Sources of Organic Ingredients

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Some brewers prefer to use malt and hops grown in sustainable ways using organic methods that limit or avoid the use of pesticides. We are a small but hardy band, often sharing info with each other. This thread is intended as a place to share sources of organic ingredients that you've found for your brewing.

I'll start it off by sharing three sources.

I buy organic pale ale, wheat, and Munich malts made by Gambrinus and sold in 55 lb. bags by Mid Country Malts. A friend has a commercial account with Mid Country for his nanobrewery, so he adds bags to his orders for me.

Seven Bridges Co-op in California sells a good variety of organic hops, from the US, New Zealand, and Europe. They also sell a wide variety of specialty malts in smaller sizes.

And I recently learned of a new and relatively local source for me of organic hops - the Michigan Hop Alliance. I've not tried them, but am looking forward to doing so, supporting farmers that are local to me and don't require shipping across the country.

Please feel free to add to this list, sharing info about where you get your ingredients.
 
What is "organic"?

The issue gets particularly complicated with home brew ingredients.

My understanding that there is an "organic" market in North America that has created a couple of tiers of certification, and another of self-reporting. But in the European Union, the laws are already strict enough that the producers often don't see the market advantage to certify as organic. And I believe New Zealand everday standards are superior to North American organic standards. So bump up EU and NZ products.

That said, I am in North America (Georgia, U.S.) and have so far only ordered from U.S. online HBS. Therefore, my focus will mostly be U.S. online HBS. I intend to list sources based on claims of "organic" which should make these lists North American focused.
 
LME

Light Malt Syrup, Northern Brewer Organic
Northern Brewer

Pale Malt Extract, Briess Organic
Seven Bridges Cooperative
 
DME

Light DME, Briess Organic
Adventures In Homebrewing
Annapolis
Keystone
love2brew
Northern Brewer
Seven Bridges Cooperative
 
Have a list of six hop varieties I need to buy for our next four batches, only two of them are available at Seven Bridges and the shipping is more than 50% of the cost of the hops, at the lowest shipping rate available. Ouch. Took a look at Michigan Hop Alliance and didn't see what I need, either. Am going to take a look at a few other places, might just have to order them non-organic.
 
I have a friend that's related to the owner of this hop farm in Colorado. They are harvesting their first crop of hydroponically grown hops!


http://www.hydrohopfarms.com/


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Anyone know any organic suppliers in the UK? My usual home brew shop has a wide range of malts but only has one organic pale malt, which is pretty generic, a bit like saying "organic sandwiches".
 
If you are in or near North Carolina, check out riverbendmalt.com


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In Maryland, check out organarchy.co ... Bought some Willamette pellets from them as well as a sterling rhizome that took off! I like these folks


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I get all my ingredients and hops from 7 bridges brewing. I live in Santa Cruz so its local. I love that place. Everything is organic and the staff is awesome.
 
I'm wondering, since I wandered into the world of gruits, if I'd list my sources for gruit herbs, spices & various plant additions here? I have a couple of sources I can list?
 
Here's some places I got my gruits from;
http://www.herbco.com/?
Found some others on Amazon as well. Lost some links when other computer's hard drive got the click of death. Now left click on mouse messing up now & then in spellchecker mode, & can't find spell checker in Windows 10? I'll look through my E-mails for receipts to get more links...
** Finding some more links/receipts in my e-mail. I'll list them here;
http://www.ruffledhomebrewing.com/
I ordered the borage from e-bay, from Florida herb house. Here's a link to get you started finding the herbs & such;
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2051541.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xborage+herb.TRS0&_nkw=borage+herb&_sacat=11700
 
This thread has some cobwebs on it, but here goes ...

I have no brew equipment, have never brewed before and live on Roatan Island. I'm slowly gathering enough information to purchase equipment (3 kettle HERMS all electric) and will obviously need grains, etc. I'm starting out all grain and have no interest in extract brewing.

I decided to brew my own beer because I discovered what the mass market beer contains. Commercial beer today is fairly far from the Reinheitsgebot that I believe should be the template for all food and drink; namely pure unadulterated ingredients that come from a farm not a chemistry set.

