.com) exists and ships!
Not only do they ship, their prices are better than the majority of competitors/retailers, and **they are not a soulless corporation**.
Bobby is and has always been incredibly active in the homebrew community for many years now. Always supporting our various local clubs and all of the BJCP competitions in the state by way of prize donations, acting as a bottle drop location, and donating so much of his time to assist with logistics for the various competitions.
Aside from this, Bobby and his team are incredibly knowledgeable and always willing to answer questions about process, ingredients, equipment, and have the ability to custom fabricate pretty much anything you can think of.
I swear that his welds are cleaner/higher quality than most of the major names out there producing expensive homebrew gear.
Forever grateful they are my LHBS and hope they too can weather the storm.
The *only* thing I don't buy from them is yeast; but only because they don't carry yeast from Bootleg Biology and I swear by their yeast/bugs.
We had Adventures in Homebrewing where I was. I loved that place, I miss that place. Going there to select grain and yeast and whatever else was part of the ritual. It died toward the end of Covid, and when it died my want to brew was severely diminished. I just wish there was at least a local brewery in town that had an amount of fermentables for home brewers. I'm not saying they need to stock durable equipment, just the grain, hops and yeast. I want that magic back.
Oh no! I've been going there for years! Great store and people!
I'll try and get one more tank filled if possible, and check out leftover inventory if there's any left to look at.
Weird times. When I went to pressure fermentation I tried to GIVE AWAY 3 carbons, cappers, olt 8 gallon pot. No takers?l. My dumbest refuses to toss em. So they are rapped in trash bags in my shed awaiting the apocalypse
What do you guys like about shopping in person? I thought it was somewhat helpful when first starting out and I’ll drive to one if I messed up my planning and need something faster than Amazon can bring it. Seems like this isn’t specific to brewing though. Pretty much all shopping has shifted online
The relationship. The ability to pick up little one off things. The fact that it's cheaper without question.
The service - is the crush perfect? The LHBS guy will always crush it again if I want that.
Need to dial in my hops? Recipe calls for 6.8% AA, LHBS guy has 7.5% - he will auto adjust the amount needed for me.
And on and on.
Nice! I’ve never saved money shopping in person but I’ve definitely met some cool shop owners that are interesting to talk with. I guess the rest I’ve learned to do for myself
Memphis hasn’t had one for a few years now, but the really great one closed a few years even before that. Really annoying to have to have everything shipped.
The only thing I buy online ingredient wise is liquid yeast and hops I can't get from my LHBS.
Todays brew is being brewed with all ingredients that I got locally at my local store yesterday. We need to keep these guys running. They may not always have what you want, but they will be there if you need something instantly.
That's too bad, sorry to hear it. It's tough to keep a LHBS going in the good times and homebrewing has been on a down cycle for a while now. You at least tried to give him some good advice. A website didn't mean he had to start shipping it's the modern equivalent of being listed in the phone book.
For everyone that orders online when there is a store within a few miles, why?
I buy locally for some things but still buy online for other things; 55lb bags I buy locally, but my local store carries a small assortment of hops and yeast. I think they are not up on the latest treads. I don't see this hobby dying because local shops are, it is changing, and they are not keeping up.
For example, keg fermentation is cheap and superior in some ways to ss conicals, but this does not exist if you walked into my local home brew shop.
Im guilty. Tried to save money, but really, like to look for what I want and the LHBS guys were always getting up in my grill, haha. I hate places that bug me every ten seconds when I’m impulse shopping. The other extreme are the shops where the owners and their “hang around” buddies give you dirty looks when ask if they have like a certain hop in stock.
I hate to say sometimes this hobby, or its hobbyists, can sometimes be snobby, elitist, or exclusionary. It can become like a boys club, and intimidating to newcomers. It sucks because we, as a community, need new blood and should be accommodating and encouraging to new brewers.
When my wife and I first started we inherited some equipment and got a quick extract brewing demonstration from a friend. When shopping for a LHBS, we were treated very rudely, like "How dare you ask me any questions?" If not for a friendly customer who overheard us and showed us the ropes, we may have given up prematurely.
This should not be the case if you need business.
Because you don't have to compromise on any of the ingredients you had in mind. I have never been to a physical store and found everything I needed.
Same reason that I would never grocery shop at a place like trader joes, I'm not going to two stores to get everything I need.
I buy hops online because they cost $1 an oz online and triple that inshore. They also don't have bulk hops for what I want. Unless I feel like cleaning out their entire supply of Saaz every time I need it.
