Buffalo NY group buy?

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Interesting. If anyone decides to give it a go, let us know.
 
I picked up a sack of their malt at Lets Do Wine and Beer on Transit - good stuff. They also had an open house and tasting back around Thanksgiving.

I've talked to the owner a few times via FB - if there's interest, I'd be willing to inquire as to what's needed for group pricing.
 
westo2 said:
I picked up a sack of their malt at Lets Do Wine and Beer on Transit - good stuff. They also had an open house and tasting back around Thanksgiving.

I've talked to the owner a few times via FB - if there's interest, I'd be willing to inquire as to what's needed for group pricing.
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That would be great. It sounds like 2-row is their main product, right? I'd love to be able to get some good prices on a few sacks of 2-row.
 
I would be interested also but it scares me!!! I'd be afraid I would start brewing bigger beers than I do now. But seriously I would be in for a sack of two row possibly 2. If the buy gets closer to summer maybe 3.

I generally buy through MoreBeer, at 1.12 per pound for 10lb bag it's hard to beat. I think it's like 36 for a 50, only they won't deliver a 50lb for free. But they will deliver 5 10lb bags for free with their $59 free shipping..... I buy as I need it 2 batches of brew per order works out nice.

Anyway it would be nice play with some locally produced malts. I'm hoping that when Queen City Malting opens in Buffalo they have enough to supply some to homebrewers.
 
I go the more beer route also. $37 for a 50lb sack plus $15 to ship. Comes out to $1.04 a lb.
But I'd be in for a group buy if the price is right. Would like to get a sack of munich cheaper than morebeer sells it for.
 
That's not bad for 1 sack, but I'd have to pay shipping on each sack. Plus, if I price Maris Otter, or other more exotic grains, I can usually get them cheaper locally.

In a grain buy I end up paying less than $40 per sack. So, 5 sacks ends up costing me ~$200 vs. over $250. More Beer is still better than the local LHBS, but group buys are great. I'll usually pick up enough grain for the year.
 
It would be a new thing for me, having my own grain let alone that much but... I could probably get down with one sack to start. Need to step up my game anyway.
 
TheCADJockey said:
I've never heard of them, but after looking at their site the name looks familiar.

Maybe @Hawleyfarms knows something?
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Actually someone just mentioned them a few days ago in a WNY thread but I do not personally know them. I believe they are probably related to assemblyman Hawley. I'm sure that somewhere down the line the Genesee County Hawleys and the Allegany/Wyoming County Hawleys are probably distant cousins.

Only live about 20 minutes from Batavia though and my mother-in-law generally goes to the Reservation at least once a week. If someone is interested in a big buy we could probably do a little transport.
 
i'd be in for 2-4 bags maybe more depending on what the prices work out to...i used ny craft malt on a wet hop pale and i'm happy with how it turned out...be more than happy to switch to that for my base malt
 
b-boy said:
That's not bad for 1 sack, but I'd have to pay shipping on each sack. Plus, if I price Maris Otter, or other more exotic grains, I can usually get them cheaper locally.
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@b-boy... Where do you buy local? I have always found Niagara and now KegWorks to be higher than MB. Marris Otter at the most expensive (1lb bag) at MB is 1.99 and down to 1.74 per lb for a 10lb bag. Niagara is 2.04 and I don't think KegWorks carries it at all.

Over all I save at least $10 a batch. I hate not to shop local. I did buy my carboys (I like glass) and my Malt mill at Niagara Brew, plus some incidentals. I do love to brew, I've wanted to get into since the late 70's, but ppp (price per pint) does play a significant roll.
 
allentwnguy said:
@b-boy... Where do you buy local? I have always found Niagara and now KegWorks to be higher than MB. Marris Otter at the most expensive (1lb bag) at MB is 1.99 and down to 1.74 per lb for a 10lb bag. Niagara is 2.04 and I don't think KegWorks carries it at all.

Over all I save at least $10 a batch. I hate not to shop local. I did buy my carboys (I like glass) and my Malt mill at Niagara Brew, plus some incidentals. I do love to brew, I've wanted to get into since the late 70's, but ppp (price per pint) does play a significant roll.
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Overall, I think MB has pretty good prices. I think they're difficult to beat for retail. I've haven't ordered from them yet. I compared a sack of MO to what I've paid locally and after shipping the cost at MB was a few bucks higher. I didn't look at splitting it out into 10 lb sacks.

