Grain of the Month Club

I'm starting a grain of the month club for home brewers. The basic idea is that members of the club will receive approximately 1lb of a surprise specialty grain each month in the mail. Along with the grain will be recipe suggestions and info. The hope is to help brewers expand their horizons when it comes to what possibilities are out there.

I've put up a site already to start seeing who might be interested in joining the club. Please feel free to hop over and leave me your email address if your interested. I promise not to spam you cause I hate spam too!

http://www.grainofthemonthclub.com

 

I think you need work on your concept. Beginner's may like it but intermediate to advanced brewers will shun it especially at around $10 per pound. Just my opinion.

 

It's possible the concept isn't totally there and I'm open to suggestions.

I took a look at the cost of grain, packaging and shipping and it comes close to $10 alone. I guess if you had massive volume it could be cheaper though

 

"Since we are still working on figuring out interest levels in the club we haven't set any hard pricing yet. The club will probably cost somewhere around 10 bucks a month though. "

Holy grain gouging Batman.

 

Not really when you take into account grain + packaging + shipping costs. It might be the downfall of the idea I do admit but it never hurts to float things out there to check interest

 

I'm about to rain my pessimism on you. Sorry.

I realize the limitation due to shipping costs, but I would never pay $10 a month. I'm already one to experiment a fair amount, and I like the idea of being encouraged to get out of my comfort zone with having the grains delivered to make me feel obligated to using them.

I'd be more likely to pay $20 a month for a full medium-low gravity grain bill, with 1 or multiple possible hop schedules and some yeast recommendations (though that is still getting a bit expensive and you'll need to rely on reputation for very good recipes).

Are there any Canadian flat rate shipping equivalents that would make that possible? From quick estimations I'd say that in the states if you could fit a 9-10 lb grain bill in a medium flat rate box (I think this is possible) you would basically break even after bulk grain, repackaging, processing, and shipping prices, though those are quick estimations which mean's you would probably be best charging $25/month, maybe discount it to $275 for a multi-year sub. This also means you are ignoring the possible market of extract/partial mash brewers. If my LHBS is any indication they are the majority of brewers.

Also consider longevity/cycles. Even if you were able to get the specialty grains down to a reasonable price per pound, I'd be pissed if one month I paid $5 for a pound of crystal or roasted barley with a recipe for a basic amber or stout. I just ran though the list of grains my LHBS carries and there are about 5 or 6 individual grains that I think could be interesting for your initial idea, meaning a customer that after 1 year would not be back.

 

Really cool idea, the cost has to be within reason for a pound of grain (shipping and packing included) may be a great idea to get one of the big online retailers involved who can do this cheaper and get advertising out at the same time to off set the cost.

 

With Canadian rates shipping a pound of a low cost-by-weight item will leave much of the revenue with the shipper. People with easy access to an LHBS will have a hard time justifying the shipping expense. I don't have easy access so depend on Internet and mail order. Purchasing in my neck of the woods requires planning, otherwise the costs are just too high. I usually order large amounts occasionally so the shipping is included but that aside shipping small quantities of consumable products can be treacherous territory. Have you considered more complete packages such as ingredient kits or having a customer selected schedule?

I say this as a Canadian and potential customer who depends on the Internet for anything that isn't locally produced. Canada is a small country with big country transportation problems. I should also mention that my questioning pessimism is often overwhelmed by reality.

 

On another note, perhaps a yeast of a month club might be in order....

 

Thanks for all the feed back! It NEVER hurts to float an idea out there before you spend too much time on it. So I guess the consensus is the cost is just way too high.

Would there be interest in a yeast club like bighorn_brew mentioned?

 

I think the question that remains unanswered is "what's the benefit?" What do I get out of joining your yeast (or grain) club that I couldn't do for myself? If you can answer that, you may have a successful business.

 

Just tossing an idea out there. I agree that 1 lb of surprise grain or a vial or package of yeast a month doesn't really sound like enough to peak someone's interest. It could work of you did a whole grain bill, maybe hops, and no yeast. You send a new one out each month and every recipient interprets the recipe as they want, different yeast, adding fruit or spices, whatever they want. Then they log on to your site and everyone can discuss what they added to it or what process they used. But the problem here is being able to cater to AG and Extract brewers and keeping the price low enough.

 

You could make it hop of the month club and/or yeast of the month club. It would save a bit on shipping and you could get some interesting combinations with different yeasts and hops.

I think yeast would be interesting because you could try different yeast that aren't necessarily used for a particular style. I went to White Labs a couple months ago and it's pretty amazing having an IPA or whatever using 6-7 different types of yeast.

Overall, interesting idea but might be difficult to make any money. However, if you're doing it for fun it might be worth it.

 

Perhaps a better concept would be to start a blog that gives detailed descriptions and usages for a single grain variety each month? That way you could create an index of the grains you have tried and played with, give your opinions and thoughts, and suggest uses for them, then you could collect ad revenue from the blog?

I for one would bookmark something like that, a site that has good detailed descriptions and suggested uses for different and perhaps rarely used grains.