Deployed military needs homebrew advice

Apologize right up front if this info is available elsewhere--not trying to waste bandwidth or troll for "Do a darned search!" responses. I did some searches here and other places and could not find an answer. I daily frequent BBs like this for other hobbies, and some people have short fuses for newbie questions.

I am an active duty member of the US military deployed to Southeast Asia, but luckily in a place where alcohol is allowed. The problem is that the beer variety isn't great, and the prices are outrageous--$60 for four six-packs of St Pauli Girl Dark. A guy I work with is doing the extract brewing thing from where he living, and despite the water being about as awful as it could be, he's making it work.

I brewed for many years, although I've not done so for about 7 years. I progressed from extract brewing, to mini-mashing, then to all-grain. So, while I am not very proficient, I've got a little experience. Assisting my friend recently, I don't think I've forgotten much, especially when it comes to extract brewing. The good news is my friend is rotating back home in a couple months, and will leave me his simple equipment. Smelling the boiling wort and hops again was just pure magic to me--I need to homebrew again!

I went to MoreBeer.com, William's Brewing and a couple other sites I used to buy from online, and the shipping price to my DPO AE zip code was out of sight--like $28 in shipping alonefor one batch of ingredients. Not a good option. And, my address is technically a New York one--just like USPS shipping to anywhere else in the lower 48 except for the customs form.

My buddy has an alternative way of obtaining supplies that I will not have access to. So, his way it out. I need to rely upon the mail one way or the other, and USPS is the only real game in town for this location.

Do any of you know better alternatives for ordering ingredients at an acceptable shipping cost? Any advice?

I don't really know, but have you checked to see what the price is if someone back home buys the ingredients locally and then ships it to you? Maybe that could be cheaper. Or maybe ordering from European or Australian retailers would be cheaper (Not sure how they could send it via USPS tho).

Sorry I can't be of more help! Good luck!

BuddyWeiser said:

I don't really know, but have you checked to see what the price is if someone back home buys the ingredients locally and then ships it to you?

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Thought of asking my wife to buy locally in Las Vegas and ship to me. That's an option, but I was trying to not bother her with this; she has her hands full working and taking care of our two kids. Plus, if I buy online, I am getting exactly what I want/ordered.

We use northern brewer to get to Germany. I emailed brewmasterswarehouse last week but have not received a reply. The company must ship usps priority to get here in any reasonable time cant imagine its diff for you. order can not contain liquids. ill let you know if I find another company if you do the same. Hooah!

What you really need are some mules - people that are getting transferred in or going back and forth to visit family. Tell them to get two kits, one for you and one that you'll teach them to brew with.

I think either way you will be paying a price for shipping - I just shipped something that was about 8 lbs to Japan USPS and it was $68

If you ordered online you could still look at it as getting 5 gallons of good beer for about $70 which isn't bad

Id contact a supplier like AHS or someone else thats a big online supplier. See if you can get them to help you in some way for good ol' Uncle Sam. Might take some good convincing but Ive found many companies like doing what they can to help our troops and maybe you can make it worth their while as well.

Hey brother, thank you for serving. I'm navy, so I know what it's like being away from the good stuff for extended periods (being stuck in Bahrain for six months makes you thirsty for anything better than BMC...)

I'd try this:

KeyWestBrewing said:

Id contact a supplier like AHS or someone else thats a big online supplier. See if you can get them to help you in some way for good ol' Uncle Sam. Might take some good convincing but Ive found many companies like doing what they can to help our troops and maybe you can make it worth their while as well.

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If not, I just did a cost estimate for a batch of 6 lb extract and 1 lb specialty malt, yeast on midwest supplies and it came out to $26 in shipping for my old FPO. You may have to eat that cost as unfortunate as that sounds. Only better option would be to have the spouse find LHBS, buy the stuff and ship using the flat rate boxes. It'd be minimally cheaper that way, but sounds like the added time and effort would make it not worth it.

I use Morebeer regularly and they ship free on most stuff if the order is over $59. So if you have an APO/FPO address in NY, you should be good to go if you order a couple of batches worth of ingredients.

Cheers

jmprdood said:

I use Morebeer regularly and they ship free on most stuff if the order is over $59. So if you have an APO/FPO address in NY, you should be good to go if you order a couple of batches worth of ingredients.

Cheers

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I think his problem with that is the free shipping is that a commercial shipper (UPS or FEDEX, right?) can't ship to APO or FPO, only USPS can, and I don't think the free shipping offer extends to that. But please correct me if I'm wrong. If I am, that's the way to go.

I'd contact Northern Brewer, Midwest and Austin Homebrew Supplies. Tell each of them your situation and the burdonsome shipping costs. I'd be shocked if one if not all of them do not help you out in some way.

Where are you at in SEA? there was a small home brewing community in Singapore while I was there. There is a store. Alcohol there was grossly expensive. I cut way back on drinking (unless I was on expenses).

http://www.ibrew.com.sg/

You might be able to get them to ship to wherever you are located. Or maybe they can help you with some connections.

don't know where he is at in SEA but most countries worldwide grow barley....he might want to look at going All Grain from scratch, I mean FROM SCRATCH, malt your own. Or learn to like the local brew...like San Miguel.

