Relocating to Omaha

I may be moving to Omaha. Hoping to find an active brewing club or at least a few brewing buddies and a good LHBS. Any tips? Thanks!!!

There is a HBS locate south of I-80 on 72nd & L, I believe. It is behind "Just Good Meats." It is located in a strip mall. Prices aren't bad, but the dude is a prick. Behind that is the best liquor store I've ever been in. They also sell homebrew supplies. Lucky Bucket brewery is close by and they may have bulk grain you can purchase, as may Upstream Brewing, but I doubt it.

Yes there is a HBS at that address. It's called Fermenters Supply. And yes Frank is a little difficult when you first meet him. I've been going there for a few years and now finally he talks to me without being a "prick". I don't think he means to be that is his personality.

I'm not part of any club and I brew alone but if you want to hit me up when you get to Omaha, go ahead.

Im here in Omaha as well. I have met with a couple of the guys in a few of the brew clubs, and they seem like a pretty good group. If you are just looking for someone to brew with, Im just learning and really dont know what I am doing, but would be happy to drink a few.

Rock on! I have been to great beer bar in Omaha, the Yellow Moon, I think it's called. It's right next to a pretty good beer store called beertopia. That gave me hope for the homebrewing community! I'll look you guys up when I get out there and settled in a bit. Prolly about a month or so.

Lol. It's called Cresent Moon. Beertopia is the best beer store in Omaha.

Still think that Brass Monkey beats Cresent for brews on tap.

My son was at Offet(sp) AFB for a couple of years and I went up to visit. He took me to Upstream Brewery and it was awesome.

Doesn't help with the LHB question - but at least you know where to find good beer while you research

Dan

Upstream is great! Made it there a couple times when I visited Omaha. Crescent Moon!!! haha that's the place!

I'm a native Nebraskan and living in Norfolk right now....however, we're relocating back to Gretna in about a month. What are you going to be doing in Omaha?

Omaha has 2 homebrew supply stores, oddly enough located only a few yards apart. The fermenter's supply place referred to, with Frank the ass as prop, is not a place I'd recommend. Not only does Frank go out of his way to be uncooperative, last time I was there he was asking $79 for a 50lb bag of 2-row. I went down the street to Cornhusker Beverage and Bridal (8510K Street) and got the same thing for $40. Since then I've shopped regularly at Cornhusker. Better svc, better prices, and no Frank. Also take in the Nebraska Brewing Co in Papilion (Omaha suburb). Paul Kavulak, owner and founder, is a homebrewer who went pro, has a great selection of micro-brews, and is expanding sales into other states. He loves to talk homebrew. He'd probably be glad to critique yours.

I work in the Entertainment biz. The production side. I do audio engineering, lighting design, systems engineering, systems integration, consulting...that kind of thing. I am coming from an area with a really strong homebrewing community, so looking forward to getting to know a few brewers in the new surroundings. And breaking in my new pad (whenever I find one haha) with a brew session!

MHUSS said:

Lol. It's called Cresent Moon. Beertopia is the best beer store in Omaha.

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Beertopia is the best beer store on the planet!!!!

I have to say the selection and staff at Beertopia are impressive. Looking forward to making buddies with those guys/gals!

Check out the Railroaders Brew Club and the Library Pub.

I am in Omaha as well always welcome to come brew with is as well. I am a part of railroaders great group of people. You can check us out at railroadersbrewclub.com

South Omaha Brewers has 70 members or so at the moment, and we meet every second Saturday of the month. You can join the email list on google groups, [email protected]. We also tend to meet every Wednesday at the crescent moon for various mug club parties. We have 4 pro brewer members, from Upstream, Soaring Wings, Nebraska Brewing Co, etc. Feel free to check us out. The website is being revamped at the moment, otherwise I would give you a link to it.

Hope you are here by August 20th. The Crescent Moon/Beertopia is having a Homebrew Festival that Saturday and we will have a tent there with 6 or 8 kegs on tap. Other notable beer events/places in Omaha:

Brass Monkey Mug Club - $2 half-liters of craft beer, 38 taps - 2nd Wed every month.
Belgian Beer Society - 25% off Draft, food specials - 3rd Wed of the month at the Crescent Moon.
Huber Hause Mug Club - Last Wed of the month, German draft beer specials, in the basement of the 'Moon.

Other upcoming events:
August 12th - Lucky Bucket Brewing Co BBQ
August 27th - Great Nebraska Beer Festival at Nebraska Brewing Co
September 15th - Habitat for Humanity Brew-Ha-Ha

There is seemingly a never-ending amount of beer related festivals and parties going on every month.

Also, some great places to buy beer:

Beertopia - next to the Crescent Moon www.beercornerusa.com
Brix - 168th and Dodge St at the Village Pointe shopping center
Most Hy-Vee grocery stores have a great selection, however go the the Hy-Vee on 144th and Stony Brook, and ask for Richard or KJ. Richard is a pro brewer, and KJ managed Beertopia in the past.