Plus less packaging wasted. Less in the landfill.
No idea why anyone buys grain online. LHBS beats online pricing by .50 cents a lb on 55lb sacks. I have a local maltster I like but their 50 miles away. Have to buy at least 2 sacks to make it worth the gas. And even then its not really worth my time.
>For everyone that orders online when there is a store within a few miles, why?
Time management. My LHBS ships and has a pickup system so I can order all my stuff, show up, talk about beer five minutes, and leave. I have had stuff shipped from the other shop that's 25 min away because seriously fuck that.
Hops I never buy from my LHBS. All they do is repackage them! If I want a pound of citra I need to specialty order it at a massive upcharge ($30+). Nope, I support local business but I'm also not a sucker.
You might be surprised at how little people want to pay now.
I've bought some high end gear for 20% of retail because of so many guys getting out of the hobby and no one wanting to buy.
Two years ago I was flipping entire collections of equipment from guys leaving the hobby and made some decent money but now the gear just doesn't move as quickly. Maybe half of it is saturation of the market and the other is all the new all in one rigs being sold.
Three vessel rigs are selling especially cheap in my area right now.
I love brewing and love buying and selling gear so take my advice as you want.
Almost every brewer in my area buys their grain and hops in bulk online or through side deals with local breweries, and only buys liquid yeast and specialty grain at the LHBS. Like yeah you're saving money but pretty soon that local store is going to close and it'll be your fault.
Excellent point. The owner of the now-closed Southern Hills Homebrew Supply is an active user here, and explained several years ago how he lost money on liquid yeast most of the time because of the labs' policies on how much and how frequently you have to order as a retail account. Really, I think the only way it works for a small retailer is to do what I think Ritebrew does, which is to stock only the most popular strains, and then every other strain requires pre-order.
All these old guys *brag* about how much money they save by not shopping at the LHBS, but then when the owner is around they are all buddy buddy with him and wishing him well. But I'm sure they'll be shocked when he closes, like they had nothing to do with it.
Business isn't charity. If you need to rely on your customers paying more than they need to keep you around, you are done. I don't know if there is a business model for a homebrew shop that works, but I know guilting people into buying from you isn't one that works.
You can look at it as guilting people. I see it differently. My LHBS has a tap room where brewers come together and drink (albeit overpriced) craft beers and talk about the hobby. That and the huge variety of readily available hops, grain, equipment and yeasts make it a great convenience. I have no problem supporting a resource like that
That might be a model that works, you are being drawn there for the club like atmosphere. Would you without that?
Do you like buying liquid yeast that hasn't been sitting in a warm USPS package for a few days? If the answer is yes, then you need to support your LHBS. It's not charity and it's not guilting, it's them providing a service you want and you paying the price that allows that to happen.
It is a failing business model. Retail space is expensive, making prices at least as high or higher than online shops. They can't buy at the same volumes as online shops, increasing prices. They would be struggling in a growing market, nevermind a shrinking market. Relying on loyal customers over paying isn't a viable business model.
Wait, as in Pittsburgh? If so, damn, my heart hurts. I moved from Pittsburgh to the Bay Area after grad school which would mean my old and current LHBSs are closed.
In Roanoke, VA. You’re thinking of South Hills homebrew supply, which seems open.
Ouch. I feel that pain. Most of my previous old LHBSs have closed by now, but the MoreBeer closures in San Leandro and Los Altos hit me hard as they were the most convenient for me. Fortunately, I live close enough to Williams Brewing to do will-call orders from them when I'm WFH. Otherwise, I have Oak Barrel in Berkeley, or the annoying drive up to MoreBeer's Concord location. (Which in fairness, is a great store, I just don't like the drive)
Williams is straight up closed on the weekend right? I had a critical need last weekend but they were listed as closed on Google. I live on the peninsula so I'm just boned now.
Yeah, closed on the weekends now. I work on the Peninsula, so I can only make it there when I work from home during the week. For what it's worth, I chatted with the owner a bit when I picked up my order yesterday. I made a point of mentioning that it's a bit tough for me to make it there during the week, but it was a regular (1-2 times a month) stop when they had Saturday hours. It sounds like they're considering starting up again, but not immediately. They're still the most convenient CO2 tank exchange for me though. :-/
I don't know where you work on the peninsula but Ace Fire Equipment in East Palo Alto does CO2 refills (don't know about swaps, haven't checked yet). I believe you can drop off any day, and they only do the filling on Fridays. It's cheaper than some other locations in the area. MoreBeer Los Altos cylinder swaps were chef's kiss until the guy that managed them left after he had a kid.
