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Remmy said:
Austin Home Brew is awesome. I ordered $400 worth of stuff once and the only thing that was not in-stock was a spigot for my bottling bucket. They shipped everything out immediately and shipped the spigot later in the week in a separate package.
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I had this *exact* experience also. First class overnight of the bottling bucket spigot.

On the other side my friend recently ordered his 2nd ever kit from northern during their recent sales. His entire order was held because they were out of carb drops. The thing he didn't need for a month anyway. It took northern two weeks to get his order out the door.
 
AHS is awesome. I recently ordered 2 PM kits from them during their free shipping deal. When I got them they had given me the wrong grains for one of the kits. I made them aware of it and in less than 24 hours they had shipped out the correct grains to me. I am very pleased with how they handled it. I don't fault companies for minor mix ups like that as that can happen to any company. As long as they make it right I'm happy. I can't wait to order from them again.
 
erockdoc said:
I'm moving to Houston in December, looking forward to being closer to AHBS. Of course I will have to check out the LHBS around Houston too.
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Defalco's is the LHBS, prepare to hear "we're out of that" a lot. Check out Petrol Station, best beer spot in the city.
 
erockdoc said:
I'm moving to Houston in December, looking forward to being closer to AHBS. Of course I will have to check out the LHBS around Houston too.
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Defalco's isn't bad, just not as well organized or run as AHBS, as well as smaller.

At AHBS it seemed like there was normally 4-5 people there for the 20-30 customers (had to start using a ticket system), but they manage it very well (though sometimes they don't seem interested in talking or giving advice unless you ask for it).

Defalco's on the other hand seems to always have 5 people there for 5-10 customers and it is hard to get help sometimes. They have homebrew on tap for you to try, but the one time I tried them they weren't all that great. Most of the time there's 2 guys behind the bar area hanging out and talking. Other than the owner the employees are pretty young.

EDIT: my experiences come from going to AHBS for 4 years when I first started (but never got serious), and now being serious about brewing this year and going to Defalco's. Now developing my own recipes is a little annoying because I have to reference what Defalco's has on their (terrible) website.
 
Newb here.
Just want to rant and get some feedback on this problem I have with AHS.

Recently placed an order on this kit that included dme. Upon receiving it, I discovered that the dme was not included. Contacted customer service and was told that it was typographical errors and they didn't update their site to reflect that the dme is actually not included in the kits anymore. So they basically said Austin Homebrew is not responsible for typographical errors.

Isn't my right to have received a product that was described during the time of purchase? They can falsely advertise stuff and then claim typographical errors?

Moderator Edit: Welcome to HBT. Company Reviews is not the place to rant or engage in back and forth conversations with other members about a company. It is a place to write a review of your experience with the company. I'm leaving your initial post up, but am editing or deleting other posts following this.

Pappers_
 
Hi folks. We try to avoid what happened above - a new member comes to HBT for the sole purpose (so far at least) of complaining about a company.

To reiterate the rules here, real customers of a company are encouraged to post a review of their experience with the company. Companies are welcome to respond to a review, within reason. Non-review posts (including back and forth conversations like the above) are not allowed. Reviews are not censored or deleted.

If you read the review threads, you will see that every large, national company has good and bad reviews. Thanks for adding your reviews to this resource.
 
To add to this, if you are only here to talk poorly of a company this is not the community for you.
 
Thanks Mods for clarifying the intent of this thread for me. I've been reading brewing tips from here for about a year now.

My post was about my experience with this company. I'm not trolling or gaining anything from these posts. Just wanted a place to share my experience and see if others had similar ones. Other posters asked questions, so I replied.

I have no doubt from all these positive reviews that this is a good store, but it just wasn't the case for me.
 
Really disappointed that AHB is ending their free shipping on kits "promotion". Never knew it was a temporary thing, and I'll definitely be much less likely to buy my kits from them. I'm sure their competition is breathing a sigh of relief. That said, I've been really happy with their products.
 
mgr_stl said:
Really disappointed that AHB is ending their free shipping on kits "promotion". Never knew it was a temporary thing, and I'll definitely be much less likely to buy my kits from them. I'm sure their competition is breathing a sigh of relief. That said, I've been really happy with their products.
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I doubt the competition has much to be celebrate about since most do not offer any better than AHB's normal flat rate shipping.

They are at the top of my go to list.
 
I rarely order from them anymore, but I did on November 29. I chose the cheaper flat rate shipping, since I'm not in a hurry for my items.

I know they say "3- 8 business days to ship" but I was still surprised that my order shipped out on December 11, at 9 PM (according to UPS and the tracking email).