Usually I go to NT. I rarely buy bulk grain locally unless I need a 50-55 lb sack of something that I don't have. Last time I think I paid ~$70 for 55 lbs of MO at NT. I will use them for a pound or two of specialty grains as needed.

I've done group buys in Buffalo and Pittsburgh. I stock up on 4-5 sacks base malt (2-row, MO, Pearl, or whatever).

I usually order everything else from Rebel Brewer. Their shipping is not bad and I get it in 2 days.

I'd really love to see a group buy in Buffalo though. The Pittsburgh guys have a really nice process going. They are very well organized. They have a storage locker rented with a loading dock so they can accept pallets. That seems to be a requirement for grain delivery now. They spread the cost of the storage area over the grain costs and it still comes out pretty cheap.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to be involved.
 
I'm hoping the Queen City Maltster at the Barrel Factory will sell to home brewers AND be reasonable. I only do 25 or so batches a year and most are 2-row based so it would be a good change to buy in bulk. I really wish MB had a store near here with their $36 price for a sack price. Still they are a great deal at their 10lb bag mail order prices. If I order by 10am I'm usually brewing by noon the next day.
 
I contacted New York Crafts Malt yesterday (1/9/15) and got some information for everyone. They will sell single 50lb bags of malt.

Currently they have 2-row for $1.00/lb and Light munich for $1.10/lb so that works out to be $50 for a sack of 2-row and $55 for a sack of light munich.

I asked if they had any discounts on bulk buys and they said, "no."

I also asked if we could just come by and pick up the grains if we are just buying one sack at a time and they stated that they would just ship it out.

I looked into ordering some to see what the shipping would be but I believe you have to fill out an application to be a purchaser and I can only imagine that shipping will bump up the cost a little.

Where I think we could save money would be to arrange a group buy so that shipping costs could be distributed a little better.

Someone else may want to look into this. Do we have a club located centrally in the Buffalo, Amherst, Snyder, Williamsville, Eggertsville, Tonawanda or etc. area that could would be interested in this?

Hope this helps everyone.

Helper
 
Thanks for running down that info. Too bad they don't do bulk discounts. It's also kind of silly that they don't allow for pick up. seems like they will basically be on par with more beer. Bummer.
 
Thanks for doing this. Their website says they allow pickup. Maybe that's just for breweries/lhbs.

Maybe its me, but there seems to be a concerted effort in NY to keep wholesale grain away from home brewers. I've looked other malters in NY and they refuse to sell to home brewers, even in bulk. In one case you have to have a physical store with posted hours that can be verified by the malters.

Why is this? I can't imagine that we'd put much of a dent in the local business.
 
b-boy said:
Thanks for doing this. Their website says they allow pickup. Maybe that's just for breweries/lhbs.

Maybe its me, but there seems to be a concerted effort in NY to keep wholesale grain away from home brewers. I've looked other malters in NY and they refuse to sell to home brewers, even in bulk. In one case you have to have a physical store with posted hours that can be verified by the malters.

Why is this? I can't imagine that we'd put much of a dent in the local business.
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I wouldn't say that NY Craft Malts is really trying to keep wholesale grain away from homebrewers. They do in fact sell single sacks of grain AND they are willing to ship. This is pretty rare for a malting company. If their site says they allow pick up then they probably do. When I called maybe they thought I was going to show up at any given time either that day or another unannounced, so they said no. I think they are actually trying to be accessible to homebrewers because they have it stated that they are all for homebrewers all over their site, and they are brewers too. I think just don't think they have the logistics of everything sorted out yet. They are actually just getting the ball rolling too I would say (or at least they are very early in the process). They only have 2-row and light munich available but they have a "malt of the month" thing starting up this month so I think they are getting into roasting a lot more so they are probably really busy.

If they don't sell on site I can kinda see why. They may not have an established area to sell malt to walk-ins. For insurance and liability purposes they probably don't need people walking around the malting facility with equipment, shipping trucks, and fork trucks going around.