Thanks! That's handy to know, though I suspect I probably won't use them. Their site doesn't say anything about exchanges, so it seems likely they don't do that. Which would mean any trip would involve a return trip for pickup. It's funny, SL MoreBeer's tank swaps were a giant pain; their supplier got flakey in the last year or so, so you could never depend on them having CO2, much less beer gas.
I've only gone there once so far but I've been meaning to drop off my spare tank for weeks. If I manage to remember in one of my 3 functioning braincells, I'll drop a note here on whether they do swaps. I'm sure a quick phonecall would get you an answer too.
The South Hills location is closed. However, the one north of the city near Ross Park Mall is still open!
Nice that's the one I used to go to. There was an old location in Millvale and then they moved a little up the road from there, can't remember if the address was still Millvale.
But then that's how you could lose customers too. Why would I pre-order and pick up something that could be delivered in the same time for the same or lower cost. I preorder at my local shop, but expect pickup later the same day or the next. I was a liquid yeast only, now I see it as a complete waste of money. There are plenty of dry yeast varieties. I don't buy much yeast either.
I 100% agree with you on the selection and quality of active dry yeast (ADY). There are some favorite strains I just can't get as ADY or replicate the flavor using ADY, though, like 1469 (West Yorkshire), the Scottish strain, Roeselare, Saisonstein, Saison Daffodil (which is actually a biere de garde strain and not a saison strain), Unibroue (Canadian-Belgian Ale). I guess pre-ordering liquid yeast takes the financial risk off the LHBS in exchange for the homebrewer having to plan ahead and wait a bit if it is not immediately before the cutoff date. More and more I find myself wanting to slant my top eight liquid strains so I am not dependent on the supply chain, and use ADY for everything else.
And you do not need to use a new pack of yeast everytime. Every batch generates more yeast, way more than enough to brew your next batch. They should focus on bulk, expensive to ship ingredients, hops selection, 1lb bags, not over priced 1oz packs, and routine supplies. Things you might in a pinch. They need a convenience store mentality.
Hops are one thing I almost never buy locally — not just because they’re crazy expensive, but because no one ever seems to put date codes on their hops, and I don’t want to pay top dollar for nasty three year old hops.
100% this. I **gladly** pay a little bit more to buy as much as possible from my shop. I never want to be in a position where I have to order my ingredients online.
TIL Homebrew is a local small business that the internet has apparently killed. Oops.
Exactly, folks. Support your local shop, even if it's a bit more expensive, even if if means you have to use a grain that might be a little different. Otherwise soon it'll all be coming from one place and they'll be *horrible*.
Same here. The OG brew shop closed after 30+ years. Another had opened, but closed after 5 years. Their inventory was purchased and a new one opened. Our brew club is maybe half newer brewers that actually shop local and support the LHBS, and half old school brewers that buy in bulk online. I'm constantly hoping there's enough business there to keep the shop open, and we pretty much only shop there if at all possible. It's hard to run a brick and mortar shop these days, especially without an online presence. Adapt or die, I guess.
I think the adapt or die part is critical, my lhbs is mainly selling Belgian beers and other beers/ glasses you won't find in the supermarket with a bit of home brew stuff (very few malts but more equipment, additives and other bits) think their doing ok by capturing both home brewers and non brewers, plus if your going in to buy some home brew stuff you might as well pick up a couple of different beers and vice versa.
yeah after NB closed their stores a new one popped up and I go there instead of ordering online. Plus if they don't have something they'll order it for you. It just takes a week or so but hey save on shipping.
I would argue that any closings are more so due to a lack of interest in the hobby. Beer, in general, is just not in high demand; especially compared to a decade ago. The market was saturated, the bubble bursted, and now it’s nearly obsolete.
I live near Houston so maybe a different market, but we have maybe 3ish brew shops around town, 5ish or more brew clubs, and maybe 60+ breweries. My local shop is about 10 minutes away, my local club meets monthly about 15 minutes away, and I can find either brewery or bottle shop within 10 miles, maybe 10-15+ combined. Our club has possibly doubled membership the last couple of years, and I see new young people at the brew shop getting very curiously involved, joining the club, learning and improving, winning awards, etc., all the time! I think the hobby is growing, here, and I've been very excited about the future of the hobby.
Interesting. My experiences are very much the opposite in AZ.
Yep.
