What does your LHBS charge?

I recently bought grains for a chocolate oatmeal stout. The grain list is as follows:

8# 12 oz maris otter
1# 12 oz flaked oats
1# C60
1# carapils
1# Chocolate malt
6 oz Roasted barley
1 oz fuggles
1 oz EKG
1 wyeast 1084 smack pack

Overall, I spent almost 50 bucks. I recently moved from Michigan to NJ but I can't ever remember spending more than 30-35 dollars for grains, hops and yeast. I think my total was 48 and change to be more specific. Am I getting hosed or was my LHBS in MI really cheap?

I pay about the same here in california. You ought to pay a bit less since you are closer to the grain belt...

Try thinking of it this way...for 50$ you are getting a fresher, carbonated beer than you would pay at the pub. The margins are small for the shops. You pay a lot but they don't make a lot.

Good luck.

50 bucks. How many good beers can you get out of 50 dollars? Bottled, maybe 24? I guess I should stick to simpler recipes that only require 1 base malt and 1 specialty grain. Yeast washing would save me money, about 6 bucks a whack. I could get it down to about 35 for my cheap beer, but I really enjoy making better than cheap beer. Other than ordering all of my grains from a warehouse like Northern Brewer, I guess I'm stuck buying from my LHBS.

I do realize it's not all about how much you spend. I do want to keep the guy employed. He owns the store and is the only one who works there. I guess it's a question of service. He doesn't make me feel as welcome as I think a proprietor should. He is always on his computer, answering questions from 30 feet away. But that is completely different from spending too much on grain. That's customer service. But if you offer good service, I imagine that some people are willing to overlook prices that are 10-20% higher than others.

Rough estimate of the grains and hops brings it to about $30 at my LHBS. Not sure about what they charge for the smack pack because I usually use dry yeast.

Sounds high to me.

SteveHeff said:

I recently bought grains for a chocolate oatmeal stout. The grain list is as follows:

8# 12 oz maris otter
1# 12 oz flaked oats
1# C60
1# carapils
1# Chocolate malt
6 oz Roasted barley
1 oz fuggles
1 oz EKG
1 wyeast 1084 smack pack

Overall, I spent almost 50 bucks. I recently moved from Michigan to NJ but I can't ever remember spending more than 30-35 dollars for grains, hops and yeast. I think my total was 48 and change to be more specific. Am I getting hosed or was my LHBS in MI really cheap?

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How much was the Maris Otter per pound?

Figure the average brew pub beer runs what, $5 on tap? So that's 10 beers worth of ingredients for $50 if you're using brew pub math.

Now considering you get about two cases (48 twelve oz. bottles) out of a five gallon batch. That's what, $1.04 per beer? That's pretty good and comes to about $6.24 a six pack. Still cheaper than most craft beer six packs.

If you want to lower the price per finished bottle beyond that, buy 50 lbs. of grain in bulk and vac seal what you don't use. If you don't brew constantly, then just order your base malt in 50 lb. bags. You might be able to pick them up in a group buy in the $30-$40 range.

A month ago I did 10 gallons of Yooper's Oatmeal Stout and my cost was $37 and some change, but I buy grain and hops in bulk.

Seems expensive if you have an online vendor who allows order pickups anywhere near you. If you don't have access to that, I'd imagine after shipping you'll come out pretty close to the price you paid at the LHBS.

Buy your base malts through bulk buys. There is at least one in your area

Then get your specialty malts, yeasts etc. at your LHBS. Shopping around for one who has better prices may save a few extra bucks. Some online vendors have good deals too and combined with free shipping it may work out just fine.

Shipping liquid yeast, particularly in the summer is not a good idea. Even a cooler pack will not last in a UPS truck for more than a couple of hours, at best.

For all your liquid yeasts, make starters. It will prove its viability and ramp up the cell count to pitchable rates. Otherwise you may have to pitch 2 packs or vials, sooner or later.

Yeast is a relatively large portion of the brew cost at $7.00 a pop. You can reuse/harvest/wash/store yeast, but only if you can be meticulous about sanitation and sterile methods. It can also ruin a $25-50 brew just as easy or turn it into an unintended sour.

MO is usually priced at a premium at the LHBS. Mine has Muntons MO priced at $1.90 a lb (for 5 lbs. and over). Thomas Fawcett's Golden Promise is $1.88 at that quantity. I can get a whole sack of MO at a bulk buy for $50-60, and it used to be better than that

LHBS make good money on hops. It maybe good to buy your most used hops by the pound from the known hop sources. Starting next month they're selling the 2013 crop. I bought hops from Hops Direct for $10-15 a pound on average, depending on varieties and total shipping cost. At my LHBS I couldn't even buy 6 ounces for $15.

I guess all the figures add up. My LHBS was charging me 2.49 for the Maris Otter and 2.99 on all specialty grains, including flaked oats. Smack pack was 5 or 6 and hops were a couple bucks each. Like I said, I want to see his company succeed. But I do have an issue spending 2.50 for base malts. I think a storage barrel, along with a chemistry/lagering fridge are in line. I have the fridge so I guess now comes the purchasing of flasks and a barrel.