Outstanding!!! Starting to feel pretty good about Omaha! I'd bring a keg of my beer for one of these events, but my brewing club has been promised a "draining" event before I leave! I'll have a batch in the fermenter the second week if August, if all goes well!

I'm also moving to Omaha toward the end of the year, just want to tag this post for future reference.

Can't wait to get there either. I've not been able to brew in forever and I won't be able to until I get there. It's funny, I haven't looked forward to a Christmas this bad since I was in grade school.

Upstream is one of my favorite brewpubs of all time. Nebraska brewing co is very good as well.

In the basement of Crescent Moon, there is a german beer haus, they serve great pretzels and have a variety of legit german brews on tap. They also serve in a glass boot.

I've also spent far too much money at Beertopia... Get their rewards card. I think if you spend $50,000 there they'll send you to Germany on a beer trip

I didn't know about the basement at Crescent Moon. Will check that out for sure!

$50,000 in beer purchases. It's not totally out of the question, but would be more likely if they sold homebrew supplies! haha

Brix in west Omaha has a pretty impressive wall of beer coolers. The owner is a wine guy, and the beer is in the back, but earlier this year they had over 800 different beers in the coolers. I like the "feel" of Beertopia better, but Brix is more convenient for me here in west O.

I have made trips over to the HyVee in Council Bluffs to get beer that is distributed in Iowa and not Nebraska, like Bells or Capital. I believe Brent is the guy managing that department, and he too used to be the manager at Beertopia, and then at Brix.

Chris at Cornhusker Beverage Mart is a regular here on HBT, as camiller. He's a very helpful guy both in and out of the store. He's part of Omahops, another brew club here in town, though one I've found a little harder to connect to. There is also the Railroaders brewing club here in town, which started out of the Union Pacific, but doesn't seem to be hung up on being exclusive, and seems to be pretty active.

I don't believe anyone has mentioned the Library, which I'm told (by folks who should know) is a good craft beer bar in northwest Omaha.

Sorry I missed this thread earlier (ThreeDogsNE mentioned it in the store Saturday ). Yes, there are two homebrew shops, both previously mentioned, and I could throw a rock from our back door to Franks back door. I only work at the store in Saturdays (I'm a computer geek in real life), but Jim or Tim at the store can answer homebrew questions as well. (Other employees at the store not so much, but they will try)

There are a total of four AHA recognized homebrew clubs in Omaha (actually there are a couple others listed in the AHA directory but I'm not sure they are active).

• OmaHops - www.omahops.org
• Railroaders Brew Club
• South Omaha Brewers (SOBs)
• Brauer Unterstutzungs Verein (Brewers Support Association)

While I am a member of OmaHops I encourage you to visit with all of the groups and see who you fit in with best.

There are a couple of other homebrew events not previously mentioned.
Nebraska State Fair homebrew competition
River City Rodeo/Douglas County Fair homebrew competition.
The Nebraska Shootout - Club vs. Club!
The Liquid Arts Festival - First Saturday in July.

Are there any brewers in west omaha? Just started brewing AG? Or do any of the clubs meet out west?

tandom590 said:

Are there any brewers in west omaha? Just started brewing AG? Or do any of the clubs meet out west?

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Can't speak for the other clubs but OmaHops meetings usually rotate randomly from one members house to the next so our meetings have been everywhere from Northwest Omaha to south of Council Bluffs.

For what it is worth we are having an unofficial meeting at Corkscrew wine place in Rockbrook Village today. Sprecher beers is doing a tasting and you can get a brat and chips plus a pint of Sprecher beer for $5. A few of us will be there right around 5:00pm.

Edit: Oh, and I'm in the vicinity of 132nd & Fort.

I'm in west Omaha and do strictly AG. I'm not a member of any homebrew clubs at this point in time, though. I do go to the Belgian Beer Society events at the Crescent Moon. Lots of fun. We've had folks from New Belgium brewing come to host an event a couple of times and bring some limited-edition beer. Great belgian beers on tap at BBS events pretty much every time.

I'll vouch for the friendliness and helpful nature of the folks at Cornhusker Beverage. Great deals on bulk grain! I'll also have some of my beers on offer at the Homebrew Festival in August. I'm pretty excited about that! I think you'll like Omaha....even if we don't have a Colorado-style craft brew culture, there are still places to go to get not only supplies but some awesome beer. As an example, I remember picking up some Red Horizon and Dark Horizon at Beertopia....I hear those can be hard to come by. Between Beertopia and Brix, you have an outstanding assortment. Like someone said earlier, you can also drive over to Council Bluffs if you're looking for some Bells and some other brands...not sure why they don't have it in Nebraska.

A nice site to show a bit of what is going on, with some useful links:

http://www.nebraskabeerblog.com/

My friends and I stopped into the Library Pub for a couple pints. Great taps and a cool atmosphere. I met Bob who gave us a brief history of the Pub and shared his love of beer. Great first night in town!!

I live around the 120th n Blondo area and have been doing AG brewing for awhile now. I'm part of the Railroader's brew club and you're welcome to come to the next meeting if you like. I know there is a link to the website earlier in the post. PM me if you want any additional info.

