At the HB Store.

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MAsteveINE

Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
23
Reaction score
1
Location
Dexter
Met a lady today who is starting some brewing supplies in her existing
food store and we had some talk about what she is including in her first
order from the supplier she has chosen.

What are the things you would want to find when you first visit?

Assume that most of her customers will be new to brewing, as is she.

She is 30 miles from another store with a brewing "corner"

She is 70 miles from either of 2 serious brew shops.

Please include duplicates of other posts and I will be able to
count the number of agreements.

Thanks for any and all help.

MAsteveINE
 
If the target market are new brewers, then perhaps extract kits would be the way to go. I know that my first few beers were extract kits, fwiw.

Then put together some equipment starter kits (ale pail, bottling bucket, siphon, hose, airlock, thermometer, hydrometer, long spoon, bottling wand, sanitizer, caps and capper.). And two cases of bottles per kit.
 
I'd stock the things that people usually run short of or need last minute:

- dry yeast
- bottle caps
- sanitizer
- racking hose
- auto-siphon
- hydrometers
- DME
- priming sugar
 
If the target market are new brewers, then perhaps extract kits would be the way to go. I know that my first few beers were extract kits, fwiw.

Then put together some equipment starter kits (ale pail, bottling bucket, siphon, hose, airlock, thermometer, hydrometer, long spoon, bottling wand, sanitizer, caps and capper.). And two cases of bottles per kit.

I agree, while I didn't use extract kits for my first brews I did start with extract recipes and the basic necessities for brewing.

On top of the hardware, a fridge/freezer for yeast and hops would also be a good idea. I know that I've started a session and realized I forgot the yeast and had to race to the HBS to pick some up.
 
I have a similar situation here. It's 25 miles to a good brew shop, but a package store 2 miles from my house has some good basic stuff. I would suggest:

Some basic kits. I did a lot of research and ordered a basic + several other things that helped me get started online, but I'm sure many people would buy on a whim.

A good selection of yeast(s).

Bottles and carboys. Things at are heavy and glass are not ideal to ship.

A small selection of DME / LME / Priming Sugar, etc.

I could go on and I'm sure others will, but basically it probably makes sense to stock anything that; you might run out of and need to get quickly (yeast, DME, botel caps, etc), things that break easily (hydrometers), things you don't know you need till you need them (fermentor heaters), and things that cost a lot to ship.

I would stay away from things like high end pots, advanced equipment kits, and kegging equipment (the kegging set up on display at my local store is priced high and has about an inch of dust on it).
 
if it already sells cereal grains and has space, maybe a big bucket of 2-row and a few of the most used specialty grains (carapils, crystal)? If it doesn't sell grain, perhaps just 50lb bags of pale 2-row on the back?

Muslin bags - they're cheap, don't spoil and take no space.

Canned pre-hopped extract kits - I'm sure they sell, last reasonably well, and don't require much shelf space

She doesn't need to have every hop in stock all the time - as long as she has some substitution table for reference, she just needs to have some hops from each broad category. Perhaps she can start by buying a couple of packs of each strain (e.g. hallertau, cascade, fuggle... perhaps a bit more of the most used) but don't bother restocking until she's almost out of an entire category (e.g. bittering, noble, English, American).

Also there's some stuff that is really food store material, brewing just uses them more prominently, like funnels, strainers, etc.
 
For the high end stuff, she can probably work out some arrangement with her supplier to have it shipped to her store for in case someone wants it. If someone does show up looking for that, she might be able to put it on order for her next shipping - the buyer gets it without paying through the nose for shipping, and she gets her cut.
 
Un scheduled shipments are as expensive for her shop as they would be for us, so she will most likely have a process for ordering in her next regular shipment and if someone is really really desterate they can pay shipping.

I was impressed that she had notes that showed an avaerage of one person
per day coming in to inquire about brewing stuff.

Thanks to you all.


MAsteveINE
 
Back
Top