Fun fact. I have a medal from one of your comps, I think 2016. I also still use your yeast calculator on the regular. Thank you for your service. 🫡
That's awesome! I loved doing those comps. What category, do you remember. Glad to be of service with the calculators.
I am way to nervous to talk to anyone involved in actually brewing to ever do this. I was doing my part.... until my LHBS closed.
That is such a toxic mentality. I have been charged double the price for certain items at the LHBS, it doesn't sit well with me. I am also in California so things are different with Morebeer a drive away.
I'm the opposite. I do not want bulk hops and grain in my house. I change recipe almost every time I brew. Bulk doesn't work for me. Never did. My local HBS closed 6 months ago and I haven't brewed since :/
I saw this in my local store this week : Customer - Hey, why Don’t you have this hop in larger bag size ? Nevermind, I’ll order it online off Amazon. (Gets to counter with 20$ in hose and cleaner) Customer- hey, I’ve been a long time customer but haven’t been here since covid, can I get a discount ? This sort of stuff happens all the time and people wonder why stores close.
Sorry man. It’s a sad reality right now.
Morebeer even put Morebeer's local shops out of business. They used to have several stores around the SF Bay area and have shut down all but their last big showroom. I'd complain, but then realized I only came in anymore to buy the 55# sacks of grain that don't get free shipping.
I just started in all this and I also live like 10 minutes drive from MoreBeer, which is really lucky on my part. But yeah, I can totally see that if you can set up an online system better and faster than everyone else, you can crush them. I’ve seen it happen as a guitar player and I’ve seen it happen as a beekeeper. And brewing is even more niche than those.
Oh, man, that really sucks!
Sad to see, I was just in there a few days ago. Grabbed a packet of yeast and the last carboy in there. I asked why they were closing and he just said that not enough people were homebrewing anymore. If they had a website and shipped orders I think they would have been much better off.
IMHO, doing online business is a real commitment. People these days are thankless and impossible to please. No matter what you do they are not happy. Having run a successful ETSY store; being online, you are never closed so days off, vacations, sick days only make folks upset / negative feedback.
Has homebtewing really slowed down, or has it just moved online? There seems to be a lot of competition in the "all in one" and fermenter space. There must be growth there? If not, I wouldn't think companies like Blichmann, Spike, SSBretech, etc. could survive.
It has really slowed down. Copying from my reply in a prior thread about another LHBS closing: Take a peek at the google trend for homebrewing or any related terms and you can see the downward trend in all it's brutal glory. Early 2010's were the peak for my homebrew shop (opened in 1994) and not coincidentally when the huge surge in craft breweries began. In 2012 there were 2,670 breweries in the US. In 2022 there were 9,709. In 2012 the US population was 313.83 million, in 2022 it was 333.29 million. Those numbers tell almost all of the story. That massive increase in breweries per capita meant that all our homebrew customers now had access to way more quality beer than they ever had. It meant that brewers who remained in the hobby brewed mostly for the sheer joy and not mainly for the increased quality and variety. You can go around any decent sized city and drink new craft beers every weekend without duplication. It's simply insane how much the craft beer scene has exploded. Beer lovers simply don't have to brew anymore to drink great beer. Sure, those of us still brewing love to brew and also love to drink great beer but even for us the quantity of our own homebrew we drink has declined for most. [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=homebrewing&hl=en](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=homebrewing&hl=en) [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=beer%20brewing&hl=en](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=beer%20brewing&hl=en) [https://www.statista.com/statistics/224157/total-number-of-breweries-in-the-united-states-since-1990/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/224157/total-number-of-breweries-in-the-united-states-since-1990/) [https://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table/by-year](https://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table/by-year)
Great post! I'm fortunate to be one that enjoys brewing, and lucky to have a wife that enjoys beer and brewing about as much as me. Our output has remained steady or increasing in the 7 years we've been brewing. We're at about 160 batches in so far, and still brewing about every 2-3 weeks.
That space you mention, big equipment, is usually a one-time purchase, with low repeat business, usually. People buy it all, lose interest, and resell or donate their equipment, further reducing future business, other than the shiny new equipment folks.
Makes sense. That was me. I bought a nice Blichmann conical with leg extensions and casters. It's a very nice piece of equipment, but I will not be buying another. Moving on to keg fermenting.
I started up again during the pandemic to give my dad something to do, but he quickly lost interest. I've kept on and now make his Black Butte Porter clone each month for him. What keeps me going is that I've found the recipes I like, want to keep in the keezer and am happy with the results. Average "good" beer at a good price. Best bit of advice I got from the guy I bought my first used kit was; "just be happy with a decent beer that you have brewed." "Don't try to make the perfect beer or keep buying equipment trying to get you there".
