PLEASE let the Northern Brewer buy-out be a hoax!

[ericbw]

My local home brew store is within walking distance of my house so I will continue to support the local guy. He cares about his customers and goes the extra mile to see that we are happy, so I will try to keep him happy as well. It's good for both of us as well as the other local brewers that I have met because of his store.

Yeah, but how you gonna walk home with a 50 pound sack of grain? That's crazy talk.

 

[swampbrewcrew]

Not too sure why they would want a homebrew supply provider.

It's money. An info graphic put out by the AHA estimates that home brew accounts for 1% of the beer brewed domestically in the US. That's a small percentage, but with the merger of AB InBev and Miller/Coors it translates to millions in lost revenue. Home brewing is legal in all states so they can't fight it without buying the grains and hops, or they can get in on selling supplies. If they do buyout NB, they will start the game with a good chunk of the market.

 

[MidAtlanticBrew]

22.41 shipping to my house makes a sack about 57 bucks. I hope you are enllightend

LOL .... that's great but not everyone lives at your house. I certainly don't. 50 pounds delivered to my house from MR is 10 percent cheaper ..... and it's delivered in two days every time I order ... still hoping to by enlightened but you've yet to turn the lights on

 

[Citizen86]

Yeah, but how you gonna walk home with a 50 pound sack of grain? That's crazy talk.

Don't be a sissy?

LOL .... that's great but not everyone lives at your house. I certainly don't. 50 pounds delivered to my house from MR is 10 percent cheaper ..... and it's delivered in two days every time I order ... still hoping to by enlightened but you've yet to turn the lights on

You're the one that said a sack of Briess is $75 + shipping at NB. He was pointing out he doesn't see that price.....

 

[Yeastieboy]

Long as they keep sending me grains, I could care less who owns them.

 

[jammin]

anybody wanna lend me some salt?

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

My local home brew store is within walking distance of my house so I will continue to support the local guy. He cares about his customers and goes the extra mile to see that we are happy, so I will try to keep him happy as well. It's good for both of us as well as the other local brewers that I have met because of his store.

That must be nice. My LHBS - the one I don't avoid for other reasons - now has four locations, that helpfully form a slightly lopsided circle, 2/3 the diameter of the entire metropolitan area, with the midpoint between my apartment and my current employer more or less at the center.

There has never been a time since i discovered bulk hops that I would buy a non bulk hop from an online vendor. Online vendors like NB charge out of control price per oz. The cheapest hop per oz they have is $1.99 (for Magnum for example which you can get $9/lb). My lhbs sells that for about $1.00 / oz.Buy 3oz of miscellaneous hops that $6 + $8 shipping you are now at $14 for 3oz of hops there are many places online that will buy you a lb of magnum shipped.

As for specialty grains there certainly are some grains my labs doesn't carry but all I have to do is ask and they will order for me. They do have a hard time getting a few things like certain english crystal malts. And at that point I will buy from the most competitive online vendor and I will buy enough to store and last me for multiple brews.

*shrug* Northern Brewer has a lot of hops my LHBS doesn't carry; some grains, too (so far: carawheat, midnight wheat, golden naked oats, golden promise, and I'ma need some chocolate wheat soon). I'd certainly never order just one set of hops by itself, but I certainly see the appeal of putting in 3-odd orders per year with a bunch of specialty grains and hops concentrated together with the flat-rate shipping...

My LHBS would probably order grains for me too. In full bags. Not real useful for things I'd use a pound or less of per recipe...

 

[ericbw]

I'm going to ask a stupid question. When you guys are talking about "bulk hops" at your store, do you mean they have a bin where you scoop and weigh? Or do you mean buying a pre-packaged pound of hops in a bag?

 

[Johow]

I usually buy pre packaged 1lb bags.

 

[JonM]

Neighbors might look at you funny if they see you walking around with a vacuum-sealed bag of whole leaf hops. [emoji12]

 

[Bobby_M]

Not too sure why they would want a homebrew supply provider.

It starts with whittling the grain selection down to 6row, flaked rice, and flaked corn. Next thing you know, they strong arm the distributors to do the same.

 

[Yeastieboy]

NB delivered 50 lbs of Rahr 2-row to my door last week for $38 ($7.99 shipping). I am 1,200 miles away.

2-row from LHBS... $55 for Briess.

 

[JonM]

It starts with whittling the grain selection down to 6row, flaked rice, and flaked corn. Next thing you know, they strong arm the distributors to do the same.

Then they start pushing the beechwood. Everything has to have beechwood.

 

[pshankstar]

NB delivered 50 lbs of Rahr 2-row to my door last week for $38 ($7.99 shipping). I am 1,200 miles away.

2-row from LHBS... $55 for Briess.

Wow, I wish I could get a sack of 2-row shipped for $7.99. I just checked to see what the shipping would be.

I'll stick with my LHBS for my bulk grains, about $55 for 2-row sack.

Also, I still haven't seen anything online about the buyout. If it ends up being true, hopefully it doesn't make a negative impact on them and their customers.

