Where do you get your stuff from?

[Skippi]

Just wanted to give a huge thumbs up to The Home Brew Shop (Farnborough).

I placed an order at 1:30am this morning for local collection (I am fortunate to be 15/20min drive away).
Was phoned at 9:40am the same day to say that it was ready for collection.

It really doesn't get any better than this - Thanks 'The Home Brew Shop'.

 

[DocAnna]

I'm replying to this thread now as one of the sponsors had put a question on another thread about ordering and in my reply I realised I was singing the praises of competitors, and really didn't feel that was fair to put in their thread. However, it was an interesting question and I think worth sharing perspectives on what different retailers do well, and I'm wondering what other's take on this is.

There's a lot of competition in the online homebrew space and there are several considerations for me in choosing who to order from, which will vary month to month. A key consideration is postage or shipping, and an offer of free postage over a certain order cost is very significant. I'll also choose a supplier based on a degree of sub-specialisation:

• Malt Miller for individual malts, which they can be a bit more expensive than others but I know in general I won't get half way through an ingredient list and find they are missing a particular grain or grain type, ie it's worth paying a little extra for the confidence they provide of sufficient grain stocks.
• Brew keg tap provide an excellent service around kegging equipment and I trusted their expertise to be able to recommend what was required when buying all my kegging and kegerator equipment.
• Aliexpress for sundry bits of plastic and metal parts, as these are often experimental, not urgent and fundamentally low cost.
• Geterbrewed have a good interface for their all in grain kit builds and I like their pre-measured hop tea bags they put in the self build kits.
• Crossmyloof do a great range of unique good value yeasts with cheap postage for small packages and are relatively local.
• Craftymaltsters for base grain since they are about 50 mins drive away, great value if collecting the grain and they are particularly lovely grains to work with.
• Hamstead home brew, for their own manufactured cider kits since I reckon they are the best tasting available.

Anna

 

[user 4749]

Anna
I have basically been doing the same as yourself apart from not tried Craftymaltsters yet which I should really try being so close .
Have Also tried Kegthat who were excellent for what i wanted free delivery over £50.
Stuart

 

[Andrew Booth]

Basically most of my malts come from Wicked Homebrew in Brighouse. Liquid yeasts come from the Malt Miller as do some recipe kits or I’m being lazy and can’t be bothered weighing out individual ingredients. Most of my equipment came from Brew2bottle although my Brewster Beacon came from Geterbrewed.I also get some hops and hop sacks from crossmyloof who always have a witty outlook on the emails I get from them. Like I said wicked is where I get 90 percent of my malts which come from Fawcetts in Castleford in a good way this benefits the local economy round here. Also Wicked Brewing because Tony the owner is a great friend and full of good information.

 

[Rodcx500z]

I recently bought some grain from cml for a brew, the base malt was pops ale malt from crafty maltsters and i can say it is really good, also on friday i bought an all grain kit from cml, this morning i got an email saying they thought they had put the wrong yeast in and had posted the right one first class, now that is customer service on the highest level, my kegs i got 2 from bkt, and one from keg that all were good

 

[Cheyne_brewer]

I tend to stick to all grain recipe kits. Worcester Hop Shop are great VFM and excellent service - nice little bundle of goodies with a Xmas order for instance making me feel valued as a customer. Get er Brewed do good AG kits and grains / hops and their equipment prices are usually way cheaper than anyone else.

I don’t have a LHBS so rely on online suppliers for anything I can’t get from Boyes or Wilko.

 

[Andrew Booth]

I get most stuff from various places I still do the occasional grain kit but like to experiment with different malts and hops most places do online these days even some of the smaller shops. In essence My LHBS Wicked Brewing can get anything I need plus tonnes of advice. One of the best things I had when I needed a corny but couldn’t get to the shop I ordered it online and a hour later Tony who owns the shop was at my door with the keg that is way beyond good customer service to me.

 

[SilverShadow]

I'm still very new to grain brewing, having done only a few so far. As a result, I've started out by selecting according to price, rather than reputation. At least until I get competant in what I'm doing

I've used Maltmaster on ebay for grain - price seems OK and a reasonable selection. Same with hops & yeast - all acquired from ebay

Not sure if anyone else has also used Maltmaster/ebay and can vouch for their products?

 

[Rogerh]

I'm still very new to grain brewing, having done only a few so far. As a result, I've started out by selecting according to price, rather than reputation. At least until I get competant in what I'm doing

I've used Maltmaster on ebay for grain - price seems OK and a reasonable selection. Same with hops & yeast - all acquired from ebay

Not sure if anyone else has also used Maltmaster/ebay and can vouch for their products?

As a quick comparison, they do Maris Otter 4kg @ £15.99 compared to Geterbrewed 5kg @£8 ish.