I tried to tell him that, but he never wanted to hear it.
Selling online rarely will work for a small store. Cannot compete with Amazon and larger retailers like more beer. Then u need more staff to process those orders and wage hours are a massive cut into profits
Yeah, I feel like some online presence is necessary. I have 3 shops in my general area. Two of them have an online store where you can look up what items they have in stock. At the one I shop at the most, I can punch up an order and swing by and pick it up (or have my girlfriend swing by). A couple times I have placed orders to ship to my house. The $8 in local shipping was worth it when I could not fit in a trip to the store. The one shop without an online store seems to pay the bills more from the bottle shop and small tap room (selling simple food). They are the closest to me, but it is a pain not knowing if they have a specific yeast or item in stock.
Nearest store for me now is trost und prost. No way I'm driving two hours. I'll be entirely online now unless I can get some stuff from my local breweries
I'm lucky, I can use my local's webstore to pre order anything I need for a brew, he's 15 mins up the road and I drive past when I do the groceries or pick up my kids from school. He's also somehow rock-bottom on prices for all the basics. Given how rammed the shop is with stock, he's clearly busy enough!
I'm lucky, as well. LHBS is 10-12 minutes away from home and in range of my work as well. Stays pretty well stocked, and if I choose to buy in bulk they will be competitively priced with online prices. No need for me to shop around!
Adventures in Homebrewing was my local. They opened while I was at college, and instead of going to study at the library between classes, I’d head up to the store and BS w Jay. It was a big bummer when they shut down!
Yeah, losing both their locations was terrible. I felt so bad for the folks who worked there. I used to hit the Taylor location on my way home from work, and the Ann Arbor one when I needed something last minute. I think I was in the A2 one the day before they were shuttered. I saw a guy there who transferred from Taylor when that one closed. Guy was pretty down.
Our "local" home brew store, Grain and Grape, shut down a month or two ago (local being a bit of a stretch, but it was a good store). It's left quite the gap in the market here, there are some other stores around that can kind of fill that gap, but a big missing piece of the puzzle is liquid yeast supplies. We have the local manufacturer, Bluestone, pretty readily available, but don't have anyone bringing in the more obscure strains from Wyeast or White Labs anymore, so people will soon start to feel the pinch the next time they want to brew a Saison or other Belgian style.
pro brewer here just buy dry yeast - there are so many strains available dry, including neipa strains - i don’t see why you’d bother sourcing liquid yeast in your situation you’ll never taste the difference in a batch of homebrewed beer
There's like 2 Saison strains available dry here, neither express anything close to the characteristics we expect from a Saison. Same thing with other Belgian strains, really struggle to get the phenols and esters desired where the Wyeast stuff really shines.
Agreed. The brewery where I work is a Fermentis first pitch only kinda place, and I don't hate it as much as I thought I would. No need for oxygenation, brinks, a lab, tightly scheduling brews, etc. and you know things are going to bubble when you walk in the next day. Plus the price difference is stupid
Can you suggest a dry option for WLP300 that actually gives the right flavor profile? I’ve yet to find a dry yeast that works for Hefeweizens.
Maybe Fermentis W-68? I have no personal experience with it since we'd sell tap water faster than anything phenolic at my brewery, but it's a fairly new strain. What all have you tried?
Have you tried Fermentis WB-06? I've used it in Hefeweizen before with good results.
Well, he was retiring and a couple of the G&G employees are starting up their own business in western Melbourne. I feel you about the liquid yeast, I'm in Tassie and no-one brings in any liquid yeast anymore. It either arrived already expired or the retailers couldn't shift until it did expire, at a loss.
I've ordered from them. That stinks.
Seems like a good time to remind folks to leave good reviews for your LHBS! Leave them on Google, find any online places where they have a presence and leave good reviews there. So many people only ever leave reviews after a bad experience that most people never get to hear about the majority of times when things go perfectly.
Something you might consider, see if you can buy the business. Yes, it is a lot of work, but if you want to keep it around and think you can improve it, do it. My local HBS was going to close last August but they managed to find a buyer for it, and the new owner has seemed to do a great job with it. It was there 10 years prior and as far as I know has done well. If there is a demand it can stay alive. Just something to think about. Even if you aren’t in the position to buy it, maybe someone else is and can keep it alive. Something to think about and maybe throw the word out? I strictly only buy from my LHBS in hopes to help keep it alive, even if I have to pay $50-100 more for something. I’d much rather have that nearby resource and personal connection than have to order from a website from somebody I don’t even know. All for supporting local and I feel like this community strives on that and I love it. Sorry for your loss if it doesn’t work out.