 

[Yeastieboy]

If prices go up, Customers go away.

 

[DaNewf]

Neighbors might look at you funny if they see you walking around with a vacuum-sealed bag of whole leaf hops. [emoji12]

I found hops growing on a walking trail I used to go to a lot. The first year I harvested them I put then in a clear shopping bag and drove home with them on the passenger seat. As I was driving along I looked down and realized I might run into some complications if I got hauled over for anything.

No running yellows or rolling stops for the rest of that drive.

Now I make sure to keep them out of sight for the drive home.

 

[mmb]

I wonder if you could mash in with bud light. Already PH balanced for freshness.

 

[JonM]

Doesn't Green Flash's Palate Wrecker mash with finished beer?

 

[kh54s10]

NB delivered 50 lbs of Rahr 2-row to my door last week for $38 ($7.99 shipping). I am 1,200 miles away.

2-row from LHBS... $55 for Briess.

I guess I will have to look at online again. The last time I looked, no supplier would ship for flat rate. The bags of grain were not included and when I put them in the cart and added shipping it was always $20 or more...... So a $35 price for 2-row suddenly was $55. My LHBS sells for about $40.

 

[GHawk]

More Beer is $36 for base malt sack and to Florida $18. Total about $54.
LHBS 64 miles round trip.
Send me the sack to my front door, please.

 

[kh54s10]

I use Rahr 2 row so:
Rahr 2 row to Rhode Island from Morebeer PA. $46.99 + $18.62 shipping = $65.61. LHBS is about 7 miles away, they sell it to me for $40-$45.. No brainer......

Rahr 2 row to Rhode Island. $34.99 + $36.46 shipping = $71.45 ......

There is no way that ordering full bags online is possible for me.

BTW - I am sure this is a hoax. Inbev, even if it was interested in the Homebrew industry would have to buy out most of the others to make any difference. Someone stated that homebrew is 1% of beer. NB is not much more to the total homebrew supply industry.

 

[jekeane]

My LHBS would probably order grains for me too. In full bags. Not real useful for things I'd use a pound or less of per recipe...

A lot of distributors my shop uses BSG offer 1#, 5# prepackaged volumes. may be worth the look. I often have them order me a 5# package then I keep the rest in a tupperware type container.

 

[jabba11]

LOL .... that's great but not everyone lives at your house. I certainly don't. 50 pounds delivered to my house from MR is 10 percent cheaper ..... and it's delivered in two days every time I order ... still hoping to by enlightened but you've yet to turn the lights on

so its 5 dollars cheaper...use a coupon they send you almost every day...heck I get a 20% off one item coupon about once every two weeks. save 6 bucks on the bag..youre 1dollars richer but if your getting faset etc from your place and cheaper its because its closer to you. I get sacks of grain inside of three days usually. They don't push those a week cause your paying full price on the shipping. I wont say everything I can buy is cheaper there but when I combine orders etc which I usually try to do they almost always come out ahead. As a vet I get 10% off my order (excluding blichman and stuff they can discount) every time if I want but like I said I almost always just use a coupon they have going. Somebody mentioned growing your own hops. I do that too and its not hard for those wishing to do it and have the space. As for hops they are generally expensive when compared to pound prices or something like that but again once I pay shipping etc I can easily just add hops to my order of whatever else I need (whirfloc, specialty grains, yeast, etc etc) and its comes out cheaper per ounce. Im am all about saving some coinand I WILL stop using NB if they are owned by INBEV but right now Im still not buying into it.

 

[r8rphan]

Hey if this is true, then my retirement plan will be to wait till they've bought up all the competition, start up a homebrew supply business and let the big guys buy me out!

I'll be rich!!!

 

[pvpeacock]

The next step in the master plan:

 

[day_trippr]

 

[pvpeacock]

Lions and tigers and beers, oh my!

 

[jammin]

So why is this a problem again? So many other online stores better than NB. Personally I think they suck

 

[jabba11]

So why is this a problem again? So many other online stores better than NB. Personally I think they suck

ive used em all, never had any real problem with any of em. I think its generally about how close something is to you. If I lived east or west coast I probably wouldn't be using them as it wouldn't be the cheapest most likely. I like Williams brewing too for some things. My LHBS cant beat prices and is very limited in what it carries. I do go there from time to time to try and help support but I'm not paying 20% mark up plus 9% sales tax here. Also I buy my kegs from Adverntures In Homebrewing and steer others there to look first when they ask.

 

[srice]

I've never been able to find low cost shipping on bulk grain and my LHBS is about 30 miles away and has an iffy supply. I've found my best solution is to buy 10 lb bags of grain from MoreBeer. I can buy (5) 10 lb bags for $52.95. I can always find another $6.05 of stuff to hit their free shipping at $59. A 50 lb bag of Briess 2 row is $57.58 shipped to my house. It is actually cheaper for me to buy the grain broken down into 10 lb bags - and based on what other items I need, I may not buy an entire 50 lbs (or I may go the other way and buy 60 lbs).