SteveHeff said:

I guess all the figures add up. My LHBS was charging me 2.49 for the Maris Otter and 2.99 on all specialty grains, including flaked oats. Smack pack was 5 or 6 and hops were a couple bucks each. Like I said, I want to see his company succeed. But I do have an issue spending 2.50 for base malts. I think a storage barrel, along with a chemistry/lagering fridge are in line. I have the fridge so I guess now comes the purchasing of flasks and a barrel.

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Most of the LHBS around here (San Diego)

$1 for 2-row
$2 for MO
$2 for specialty grains

Those are plus or minus a few nickles depending on the store, grain, etc. I've never seen $3 for specialty grains. I'd order online if they were that expensive locally.

SteveHeff said:

I recently bought grains for a chocolate oatmeal stout. The grain list is as follows:

8# 12 oz maris otter
1# 12 oz flaked oats
1# C60
1# carapils
1# Chocolate malt
6 oz Roasted barley
1 oz fuggles
1 oz EKG
1 wyeast 1084 smack pack

Overall, I spent almost 50 bucks. I recently moved from Michigan to NJ but I can't ever remember spending more than 30-35 dollars for grains, hops and yeast. I think my total was 48 and change to be more specific. Am I getting hosed or was my LHBS in MI really cheap?

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33 at one, about 45 at another.

Offhand, that would probably be around 30 for me.

For me 2-row is $1 and MO is $1.50. I don't think any grain is more then $1.60.

What would you guys do in this case? Would you ask the LHBS about pricing? Or would you simply shop somewhere else?

The lhbs I use charges $2 for maris otter and specialty grains. $1.50 for 2-row and $1.75 for hops.

I've been paying $1.79/lb. for MO at Midwest (LHBS for me), and about $2.00/oz. for most pellet hops. Smack packs are $7. I think it's about the same for those at Northern.

$2.49 for MO is quite steep, but maybe there's extra shipping costs to get it to the east coast.

Don't *****. Here in the islands, well on O`ahu there is only one LHBS. 2 Row is $1.80/lb
Everything else is $2.50.

Still I pay about $1.06 per 6 pack of home brew.

SteveHeff said:

What would you guys do in this case? Would you ask the LHBS about pricing? Or would you simply shop somewhere else?

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The best they probably could offer you is 10% off for whatever arbitrary reason. Veteran, military, AHA member, brew club member, etc. I doubt they will adjust their general pricing just for you, but you can try and make sure to roll a camera so we can see the expressions on their faces too.

Some LHBS are more service oriented than others, like weighting and milling your grain order. Others let you do it yourself. Obviously extra service needs extra staff and they need to get paid. Some areas in NJ are just more expensive, so overhead is higher, or they can charge as much as the market bears. Or simply their bottom line is better padded.

Look for alternatives as mentioned above.

That would be under $40 at my joint with leftover hops

Morebeer.com is pretty competative. Orders over 60 I think is free shipping.

Also buy your hops by the pound. I got mine for a dollar an ounce by doing this. Then freeze the rest until next use.

They might also be charging what they can get people to pay for (i.e. trying to make a profit). Folks in Cherry Hill might have more disposable income and $2.50 for MO may not bother them in the slightest, especially if they are a newbie or occaisional brewer. Even then they might do the math and see that they are still paying less per bottle for the tangible costs of ingredients, so they still feel it is a win.

My LHBS up here in Massachusetts gets a lot of traffic from folks that brew a lot. They themselves host group grain buys because they know they need to stay cost competitive with online retailers, and if they didn't organize the group buys, their clients would walk and do it themselves.

Where I live, that'd about $30.

My LHBS charges $2/lb for grain, $2/oz for hops, and about $6 for a smack pack. BUT they have a grain card program where you can pre-pay $75 for 50 lb of grain. They also give 10% off to homebrew club members. Maybe your shop would be willing to do something similar...

Well, you did move to NJ. Everythings more freaking expensive here. Which LHBS did you go to?

I just ran the recipe through my recipe spreadsheet with my local LHBS in NH pricing and came up with $32.80 for the recipe. MO is going for $1.79/lb which makes up about half the cost of the formula. I guess I have it pretty good!

C-Rider said:

Don't *****. Here in the islands, well on O`ahu there is only one LHBS. 2 Row is $1.80/lb
Everything else is $2.50.

Still I pay about $1.06 per 6 pack of home brew.

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It still cost you about 10bucks under what he paid with your lhbs paying to have it shipped way out there.

At my local that would have run me $35.28. 2 row is $1.25/lb, all others are $1.75/lb. Hops are $2/oz and liquid yeast is $7. I'm pretty happy with his grain prices and I don't have a mill, so I can't buy in bulk at the moment. I buy hops online by the pound, so I'm saving a lot there, and I reuse yeast to spread that cost out. I'm 4 generations into the WLP001 I have, which makes it $1.74 per batch.