I would hate to hassle them but maybe someone could call and sort this out. Perhaps state, "Your website says you allow for pickups, whats the best day/time/way to go about this."

For the price per pound I would love to be able to buy from them but I would like to be able to go directly there and pick up a couple of sacks at a time.

Also I would like to figure out if we have to fill out their purchaser application or not.
 
I wasn't specifically talking about them. In fact they seem to be a pretty unusual case. If I can pickup, I'll definitely go there.

From what i've seen, it looks like grain suppliers kinda shut down the pipeline about 2 years ago. I'm just wondering out loud what precipitated that. Did pressure come from the govt, their lhbs customers, breweries, etc.
 
I will give them a call on Mon. Or Tues. It would be pretty easy to get a group of people together for a group buy. Not sure how we'd work setting up a group buy storage locker as I think Batavia is pretty central to you guys up in buffalo and rochester and the same goes for guys like me down here in Wyoming/Allegany/Livingston counties as well. Thought about contact Silver Lake Brewing Project to see where they are getting their malts too. Would be pretty cool if we could set up something where we pick up our malts and then meetup at the SL brewing project for drinks. At least I think they will be putting in a tap room.
 
b-boy said:
Pressure came from the distributors. Here is what a friend told me a year ago:

"A year or so ago - Country Malt Group [distributor that the Syracuse Group Buy went through] announced that they would no longer sell to homebrewers - only brewing related businesses (breweries and brew shops). The thought is that they were getting a lot of pushback from their commercial accounts due to CMG basically undercutting what a brew shop can sell for. "

I think the other big distributors (BSG, etc.) adopted the same rules- essentially that you need a commercial license in order to do business with them.

jdomres organized the last Buffalo-based group buy, which went really well, but he is busy starting his own brewery and hasn't shown up in this thread recently.

It's good to hear that NY craft malt will sell direct to homebrewers, although at just over $1.00/lb plus shipping, you're (financially) better off buying from an LHBS or through MoreBeer. It is a NYS product, which is nice, but the consistency and quality of the malt will likely not be as good as Rahr, Great Western, CMC, etc. who have gigantic facilities and have been malting for decades.
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Bottom line is base grain (I'm using GW 2-row as an example) is going to cost a buck a pound. MoreBeer sells a 50lb sack for $36 but try to get it!!! I wish there was a store here! 5 sacks are $185 plus 67 freight shipping = a buck a pound. Driving there if they allowed pick up at the warehouse, 432 miles round trip buffalo - Pittsburgh+gas+time, more than $50 a sack. Niagara Brew $60. KegWorks doesn't carry sacks. I don't know perhaps the days of group buys are over.

I also looked for bulk buys and say The Country Malt Group and was hopeful until I read the "will continue to sell direct to any active home brew customer and/or club who has made a purchase from the CMG on or after March 1, 2012, and has an account in good standing which requires an order to have been placed in the last 15 months" Which I believe was the death knell of group buys.

We're stuck... we have a hobby we love that's becoming more popular and the cost is going to follow demand. To me it would make sense for a LHBS to offer base grain at a decent price and make your money from 1lb "body" malts hops, yeast and supplies. For MoreBeer to sell at $36 a sack and make money and the local store to sell for $60, that's a large spread. But hey I'm not the retailer. Right now for my brew dollar MoreBeer is it. 1.12 a pound base grain. I priced out my Haus Ale once and MB was 28.15 and Niagara was 38.27, the only difference was the Vienna malt MB was Weyermann and Niagara had Bestmalz. Again I do shop Niagara for incidentals, it's only 9 miles away. But at $10 a batch (5gal) it's hard to buy ingredients there all the time. I'm not the one to drive 5 miles to get a nickel off a gallon of gas but....

So if brew shops pressured distributors on bulk sales to home brewers they lost the incidental business for hops and yeast and other supplies.
 
Well, I'll probably continue to participate in the Pittsburgh group buy as long as it's around. They're trying to transition to a new person to run it. I have family there, so a weekend trip isn't too big a deal.

I'll post when I'm going. I'm happy to pickup grain for others.
 
