Good Afternoon,
I am sorry you had a bad experience at our store. This is probably the worst and most bitter review we have received in the 23 years that we have been in business. We take these very seriously and will pass this around at our weekly meeting and talk about it and discuss how we can improve our service.
1) Service: It appears you came in on a busy day and we did not spend enough time with you. We currently have 7 people working on Saturdays and really try to spend quality time with each person. We often spend 30 minutes to an hour with customers reviewing and helping them with their recipes.
2) Price: Since we started selling online, we try hard to keep our prices as low as possible. While our grains, hops, yeast and equipment are great values, our clone kits are still more expensive than the cheap kits online. This is due the fact that we use a higher quality malt, the proper grains and the proper hops and liquid yeast. Before we started selling online, I purchased several of the cheap kits on line and made them. We try to only sell kits that will come out similar to the original beer and I cannot sell kits like these. We are starting our brewery this November and all our beers had their start with our kit recipes.
3) Yeast. We brew many beers and for any beer with an alcohol potential of less than 8% we still recommend simply using a Wyeast pack with 100 billion cells. We make starters for beers with larger OGs. I still recommend popping the yeast packet, adding the packet to a starter with malt in the 1.045 OG range once the packet it is fully swelled and letting the starter sit overnight and using it in the morning. If I cant use it in the morning, I put it into the refrigerator to keep it active. This has worked out very well for me in the past, but home brewing allows brewers to do whatever they like with their beer and their yeast.
4) Reviews like this truly upset my wife and I and we have tried hard for 23 years to be pleasant and helpful to customers.
Mark
Maltose Express