So it sat at their office for 12 days (but only 8 full business days) before being ready at 6 PM on the 8th business day (not including the day I ordered).

It's a 9 pound order, and I wasn't in a big hurry. It's slated to arrive December 17th. I'm not sure how I feel about an order taking nearly three weeks to arrive, even though shipping was $7. My credit card was charged instantly.

I did expect it to be slower than usual, as perhaps they've been busy. But I think that 8.5 business days, and 12 days total, before packing and shipping is longer than I will wait next time and probably order somewhere else even though I've been very happy with them in the past.
 
Yeah they are usually quick to get the items out of their store, but I ordered a couple of carboys on Black Friday and they just shipped Wednesday. Not sure what's going on in their shipping dept.
 
I visited thier store in Austin yesterday. Was not able to find everything I was looking for. A lot of empty shelves and empty bins. Seems like they are actively reducing inventory. This could be a cause for late shipping as well. Service was good.
 
I use AHS often because of their good inventory, good service, and flat rate shipping, but I have noticed a lot of items on their web site recently that are out of stock. Had an order slightly delayed recently because an item was out of srock.

Hope this does not indicate problems at AHS because they are a great vendor.

Maybe someone from AHS could chime in on this issue?
 
Bigcorona said:
I visited thier store in Austin yesterday. Was not able to find everything I was looking for. A lot of empty shelves and empty bins. Seems like they are actively reducing inventory. This could be a cause for late shipping as well. Service was good.
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Odd. When I went this summer, they were loaded. Any chance they are moving?
 
Hey guys! Thanks for commenting! My name is Greg from Austin Homebrew. Just wanted to pop into the conversation to let you know we aren't going anywhere! We had a shipping issue due to the crazy winter storms that delayed a large shipment to our store. It arrived this morning. If you're local and need something, give us a little time to put it all on the shelves this morning then pop in! Unless you need one gallon buckets- those will be in tomorrow. Otherwise we should be able to take great care of you. :)
 
I see that bulk grain is no longer availabe on the AHS web site. Is this a permanent change? Are bulk grains still available at the physical store?
 
Yeah, I've also been in to the store a few times after Black Friday and it looked pretty empty compared to what I'm use to seeing. I had different employees tell me they had problems with shipments coming in. I just assumed Black Friday and holiday season wiped them out. It was no big deal for me, I just changed up my recipes a bit to use what they had in stock.

I went again this past Friday and things were looking better but still not fully stocked. An 18-wheeler was backing up to their bay door when I was leaving. I hope that means more inventory will soon be back to normal.

AHS has been my lhbs and my favorite thing about them has always been the large and diverse inventory. I don't plan things out enough and often brew spur of the moment, so it's nice to have AHS 10 minutes away.
 
I ordered 3 kits 12/13 and they were at my door 12/20 so it seems like they are back on the ball
 
Looks like they have been having issues keeping stock up due to a large expense in upgrading the site. Here's to hoping that everything comes back to normal soon, definitely one of my favorite sites :mug:
 
Not really liking the new website. You can't order by price and you don't see the price on the main page for the kits.

Also, the prices went up by a few dollars each.

AHS may be coming off the "go-to" list.
 
It's a shame, they were the only site I bought from. I've made a lot of their kits and always said good things about them.

But why would you force me to accept dry yeast that I have no need for and tell me to "save it as a backup?".

And I'll echo the comment above about not liking the missing ability to sort by price and view the kit prices in a list.

Maybe this is the push I needed to get into BIAB and coming up with my own recipes. I can buy grain locally.

It's a shame.
 
After a quick look, I actually like the new design. Very nice looking and easy to navigate. However, I do echo a couple of others in that I think it would be nice to have the price of the kits showing along with the name in the listing page. It's not handy to shop when you have to click into the detail page to get the price. Some people shop by price. A LOT of people probably shop by price.

In that same vein, it might be nice to be able to sort the entire kit database by price so if someone were to be shopping for "Anything as long as it's around $35" they can do that.

That might be something to look into implementing soon.
 
I just noticed that they've changed their fraction amounts for grains to only 4, 8, and 12 ounce options. You used to be able to buy by the ounce. That SUCKS!!!! Big time. I used to be one of their biggest supporters, but now I'm back to weighing my options.
 
I like the new design as well, but echo some frustrations with the new style. I don't really shop on price, but I know that will be an issue for some. Maybe their issue is not knowing which price to list since every recipe has LME, DME, MMDME, MMLME, AG. There should be a filter on the side to filter for kits by style and recipe type so you can see price of the kit as you want it. Unless you are experienced, it might be a little unnecessarily difficult to figure out all the abbreviations in the dropdown.