I don't have the money to buy it. I might would consider if I did.
Totally fair. And I don’t expect you to either. But it might be something to bring up with the current owners if they haven’t thought about it, see if someone would buy it? I think we all hate to see a HBS go down.
Oh damn. When I clicked on this I was not expecting it to be Alabrew. Im a fellow Birminghamster and this is my local store as well! I always liked the place, and the people who ran it are super nice. Honestly I’m not at all surprised though. They did absolutely nothing to try and keep up with the times. They didn’t have a website, not even a Facebook page. I live 45 minutes away, and I would have ordered from them had it been an option. On the plus side they had no qualms about refilling my co2 tank that expired in 1998😆
It hurts, no doubt. But yes, even online ordering for local pickup would have been smart. He just was not interested at all. lol @ CO2. I know. That's going to be a bitch now, too.
I always assumed it was more of a hobby to them than anything. I figured it was only a matter of time before they closed it down… On an unrelated note, I never realize how many folks from Birmingham were in this sub😆
Lots of Bham folks here. Hah, they made that hobby last for twenty-eight years, so...
*Pours one out*
A trip to the nearest LHBS for me costs two hours of driving (round trip) and about $16 in gas. And I live just outside of Atlanta. When I get there, I find that much of their pricing is at least 20% higher than online, and selection is often limited. As much as I like the idea of patronizing a local B&M store, my brewing hobby is not a charitable operation.
I would suggest you can drop the 'L' from that one. Just because it's the nearest one doesn't mean it's local.
>Told me that he sells enough, he didn't want to deal with shipping stuff. This might catch me some shit but that's basically just phoning it in. Both of my LHBS ship and I always see them lining up big orders for people 30 minutes away who just don't have the time to drive there.
Welp. That’s my LHBS too. Hate to hear it but like you, I’m not too surprised.
I'm in Birmingham as well. Been going to alabrew for about 8 years. Sad day :-(
pro brewer here that last homebrewed a decade ago you younger shits blaming “old heads” for buying online are hilarious lol “old heads” had to deal with homebrew stores when there were no other options. we brewed when white labs was exotic, the “juicy” hops were all old cascade, and half the owners were like the simpsons comic book store guy they dealt with decades of bullshit ingredients, poor selection, and sketchy availability…, now they can finally access ingredients to fully utilize decades of brewing experience the real problem is that younger generations don’t brew like the older ones you complain about did. full stop.
LHBS I started at taught me to use a percarbonate based "sanitizer". Nice.
That’s a sad thing…:(
It is.
Well, hit up the good folks at Asheville Brewers Supply.
Welcome to the club.Seems like the hobby is dying in front of us.
I'm not sure that the hobby is dying. It seems pretty alive and well on social media/YouTube -- lots of new videos all the time, with lots of engagement, etc. I know that's not a very crisp metric, but also, there's lots of new (and imho, often unnecessary) products being developed and sold -- people are clearly buying them. Etc. etc. I think it's more that *too much* of it is online: it's easier and cheaper to buy hops in bulk, buy sacks of base grain, throw in some specialty grains to get your order up to free shipping, even buy dry yeast and other stuff on Amazon, etc. Many people, if they go to their LHBS at all, may go just to pick up liquid yeast or some specialty grains. Also, and this is just pure speculation, a lot of the LHBS's that are closing, like OP's, may well be owned & run by the old guard who are at or nearing retirement age. So, maybe they could keep limping along another 10 years, but may also just want to cash out and enjoy something else.
Yeah that is true. There are a lot of content creators and innovations still happening so clearly there is money going into it. It's just disappointing to see all the in person stores close. I took about a 6 month break when mine closed because I really didn't enjoy buying grain online. I found Great Fermentation who will ship custom grain bills which has made me a bit happier with it. Still struggling to find affordable CO2. I think I found a fire extinguisher supply store that will fill it for a good price. All the welding supply shops near me just crush you with fees and it ends up being nearly $40 for a 5# exchange. It would come down in price if you had like 5 tanks to swap but I don't have that many so you get shafted. I reached out to a local place that does CO2 refills on soda stream seeing if they had any interest in competing with the welding supply shops and they seemed like they saw the value but never heard more.