The large USPS military flat rate box should hold an extract w/ steeping grains kit under 1.060 without an enormous amount of strategic packing, and last time I looked* the charge was $12.50.

* I didn't actually "look" I shipped a buttload (8 large flat rate boxes) of extra stuff to someone in the family who went to MSCEURAF. So I know what I'm talking about.

You can still order the stuff from Austin Homebrew for 7.99 to your house, then a flat rate box to your current location. Should be about 20 bucks total more or less. Or you could burn up one of your morale calls, call austin or whatever brew site and tell them you are AD and deployed and the easiest way for you to get stuff is by flat rate box. and ask them to do you a solid one time for you and pack one purchase in a flat rate box and ship. Never hurts to drop the military card and hope they can help you. I have done it once or twice.

I've been overseas for 7 years I I usually go through midwestsupplies.com because they ship to FPO/APO addresses. The shipping charge they quote is estimated and I always get refunded some money back (I got refunded $13.45 on $34.25 shipping charges and $6.35 on $17.05 in shipping charges). If I can't find what I'm looking for there I find a cheap price somewhere else and go through shipitapo.com(ugh).

p.s. I also figured out after five years(because I'm stupid) to order all the strains of yeast I want throughout the year in the winter(cool shipping temps) and then yeast rinse the stretch the amount I can brew.

jmprdood said:

I use Morebeer regularly and they ship free on most stuff if the order is over $59. So if you have an APO/FPO address in NY, you should be good to go if you order a couple of batches worth of ingredients.

Cheers

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Doesn't work this way in actuality...the shipping charges for one malt extract kit was almost equal to the kit cost itself. Why an address is New York is so much more expensive, I am not sure. Perhaps Morebeer uses a method other than USPS to get those free shipping charges stateside?

Verbalkint said:

I've been overseas for 7 years I I usually go through midwestsupplies.com because they ship to FPO/APO addresses. The shipping charge they quote is estimated and I always get refunded some money back (I got refunded $13.45 on $34.25 shipping charges and $6.35 on $17.05 in shipping charges). If I can't find what I'm looking for there I find a cheap price somewhere else and go through shipitapo.com(ugh).

p.s. I also figured out after five years(because I'm stupid) to order all the strains of yeast I want throughout the year in the winter(cool shipping temps) and then yeast rinse the stretch the amount I can brew.

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Good tip on Midwest--had not found them until now. I like their extract kits--might be the ticket.

It's not perfect, and the former all-grain brewer in me might not be thrilled with it, but I think I found a compromise solution. Amazon sells Cooper's (5 gal batches) and Mr Beer (2.2 gal batches) extract cans, pre-hopped. And, the Amazon shipping over $25 IS free. And, given the kitchen setup, and the inability to use a chiller after boiling, the smaller, 2gal batches might be the way to go.

When I was overseas, my family always shipped flat rate. That is definitely the way to go. Don't forget too, if you are using Midwest supplies you can scan your orders and they will give you five percent off the final price everyday. Some of the military holidays, they offer higher percent off.

Or, get non-hopped cans and place a bulk order somewhere else for a 1lb ea of 3 different hop varieties to put in the freezer along with a bunch of dry yeast. This way you could have more control over the beer and pay shipping only every 3 months or so. Could also order some bulk specialty grains at once and measure them out for each batch. Paying shipping by the kit would kill you, getting 5-6 batches per order would be pretty good.

I wish I could have brewed on one of my deployments!

We ship care packages to our daughter from San Diego to the north of Italy through USPS for $12.00 in the flat rate box. As long as it has a military address, you should be GTG

Thank you for your service

Good luck
Toy4Rick

This may be a silly idea but it doesn't hurt to try. Ty contacting Charlie Papazian at the Brewers Association. He wrote The Complete Joy Of Homebrewing. He has been to pretty much every corner of the planet. He might know of where you can get products local to where you are. It's a stretch but doesn't hurt to try.

Thank you for your service.

If you're still looking, homebrew4less has the best shipping rates for the NY APO addresses. I'm in Germany and use them frequently.

First and most important...........Thank you so much for your service.

If you can source apple juice locally, make hard cider. I've had ciders fermented with malt extract, dry hopped and damn tasty. Save on mashing and shipping grains. At most you would need to ship yeast, DME and hops.

Hard cider is rapidly gaining popularity in the states.

Check your local grocery stores for malt flour. I found some stateside in an Asian grocery store. Was essentially crushed malted barley. I'll be posting a thread soon on how I used it. You may find other grains locally that you can use to get more flavor/body and you can always add rice to the mash. You might get away with just shipping hops.

I'd try a BIAB with malt flour and whatever other grains I could find, maybe toast them in the oven first. You can always add fermentables like molasses/corn sugar/palm sugar, whatever looks good, just keep in below 20% of your total fermentables.

Think of this a a challenge, not an obstacle!

Totally posted this in the wrong thread, delete

My asian grocery oddness: Black Fungus Ale

when you say that your buddy has an alternate shipping method, is there any way you can convince him to let you in on it and you give him the cash?

I sell on Ebay, Craigslist, and on here frequently. If you felt comfortable I'd have no problem with you shipping to my house (utilizing free shipping from sites like Morebeer) them repackaging them in USPS flat rate boxes and sending them to you. Just Paypal me the shipping charges it will cost to get to your APO.

Not the fastest method but its an option.