@ b-boy... I figured if you go to Pittsburgh often I'd give MoreBeer a shout to see if warehouse pick-up was available. Unfortunately it's not. Here's their reply...

Thank you for the inquiry. Unfortunately, at this time, our east coast warehouse does not have any public pick-up capabilities. This may become possible in the future, but there is currently no projected date.
 
I can supply 2-row brewer's malt (Briess) at $48 per bag

Here are the conditions:

1) Minimum 10 bags per order - that's not per individual, that's if four or five or ten of you order, the entire order combined has to be minimum 10 bags

2) We work out delivery so that I get rid of all bags in a single go. Someone from up your way could drive to Dunkirk Homebrew to get the entire order, and you folks deal with distribution on your end. Or we can meet somewhere part way between and transfer, but again, either way, all bags go in one delivery effort.

3) Pre-pay by check. Check will be held until the grain is in my hand, just in case there is any problem obtaining it. Then I'll cash the checks, get in touch, and we'll finalize delivery.

Normal in-store price is $63 a bag. This has to be bulk-oriented to make it worthwhile, so trying to make it work for everyone.

We can have grain here by the middle of February.

If you have enough people serious about this, please discuss it among yourselves, PM me and we'll go from there.

There are other types of grain also available but at this point, just looking at the 2-row. Can accept inquiries on other grains.
 
Thanks pmichael. I participated in this last year. I'm very interested. I'll even volunteer to do the pickup in Dunkirk.

I'll commit to 2 sacks of 2-row.

I'd be interested in a price on Maris Otter or Pearl, if that's an option.

Anyone else?
 
I'm still willing to give the bulk buy a shot for my first time, although I could probably only use one sack.
 
If we have someone to make the run, I'm definitely in. Anyway we could get pricing on a few varieties? I'd be interested in Avangard pils if you still carry it.
 
Yes, there are other grains available. I will come up with a list of available and price and post it on a web page that I will not publish anywhere but on this thread, as it will be only for the Buffalo bulk buy and not for public in general.

Will try to get it up in a couple days.
 
pmichael said:
Yes, there are other grains available. I will come up with a list of available and price and post it on a web page that I will not publish anywhere but on this thread, as it will be only for the Buffalo bulk buy and not for public in general.

Will try to get it up in a couple days.
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That would be great. Thanks.
 
It seems base grain prices are similar to the price of a gallon of gas here in Buffalo, we pay the highest. I've searched on-line and GW 2-row base grain is costing from $29 - $36 per sack, here in Buffalo $60. I called a MoreBeer Claifornia store and asked how much a sack of GW 2-row was... $36.99, the same as on-line. I wish they would open a store here in Buffalo!
 
allentwnguy said:
It seems base grain prices are similar to the price of a gallon of gas here in Buffalo, we pay the highest. I've searched on-line and GW 2-row base grain is costing from $29 - $36 per sack, here in Buffalo $60. I called a MoreBeer Claifornia store and asked how much a sack of GW 2-row was... $36.99, the same as on-line. I wish they would open a store here in Buffalo!
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I think shipping is the issue. The farther away you are from a barley field, the more you're going to pay. Grain is heavy, so I guess it makes sense. I know in the group buys I've been in, the shipping generally adds about $7-$8 per sack to the cost.
 
I'll be happy to coordinate the buy, put in the order, and pick up the goods. I'll even handle the money if you're comfortable with that. That way you could use PayPal. Is there a way to do an escrow in PayPal? Or we can just stick to delivering checks right to the Dunkirk shop.

Once we see the price lists, maybe we start the official buy. I'll setup a pick up point somewhere that's convenient for everyone as well. People can do splits, but you have to figure that out yourselves.

The process would be:
  • Open the buy
  • Collect orders
  • Close the buy
  • Collect $
  • Place the order with Dunkirk
  • Pickup the grain from Dunkirk
  • Distribute the grain

Any feedback and/or ideas. I'd love to see this work out.
 
Hey not sure if you guys saw this or not... if you have or are already involved, don't mind me. There's nothing to see.

Kegworks Group Buy

Caught a link to this from facebook. Kegworks is doing a group buy 45.50 for 2-row #50 sack.
 

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