Bulk Grain Distributor

Most of the bulk grain distributors wont sell to homebrewers any more. I brew 25 gallon batched 3-4 times a months with my buddy and we go through a lot of grain. Does anyone know of any distibutors (preferably with a wharehouse in the Bay Area of CA) that still sells bulk grain to home brewers. North Country,MaltMasters etc dont sell to home brewers anymore, which is sad, because I typically buy 8-10 bags at a time....

www.fiftypoundsack.com

Good price shipped to your house by the bag. That's about the best I've found (I typically burn 70lbs a month - not quite as much as you but more than the average homebrewer).

I don't get the love for that site. My LHBS sells grain sacks for $60, nearly double what they go for from a distributor, but is still cheaper than fiftypoundsack. Ask your LHBS(s) if they'll give you a bulk discount for buying like 10 bags. If they won't, they're jerks

I checked them out, but I can still get in cheaper from More Beer in the bay area, as long I pick it up directly from the store. I got a North country malt catalog and it is 40% cheaper than More Beer. I attached it just to let people know how bad they are getting gouged on their grains.

sorry file is too big, I will attached a screenshot

More than likely there's someone or more than one someone on here in your area that is granfathered in on the bulk grain buy. Check the California section of the forum and see.

When they stopped selling bulk to groups of homebrewers, they didn't really. They actually just stopped selling to new ones. Pretty much every account that was established before hand is still being sold to. We've still been having 2 yearly bulk buys on here for the Michigan Masher's. But there were rules, ONLY the names on the existing account can instigate the buy/place the order. And we have to do at least 1 buy a year to still be allowed to continue in the future.

We're still paying IIRC 39.00/sack of 2-row (including splitting the shipping cost)

Here are the Briess prices as an example

We did a group buy through a guy who has a commercial account with a distributor and paid less than $38 per sack of 2-row and pale ale malt. Maris Otter was similar, but slightly higher.

A friend of a friend is a sales rep for US Foods and one of his accounts is a local brew pub....he sells me bulk grain at cost....$27 for 2 row!!! He basically throws my order in with the local brew pub account.

Find out who some of the local brew pubs and breweries go through and find a friend of a friend

Group Buy would be the second suggestion

tre9er said:

I don't get the love for that site. My LHBS sells grain sacks for $60, nearly double what they go for from a distributor, but is still cheaper than fiftypoundsack. Ask your LHBS(s) if they'll give you a bulk discount for buying like 10 bags. If they won't, they're jerks

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U be lucky. My LHBS (www.ebrew.com) is $51.49 a sack plus 8.5% tax AND $15.00 in gasoline... fiftypoundsack is much cheaper. especially for Weyermann Pilsner malt.

FredTheNuke said:

U be lucky. My LHBS (www.ebrew.com) is $51.49 a sack plus 8.5% tax AND $15.00 in gasoline... fiftypoundsack is much cheaper. especially for Weyermann Pilsner malt.

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Yeah, I'm fortunate enough to have a LHBS ~5 miles away...but his prices on grain, even by the sack, aren't good at all. Like I said, I paid $33 a sack during the last bulk-buy we did.

This thread came up in my search results...I was grandfathered into a NC account, but didn't realize that they would deactivate me after 12 months...

Anyone in NH/Southern ME area having a group buy?

FredTheNuke said:

U be lucky. My LHBS (www.ebrew.com) is $51.49 a sack plus 8.5% tax AND $15.00 in gasoline... fiftypoundsack is much cheaper. especially for Weyermann Pilsner malt.

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If you are a member of the Carolina Brewmasters you get 10 percent off all purchases, which helps offset taxes and gas to drive there. Alt Bev probably still has their own 'membership club' that you can join and get 10 percent off purchases for the year too. It makes them more competitive with online suppliers.

After much searching I've been leaning towards trying: Mainbrew for sacks. I'd love to find a group purchase still sporting a supplier membership but that's hard to come by in Alabama.