We regularly ship partial container loads of goods form Medley, Fl to the island. I'm looking for consumables suppliers (grain / hop / yeast) that can get product to Medley where they will be shipped either refrigerated or frozen along with our other items.

I'm researching recipes to try to limit the SKU's to a reasonable number of consumables to produce a variety of different beers. I have the refrigeration and freezer capacity to store hundreds of pounds of this material if necessary.

Any help in locating suitable suppliers and a handful of starter recipes that have a reasonable limit on the variety of items needed would be appreciated.
 
RoatanBill said:
This thread has some cobwebs on it, but here goes ...

I have no brew equipment, have never brewed before and live on Roatan Island. I'm slowly gathering enough information to purchase equipment (3 kettle HERMS all electric) and will obviously need grains, etc. I'm starting out all grain and have no interest in extract brewing.

I decided to brew my own beer because I discovered what the mass market beer contains. Commercial beer today is fairly far from the Reinheitsgebot that I believe should be the template for all food and drink; namely pure unadulterated ingredients that come from a farm not a chemistry set.

We regularly ship partial container loads of goods form Medley, Fl to the island. I'm looking for consumables suppliers (grain / hop / yeast) that can get product to Medley where they will be shipped either refrigerated or frozen along with our other items.

I'm researching recipes to try to limit the SKU's to a reasonable number of consumables to produce a variety of different beers. I have the refrigeration and freezer capacity to store hundreds of pounds of this material if necessary.

Any help in locating suitable suppliers and a handful of starter recipes that have a reasonable limit on the variety of items needed would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Contact 7 Bridges at www.breworganic.com and see if they can ship to your address in Florida. They have everything you'd need.
 
Steveruch said:
I just got an e-mail from them, unfortunately they are going out of business.
Click to expand...

That's too bad. I think there's a general downturn in the homebrew cycle right now, and both bricks-and-mortar and online store sectors have had declining sales for the last two years.
 
I have found online that some organically grown base grains can be purchased, however apparently the size is a 50# sack which is way too much for me to store. I had asked my LHBS if they could get 10# bags in, but as they started looking 50 was all that was available ( or perhaps they had to buy more than one, since no one else is asking not a wise biz decision).

Round up is sprayed on barley and wheat pre harvest. That is why I'm interested. I know, I know, even beers with the organic label contain glyphosate, but it is a much lower level. By using organic base grains I can reduce the total amount of this chemical in my beer.
 
Does anyone know where I can get organic Weyermann grains and german hops after Seven Bridges goes out of business? As far as I can tell they were they only ones that stocked them.
 
It lives! It lives!

Yes, just like Frankenstein’s monster, I would like to ask the question, on a really old thread, from the homebrew community, if there are good sources of organic malt. I am in California, but I am sure anywhere in the Western US would be good.

A lot of the links on this thread are expired.
 
JAReeves said:
It lives! It lives!

Yes, just like Frankenstein’s monster, I would like to ask the question, on a really old thread, from the homebrew community, if there are good sources of organic malt. I am in California, but I am sure anywhere in the Western US would be good.

A lot of the links on this thread are expired.
Click to expand...

Like @Hoppy2bmerry said, I use Breiss Organic Brewers Malt sometimes (when its available on the group buy I'm a part of).
 
JAReeves said:
It lives! It lives!

Yes, just like Frankenstein’s monster, I would like to ask the question, on a really old thread, from the homebrew community, if there are good sources of organic malt. I am in California, but I am sure anywhere in the Western US would be good.

A lot of the links on this thread are expired.
Click to expand...
JAReeves,

Here in Portland it's not hard to get my mainstay: Great Western organic two row pale malt -- FH Steinbart usually stocks it. I usually end up getting organic specialty malts (almost all Briess) from Northern Brewer.
 
Just ordered from Northern Brewer, my second organic beer recipe.

Decided on 12 lbs 2-row, 2lbs Munich, and I am going to flake some oats at home for a hoppy beer. Imperial Yeast A44 Kveiking. The only hops I can find organic are on Etsy, Willamette and Cascade. Haven't decided how much hops to use yet.

I am so terrible with the categorization of these subtle differences between beers. It is what it is.
 

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