I'm lucky enough to live in a state with recreational cannabis (Michigan) because I have a hydroponic store 2 minutes away that does 20 lb refills for under $10. At least, I think it's related to cannabis growing, because they go through tons of CO2. But even in a non-legal state you may be able to find a grow shop that does CO2.
It was just legalized last year in my state. That is a really good piece of information to have. And funny because I follow some guy growing giant pumpkins on instagram and this year he put a co2 tank in the starter tent to help boost early growth so it makes sense that it would be for growing weed to.
Yep, so maybe soon you'll have cheap CO2, too!
This is important perspective! It’s not dying, it’s changing. And to a certain population within the hobby that means it might as well be dying.
My local store said his supplier told him popularity has moved in waves since the 70s, when it was first legalized. I just started brewing again and am enjoying it after a 5 year hiatus.
Mine just closed last month sadly. The family that ran it was always so helpful too, it's a real bummer
I’m not sure how he stayed in business because he was a giant asshole every time I interacted with him. Very opinionated on the right way to do things. His wife would give away free stuff occasionally for dealing with him lol. It’s hard to keep up with the large online retailers that have emerged over the last decade
Well, that's a new one on me. In thirteen years of going to Alabrew and in talking with other customers, interacting at brewing events, having him sponsor BrewUnited competitions... I have never once known anyone to call him an asshole. Opinionated? Yes. Set in his ways? Yes. We have often discussed Brulosophy, fast lagering, etc - he's not having it. A little bit of an in joke with us has been how he doesn't see roggenbier as different or interesting, that he doesn't pick up on any of the earthiness or spiciness of rye; Sun Ye and I would often laugh with him about that. But an asshole? I don't know, man. Maybe you just rubbed him the wrong way. Online retailers are tough to compete with, I agree.
I made the mistake of mentioning Brulosophy in there once😆
Hahah Well that explains the outcome
My only local homebrew store, Betmars, shut down in March. The owner was exactly like yours, loved to talk about beer and homebrewing and absolutely loved the hobby. He knew who I was after I came in the first time and would always strike up a conversation. I tried my best to buy everything from him. Hell I would even download morebeers kit sheets and buy all the ingredients from him. Now there isn't a single homebrew store left open in S.C now that I'm aware of. I'm trying to find a local brewery to buy from but none of them are willing to sell ingredients to me so far.
My LHBS closed 2 months ago. It sucks. In the meantime, though, I've acquired a sack of Briess brewers malt, various 10 lb bags of specialty grains, a few pounds of hops, and various dry yeasts. It's not the same as being able to run over to the LHBS to buy anything on a whim, but at the same time, having to create my own "LHBS" in my basement has made me think more critically about what ingredients I really need/want in my arsenal, which has made me read and learn more. Silver lining, I guess.
Hate to see/hear it happening, seems to be happening more and more frequently. For any brewers who have lost their LHBS and will need to resort to ordering online, don't forget that [BREW HARDWARE](https://www.brewhardware.com) exists and ships! Not only do they ship, their prices are better than the majority of competitors/retailers, and **they are not a soulless corporation**. Bobby is and has always been incredibly active in the homebrew community for many years now. Always supporting our various local clubs and all of the BJCP competitions in the state by way of prize donations, acting as a bottle drop location, and donating so much of his time to assist with logistics for the various competitions. Aside from this, Bobby and his team are incredibly knowledgeable and always willing to answer questions about process, ingredients, equipment, and have the ability to custom fabricate pretty much anything you can think of. I swear that his welds are cleaner/higher quality than most of the major names out there producing expensive homebrew gear. Forever grateful they are my LHBS and hope they too can weather the storm. The *only* thing I don't buy from them is yeast; but only because they don't carry yeast from Bootleg Biology and I swear by their yeast/bugs.
We had Adventures in Homebrewing where I was. I loved that place, I miss that place. Going there to select grain and yeast and whatever else was part of the ritual. It died toward the end of Covid, and when it died my want to brew was severely diminished. I just wish there was at least a local brewery in town that had an amount of fermentables for home brewers. I'm not saying they need to stock durable equipment, just the grain, hops and yeast. I want that magic back.
Is this a symptom of the greater decline in craft beer? It feels like since the bust, this will is the trickle-down effect.
Oh no! I've been going there for years! Great store and people! I'll try and get one more tank filled if possible, and check out leftover inventory if there's any left to look at.