Buying hops in bulk online will make a big difference after a few batches.

SteveHeff said:

What would you guys do in this case? Would you ask the LHBS about pricing? Or would you simply shop somewhere else?

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Im not the type to complain. I let my wallet do the talking.

All I wanted to see is what other brewers pay to brew similar beers. I'm not bitching, yet. But the guy I go to is the only LHBS within 30 minutes of where I live. I'm heavily considering buying in bulk, both hops and grain, in order to drive my overall cost down. I mainly brew 3 beers that I really enjoy and 2 of them use MO. I've washed yeast before with good results. So, I guess we'll see what I can start doing after figuring out where I want to buy my bulk grain from. Thanks for all of the info, guys.

SteveHeff said:

What would you guys do in this case? Would you ask the LHBS about pricing? Or would you simply shop somewhere else?

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I'd contact them and say that you just wanted to query their pricing as you've done a bit of checking around and it's $10-20 dearer than you were expecting. Give him the opportunity to justify his pricing ( maybe you bought floor malted Warminster MO imported from England without realising for example). If he says the pricing is correct and there's no particular justification for the higher price then I'd say something like "that's a shame, I really prefer to support local but I can't justify that extra cost over online"

It won't make him change his prices but it will make him aware that he's driving away business. Just moving your purchases without saying something won't make any point to him if he doesn't know why you have done it.

The LHBS I go to has a virtual sack deal. You buy 50 lbs of grain and then when you come in and get say 10 lbs, that is subtracted from the total. The good thing is that it is good for any base grain. So if you want pils one time and 2- row and Munich the next you can get them. No need to buy different base mlats in bulk. It works great for me. Keeps the price down and you don't have to store the grain.

This fall I will be splitting my orders between a bulk order on-line and my LHBS. For 8 recipes, the savings will be around $5 to $6 per recipe, after costing in shipping charges. The balance is about 35% of the business locally and 65% mail order.

You need to check shipping costs, though. Some on-line shops have such excellent prices, until you calculate the shipping costs in and the ending cost is nearly doubled!

My closest HBS is Love2brew in Central NJ. I believe all their grains are less than $2/lb crushed. Look into NJCraftbeer membership. It's about $20/ yr and u get discounts at many LHBS, Liquor stores, pubs, etc.

In Dayton, $40 would get me:
10lb bag of MO
+ #1 bags of C60, carapils, flaked oats (x2), chocolate malt & roasted barley
+ 1oz bags of fuggles & EKG
+ the 1084 yeast.

You'd end up with ~$4 in leftover grains so a $36 net cost.

Sheesh, that's expensive.

Just the grain and hops at my LHBS: $25.04. As my LHBS doesn't have wyeast, the White Labs equivalent would at $6.99 for a total of $32.03 for your recipe.

And that's the crappy LHBS. I know the other one in my area is cheaper but they don't have prices online as they're brand new. So I'd wager ~$5 cheaper at the other HBS.

SteveHeff said:

I recently bought grains for a chocolate oatmeal stout. The grain list is as follows:

8# 12 oz maris otter
1# 12 oz flaked oats
1# C60
1# carapils
1# Chocolate malt
6 oz Roasted barley
1 oz fuggles
1 oz EKG
1 wyeast 1084 smack pack

Overall, I spent almost 50 bucks. I recently moved from Michigan to NJ but I can't ever remember spending more than 30-35 dollars for grains, hops and yeast. I think my total was 48 and change to be more specific. Am I getting hosed or was my LHBS in MI really cheap?

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Where I'm at in Pa it would have been around $40. His prices might be a bit high but I don't think you got ripped off either.

Not sure if you have storage where you are but paying per pound price for base malt is why I started buying by the sack, I pay $50 for 2 row and $55ish for MO. I have found that by buying my base malt by the sack I'm ok buying everything else seperate and I can still make 10 gallons if something for around $40 using washed yeast.

I have two LHBS near where I live, one is not competitive and the other is often out of stuff.

So it's group buys for me (base malt) and it's mail order for the specialty malts, and pounds of hops from hopsdirect.

In a recent group buy, I got MO at $1/lb. Still have a few bags left for sale in fact (shameless plug).

MC

While aerating my latest batch or wort with O2 last weekend, my 2-micron ss aeration stone shot off the end of the hose and is now sitting at the bottom of my fermenter, probably clogged with trub. I went to my LHBS to get a replacement. This shop is only a few miles from where I live and they generally have a good selection of gear and their prices are only slightly higher than at Midwest or Northern. I didn't want to drive the extra 15 miles or so to either of the latter two stores. The LHBS wanted over $30 for it! Yikes. I told the guy that the others sell them for under $15, but he just shrugged, and I left.

I don't need it right away, so I'll wait until my next big online order and get it then. I'm a tightwad and refuse to pay more than double for that.