As far as yeast goes. I really don't understand packaging "recommended yeast" with each kit. Some of us want to move to all grain and are very picky about yeast. Is the IPA I am ordering adding in Safale 5, notty, muntons gold, or something else? Beneath the yeast selection dropdown the included yeast should be listed otherwise I will be calling each time to question what exactly is included. Also I disagree with raising the price to include yeast. What if I have some and don't need more? Why is it not possible to remove yeast from the order if you want to use a different one?
 
I think by packaging a recommended yeast, they're able to streamline things better, which saves time and cost, so I understand that. You can't really fault them there.
 
TheZymurgist said:
I think by packaging a recommended yeast, they're able to streamline things better, which saves time and cost, so I understand that. You can't really fault them there.
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I agree. It makes a good emergency yeast in case there is a mess up with the order, or the liquid arrives in bad shape due to weather or some other unforeseen circumstance.

I would prefer to know what kind of dry yeast it is, but then I don't buy kits, I find or create my own recipes, so it's not a big deal to me, in actuality.

Just remember it's a brand new system, guys. It has an opportunity to change in the future.

Sucks about the amount of hops minimum order though. Who wants to order 4 ounces all the time??
EDIT: Oops, I checked and realized I thought you posted Hops were in 4, 8, 12 ounce increments, and I went back to see it was Grain you mentioned. big difference.
 
Just finishing first year of home brewing and have done over 20 kits from Austin Home Brew. One thing I liked on their old site was being able to go into my account and see all the kits I ordered in the past and the dates as well as keeping the wish list. When I went to the after the new software install, I had to register again and all past records were gone. Kind of disappointing.
 
szap said:
Just finishing first year of home brewing and have done over 20 kits from Austin Home Brew. One thing I liked on their old site was being able to go into my account and see all the kits I ordered in the past and the dates as well as keeping the wish list. When I went to the after the new software install, I had to register again and all past records were gone. Kind of disappointing.
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I was told by AHS support that accounts should be migrated. They told me to hit forgot password and you will be able to follow the steps and get back in.

NOTE: I tried the above and it didn't work, so who knows.
 
It might take time to migrate the old information into the database. I'm sure they are focused on simply making sure the new site is functioning properly.
 
I don't really agree that adding yeast, whirlfloc and brewvint yeast fuel is passing savings on to the customer. Lets say someone was buying kits and bought all 3 in bulk. Now they have to pay for something they already have as the prices have gone up on each kit to reflect the "free" additions. Assuming 1 kit a month, thats means you can pay almost ~50 for stuff you don't need. That becomes much more the more kits you buy and then you have extra stuff you payed for but don't need laying around.

Am I the only one that thinks we should just pay for what we need?
 
I've thought about this and oddly enough if they had just raised their prices I wouldn't be that torqued off. It was the idea that I was paying for something I had no use for that got me.

I also was unable to sign in, that's a lesser issue.

I do think that this is the incentive I need to look into moving on from the extract kits.
 
I did my first kit in two years about a month ago. It was one from my LHBS . I use recipes and make my own so I buy separate ingredients. Thus I am not concerned about the kits and yeast included.

I use the cart from several sites and choose which to buy based on final cost, shipping included. So if they are still low they will keep my business. I have not tried to log in yet since I am very well stocked at the moment.
 
UPDATE:

I was able to log in after changing my password. it took a while for them to get the email to me with the link.

One odd thing, they had my address correct, but had changed my name to John Martin. Man, if they did that to every account it's going to be a circus.
 
livetaswim06 said:
I don't really agree that adding yeast, whirlfloc and brewvint yeast fuel is passing savings on to the customer. Lets say someone was buying kits and bought all 3 in bulk. Now they have to pay for something they already have as the prices have gone up on each kit to reflect the "free" additions. Assuming 1 kit a month, thats means you can pay almost ~50 for stuff you don't need. That becomes much more the more kits you buy and then you have extra stuff you payed for but don't need laying around.

Am I the only one that thinks we should just pay for what we need?
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Nope. I am with you. I buy almost all my kits from AHS, mostly because of the price and that you can individualize each kit and only order what you need. I don't want stuff "packaged" up with the kit that I don't need or want.

I am really disappointed. This seems to have taken them from the best of the homebrew sites to the middle.
 
It seems like such an easy fix to make. Hopefully Forrest is reading this thread and will consider making the changes. At the very least, I would hope he would chime in on why the change was made.
 

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