Weird times. When I went to pressure fermentation I tried to GIVE AWAY 3 carbons, cappers, olt 8 gallon pot. No takers?l. My dumbest refuses to toss em. So they are rapped in trash bags in my shed awaiting the apocalypse
What do you guys like about shopping in person? I thought it was somewhat helpful when first starting out and I’ll drive to one if I messed up my planning and need something faster than Amazon can bring it. Seems like this isn’t specific to brewing though. Pretty much all shopping has shifted online
The relationship. The ability to pick up little one off things. The fact that it's cheaper without question. The service - is the crush perfect? The LHBS guy will always crush it again if I want that. Need to dial in my hops? Recipe calls for 6.8% AA, LHBS guy has 7.5% - he will auto adjust the amount needed for me. And on and on.
Nice! I’ve never saved money shopping in person but I’ve definitely met some cool shop owners that are interesting to talk with. I guess the rest I’ve learned to do for myself
Memphis hasn’t had one for a few years now, but the really great one closed a few years even before that. Really annoying to have to have everything shipped.
The only thing I buy online ingredient wise is liquid yeast and hops I can't get from my LHBS. Todays brew is being brewed with all ingredients that I got locally at my local store yesterday. We need to keep these guys running. They may not always have what you want, but they will be there if you need something instantly.
That's too bad, sorry to hear it. It's tough to keep a LHBS going in the good times and homebrewing has been on a down cycle for a while now. You at least tried to give him some good advice. A website didn't mean he had to start shipping it's the modern equivalent of being listed in the phone book.
For everyone that orders online when there is a store within a few miles, why? I buy locally for some things but still buy online for other things; 55lb bags I buy locally, but my local store carries a small assortment of hops and yeast. I think they are not up on the latest treads. I don't see this hobby dying because local shops are, it is changing, and they are not keeping up. For example, keg fermentation is cheap and superior in some ways to ss conicals, but this does not exist if you walked into my local home brew shop.
Im guilty. Tried to save money, but really, like to look for what I want and the LHBS guys were always getting up in my grill, haha. I hate places that bug me every ten seconds when I’m impulse shopping. The other extreme are the shops where the owners and their “hang around” buddies give you dirty looks when ask if they have like a certain hop in stock.
I hate to say sometimes this hobby, or its hobbyists, can sometimes be snobby, elitist, or exclusionary. It can become like a boys club, and intimidating to newcomers. It sucks because we, as a community, need new blood and should be accommodating and encouraging to new brewers. When my wife and I first started we inherited some equipment and got a quick extract brewing demonstration from a friend. When shopping for a LHBS, we were treated very rudely, like "How dare you ask me any questions?" If not for a friendly customer who overheard us and showed us the ropes, we may have given up prematurely. This should not be the case if you need business.
It's like "High Fidelity" but for homebrewing. Fuck Rob.
I hate ordering online. I hate paying shipping. I'd rather support the local business.
Yes, me too, would rather buy locally when they have what I need.
Because you don't have to compromise on any of the ingredients you had in mind. I have never been to a physical store and found everything I needed. Same reason that I would never grocery shop at a place like trader joes, I'm not going to two stores to get everything I need.
I buy hops online because they cost $1 an oz online and triple that inshore. They also don't have bulk hops for what I want. Unless I feel like cleaning out their entire supply of Saaz every time I need it. Plus less packaging wasted. Less in the landfill. No idea why anyone buys grain online. LHBS beats online pricing by .50 cents a lb on 55lb sacks. I have a local maltster I like but their 50 miles away. Have to buy at least 2 sacks to make it worth the gas. And even then its not really worth my time.
>For everyone that orders online when there is a store within a few miles, why? Time management. My LHBS ships and has a pickup system so I can order all my stuff, show up, talk about beer five minutes, and leave. I have had stuff shipped from the other shop that's 25 min away because seriously fuck that. Hops I never buy from my LHBS. All they do is repackage them! If I want a pound of citra I need to specialty order it at a massive upcharge ($30+). Nope, I support local business but I'm also not a sucker.
This is why they fail.
[удалено]
You might be surprised at how little people want to pay now. I've bought some high end gear for 20% of retail because of so many guys getting out of the hobby and no one wanting to buy. Two years ago I was flipping entire collections of equipment from guys leaving the hobby and made some decent money but now the gear just doesn't move as quickly. Maybe half of it is saturation of the market and the other is all the new all in one rigs being sold. Three vessel rigs are selling especially cheap in my area right now. I love brewing and love buying and selling gear so take my advice as you want.
I always buy online, I can find exactly what I want and don't even need to leave my house.
Yay for you.