Suppliers and Shipping

Hello Everyone!

My name is Travis and I will soon be brewing my first beer.

I have made wine for a while and decided to take the plunge and start brewing my own beer for my own personal tastes so I am learning all I can first to get the knowledge to hopefully put it into action and create some wisdom here.

I know Midwest and Brewer's Best has some decent to some pretty nice kits but I plan on transitioning from kits to making my own from all grain or partials. However it seems everywhere I look, the shipping costs more than the supplies in most cases unless you order double or a crap load in bulk.

Case in point: Brewers Best Irish Stout.

If I buy the cheapest recipe materials for two batches from a supplier (Label Peelers), it costs about $50 with $15-$20 in shipping or I can buy 2 kits for $70 from another supplier and get free shipping.

So with the price comparisons, I could go with ease with the kits and not worry about excess materials lying around.

So my questions for everyone here are:

1. What are your experiences with the Midwest and Brewers Best Kits/Recipes?
2. Does anyone have recommendations for some good online suppliers that do not rape you over the shipping costs?

**I do not have any local home brew shops so I am forced to either drive 3-4 hours or ordering online. Right now, ordering online is the only feasible choice I have at the moment.**

My 3 goto places are Morebeer, Homebrew Supply and Adventures in Homebrewing. Morebeer ships for free with $59 purchase. Homebrew Supply has a reasonable flat rate shipping cost on most items. Adventures I believe has free shipping on recipe kits. Check these guys out.

Home Brew Supply, AIH, Northern Brewer, Midwest Supplies, More Beer, Austin Home Brew supply, Williams Brewing are all good for online. The best is to find a local home brew shop where you can avoid shipping costs.

I am lucky, my local home brew shop is also a 1 bbl brewery that features 12 beers or so on tap and 3 sodas. They are a campground that also has a playground so the kids have something to do. Wild Run Brewing! Great beer and friendly people.

Kerrbrewer said:

My 3 goto places are Morebeer, Homebrew Supply and Adventures in Homebrewing. Morebeer ships for free with $59 purchase. Homebrew Supply has a reasonable flat rate shipping cost on most items. Adventures I believe has free shipping on recipe kits. Check these guys out.

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Thanks! Checking them out now!

This is always a great deal https://www.midwestsupplies.com/pages/promos/free-recipe-kit-when-you-purchase-2

Midwest also does the Beer. Simply Beer kits. $20 for a 5 gallon kit

I have always had great service and experience with Northern Brewer. Shipping is usually a pretty good deal too. I like that Northern Brewer provides the actual recipe for all their kits - they post them right on line - a lot of places don't do that. Their turn over is really good, so ingredients are fresh.

Morebeer is another one that I have had good experience with.

Label Peelers is local for me, so they are the best price. Didn't know the shipping was so high.

The problem with them is that they don't sell less than a full pound of grain.

I think AIH does good shipping deals. And the sales are good too.

Btw, I think kits are a bit of a ripoff after you get the hang of it.

Hey, Adventures in Homebrewing (www.homebrewing.org not .com!) has 12 kits on sale with free shipping right now.

They also offer a discount if you sign up for the newsletter and they have loyalty points. I've only bought equipment there but they have good service and are fast.

I get most ingredients locally. I buy hops from a couple of places that do mostly hops. But gear is usually cheaper online.

I'm unclear on the problem of shipping costs; Northern Brewer has a flat rate, Morebeer has shipping included if more than $59 is bought.

In the end, you just compare based on price, delivery dates, shipping cost, and so on.

Further--and this is worth waiting for a bit if you're looking to save money, which it appears you are--places like Northern Brewer and Midwest have specials all the time. Occasionally they'll do a 20 percent off sale, or buy this, get this free sale. If you can be a little patient, you can save money that way. My original kit was a Northern Brewer setup, and I got something like $100 off a very good brew kettle.

As far as costs, any extract brew is more costly than all-grain. A typical extract brew probably costs $40 more or less. If you buy in bulk doing all-grain, you can get it under $20. That's just the price you pay for having someone process that extract, and maybe for putting the extract kit together. The tradeoff is the cost of equipment to do all-grain.

I buy my base grain in bulk, 50# or 55# sacks. I buy a lot of stuff from RiteBrew which is about 3 hours up the road from me. Whenever I head that way I buy my sacks of grain or whatever, and save the shipping cost. I can get 2-row barley for 79 cents a pound, and even Maris Otter (my favored base grain) for 99 cents a pound. I have my own grain mill so I don't pay for milling.

I'm not trying to convince you to go all-grain. My personal opinion is that everyone should start with extract to understand the process from the boil forward, then when that's mastered (2 or 3 brews?) go to all-grain where the process of mashing and so on can be mastered.

Also: I think equipment kits are a great way to go. You'll save some money over buying things individually, it's virtually all there, and you don't have to wonder whether you have it all.

One final thing: if you can find someone local who brews, go watch them do it. Or have them assist you the first time. I did that, and it was incredibly helpful. This isn't rocket science but until you've done it, you haven't done it, and some things may be hazy. Seeing it done will also make what you read here more understandable.

Good luck!

When I started a little over 5 years ago I bought a few kits from Northern Brewer. They had flat rate shipping at, I think, $4.99 at the time. I then got a copy of Beersmith and started converting NB kits ingredients to my own recipes. I did that because I could make a $40 kit for less than $30 by buying my ingredients in bulk. It has now been about 4 1/2 years since I have used an ingredient kit.

I now have about 20 malts, 25 hops and freeze yeast and have over a dozen varieties on hand at any given time.

I wait for NB to have a good sale (they always have some kind of sale) and order from them. My last order from them was for 3 IPA kits for $20/each, hard to beat that. Otherwise I order from Morebeer, which has free shipping over $59 and lower regular prices than NB. I also have no decent local shop, so I order almost everything, and usually get enough for a few brews so the shipping isn't too bad.