We have a softball team sponsored by Library Pub! Love the place!

Cornhusker is way better than fermentor's!

Very close (around the corner-ish) from Fermenters Supply is Cornhusker Beverage (and Bridal). Which you would not know is a HBS. Nice employees. Selection is not stellar but they have the essentials when you're in a bind.

http :// www.cornhuskerbeverage.com/home_brew.htm

I'd love to start a HBS out West (170th and Center area). Looking into it.

atgunning said:

Most Hy-Vee grocery stores have a great selection, however go the the Hy-Vee on 144th and Stony Brook, and ask for Richard or KJ. Richard is a pro brewer, and KJ managed Beertopia in the past.

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^This

Westphalen said:

Very close (around the corner-ish) from Fermenters Supply is Cornhusker Beverage (and Bridal). Which you would not know is a HBS. Nice employees. Selection is not stellar but they have the essentials when you're in a bind.

http :// www.cornhuskerbeverage.com/home_brew.htm

I'd love to start a HBS out West (170th and Center area). Looking into it.

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WTF?!?!? Brewing and Bridal supplies?!?!?!?!?

Revvy said:

WTF?!?!? Brewing and Bridal supplies?!?!?!?!?

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And liquor store!

Started* as a liquor store, added homebrew, then beverage catering for wedding receptions corporate parties etc. Then added wedding invitations as a natural extension to the beverage catering business. Largest wedding invitation retailer in a 7-state area. one year when Omaha issued 3000 marriage licenses Cornhusker sold 1500 invitation orders.


* Actually the parent company history (Willow Springs) goes back further than that. Started as a distillery pre-prohibition! Then a soft drink bottler for many decades, there is still a bottling line in the back warehouse. They bottled Goody Pop up until about 15 years ago.

Westphalen said:

Very close (around the corner-ish) from Fermenters Supply is Cornhusker Beverage (and Bridal). Which you would not know is a HBS. Nice employees. Selection is not stellar but they have the essentials when you're in a bind.

http :// www.cornhuskerbeverage.com/home_brew.htm

I'd love to start a HBS out West (170th and Center area). Looking into it.

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What are we lacking? I do 90% of the ordering, if there is something truly lacking I'll talk it over with Jim and see what we can do

Edit: Oh, and that website is horribly out of date, doesn't tie directly in with our Quickbooks point of sale/inventory system, has to be manually updated and only shows maybe 30% of what we carry. and the online store has been down frequently because the hosting provider sucks. (In fact it is down now.)

I think it would be great if there was a HBS out west. Omaha is in desperate need of a good quality HBS.

I can't speak about any HBS in Omaha, but I can second the awesome beer scene up there! We took a vacation up there last year. I made sure to hit up both Upstream and Beertopia. I got to meet the Head Brewer at Upstream. He was a great guy and very informative. I dropped of a bottle of one of my homebrews, and he tried it with his assistant and e-mailed me back his thoughts. Next day went to Beertopia while the wife and kid napped. They were really cool too. They were sampling a bottle of the just released Rogue JohnJohn, and poured me a taste too. Probably didn't hurt that I dropped about $120 on different bottles, but nonetheless, they were all really cool and offered a few suggestions after seeing what I was buying.
Enjoy and good luck!

camiller said:

What are we lacking? I do 90% of the ordering, if there is something truly lacking I'll talk it over with Jim and see what we can do

Edit: Oh, and that website is horribly out of date, doesn't tie directly in with our Quickbooks point of sale/inventory system, has to be manually updated and only shows maybe 30% of what we carry. and the online store has been down frequently because the hosting provider sucks. (In fact it is down now.)

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I appreciate the fact that we even have a HBS in Omaha so I'm not trying to bash you. I love you guys! I'm just saying compared to a place like Northern Brewer or Midwest Supplies...you can't just roll in and get whatever grain/malt your heart desires. I know you can and will order it.

And, yes, ordering from the online store basically is not going to happen. You have to roll up and grab your gear in person.

Westphalen said:

I appreciate the fact that we even have a HBS in Omaha so I'm not trying to bash you. I love you guys! I'm just saying compared to a place like Northern Brewer or Midwest Supplies...you can't just roll in and get whatever grain/malt your heart desires. I know you can and will order it.

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I was at both of the LHBSs today. I was surprised at how much of the liquid yeast was gone from Cornhusker from one week to the next. I didn't find the yeast I wanted at Cornhusker Beverage Mart today, and went around the corner to find it on hand at Fermenter's Supply in the refrigerator. In August, I appreciate not having to worry about it having it arrive hot and dead. It is convenient to have them within a block of each other, though they are not convenient to my home.

Neither place is going to compete with NB, Midwest, or others in that tier without a much more aggressive (or at least functional) web presence. That said, I appreciate being able to drive there and grab stuff without planning a week ahead or paying prodigious shipping costs. Running a business, their inventory is presumably constrained by limited profit margins and limited volume. I try to buy locally, even if it costs me a little more, to do my part to ensure that they stick around.

Any of you Omaha folks have a grain mill I could use for a day or two?