Home Brew Shop

Post #1 made 14 years ago
In South Africa, malts, hops, yeast ... in fact everything home brew related , are sold out of home brew shops(HBS) in Johannesburg. My problem is that my LHBS is 500km from me. One can order online, but, because of the weights involved it costs A LOT of money on postage (and these LHBS owners load the postage for an extra buck). As such, this is making my hobby pretty expensive.

I was thinking of starting a LHBS in my home town from home. In this way, I expand our hobby(lifestyle? :drink: ) AND I can supply my own needs. The problem is that people in my town only know the local beers and I don't think they know one can brew your own beer.

I think, doing the following, will get people interested :
  • 1. Start a beer club where people can taste micro brewery/home brewed beers from around the country/world
    2. Have evenings where brewers from micro breweries chat about brewing
    3. Start people with kits and move them up from there
Is it worth all the effort? What are your thoughts?
Last edited by cipher on 11 Oct 2011, 19:50, edited 5 times in total.

Post #2 made 14 years ago
Hi Cipher

Your post highlights just how lucky some of us are when it comes to getting our brewing supplies. In the UK there are numerous online stores all fighting for your custom which helps keep costs down, and my local HBS is 1/2 a mile away !!!
cipher wrote:1. Start a beer club where people can taste micro brewery/home brewed beers from around the country/world
2. Have evenings where brewers from micro breweries chat about brewing
These two ideas go hand in hand, getting like minded people together and perhaps forming a co-operative and bulk buying grains and hops direct from wholesalers can massively reduce costs.
cipher wrote:3. Start people with kits and move them up from there
Personally I'd start straight into AG BIABing, Kits are an expensive way to brew compared with AG and they are not to everyones taste. AG brewing the BIAB way is easy and requires minimal gear. Perhaps you could "lend" intrested parties the gear to do a brew and sell them the grains/hops/yeast in kit form ?

This way you will be testing the market and will be able to control your initial outlay. With a sack of Pale malt a few specialist grains and a selection of hops you could easly put 1/2 a dozen different kits together.
And once people see how easy it is and how good there beer is there will be no looking back :shoot:

One thing tho.. How do you control your fermenting temperatures ? Its one thing to consider as setting up a brewing fridge is probably more expensive than getting a biab setup.

You could do what a local micro brewery is doing here in the UK and set up a brewery where people can come along and brew one week, then come back when the fermenting is done and bottle/keg.

Sorry for the essay :blush:

:luck:

Yeasty
Last edited by Yeasty on 11 Oct 2011, 20:52, edited 5 times in total.
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Post #3 made 14 years ago
This is a really interesting topic cipher :peace:. There are so many things to consider. Loyalty coming from an educational system based on quality equipment and ingredients is just one aspect :o. I see that Yeasty has just apologised for an essay (and a very good one) so I'll only mention a few aspects now and they are just some of the many important things to investigate or consider...

1. Investigate Postage: Make some phone calls and set up meetings with courier companies. How much will it cost you to bring in a ton of grain? How much will it then cost you to send 5kg / 25 kgs around the country and continent? These are essential figures you need to know.

2. Tinned kits caused me to give up brewing twice so I'm with Yeasty. I think tinned kits are the hardest of all beers to brew well and I think many of them can't be brewed without major faults. Investigate the costs of making your own fresh wort kits rather than tinned kits. Let people taste the difference between tins and FWK's. If they like the tins, great, If not, explain that they need to go straight to FWK's which are actually a lot less work for them as well.

3. I like your first two ideas but maybe consider forming a co-op or do discounted 'pre-sales'. The people in your home-town would then benefit from cheaper prices but they finance the 'show'. In other words, use your locals to finance the purchase of grains, equipment etc. They put up all the money in advance and get the products at cost plus 'whatever' or share the profits. You provide all the labour. The profits though must come from mail orders. You need volume to be able to make good purchases.

I think it is a very hard game but I also think that a bit of creativity coupled with excellent advice resulting in loyalty could make it a very successful venture.

Sorry, I was actually trying to be really brief :roll:

;)
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 11 Oct 2011, 21:17, edited 5 times in total.
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Post #4 made 14 years ago
Sounds like a interesting venture you're planning. I commend you.

There is a guy who started a LHBS close to my parents' house where my dad buys his stuff. He was in the same situation as you; wanted a shop that supplied him with his own supplies and extra money to supplement his hobby. I'm not sure when he started, but I imagine that demand was quite low to begin with. He started by selling everything out of his basement. Now he's started his own micro(probably more like nano)brewery in a warehouse he bought where he also runs his LHBS.

Some things that he did to build business:
He hosted periodic brew sessions at his home. I know for sure some were through his church, but I imagine any organization or club you're affiliated with is a good way to spread the word. He made it two parts. The first was the actual brew day. The second was a tasting.
He also had a booth at local fairs/festivals. Might sound obvious, but that's always gonna be a good way to attract attention.
Do you have a very local brewery? If so, I would get on their good side. Work under the agreement that you'll send business each others' way. If the brewery finds someone especially interested in craft beer, they can suggest homebrewing. Once you build up a customer base, you can have events at the brewery where they're getting extra business.
And there's a thousand ways to advertise for free/cheap these days.

I say "go for it". Good luck.

Post #5 made 14 years ago
Wow, the response exceeded my expectations! Thank you for everyone's advice! One of the LHBS owners in Johannesburg told me that he sells brew stuff because it is his passion and he will " ... never make money off it". But, as I mentioned, ALL LHBS are there so that is probably why.

When talking about brew demonstrations, would that (pratically) involve the people attending as well? Meaning ... that they make their own brew or just watch the process. Maybe showing the process and have made up AG kits available made up according to the recipe demonstrated. And of course, a few home brews available while waiting for the mash.

@PistolPatch : My first brew was a kit and it was horrible! My second batch was a AG BIAB (and it was great)!

My main concern is getting people informed ... pamphlets? newspaper ads? maybe social media!

Post #6 made 14 years ago
cipher wrote:When talking about brew demonstrations, would that (pratically) involve the people attending as well? Meaning ... that they make their own brew or just watch the process. Maybe showing the process and have made up AG kits available made up according to the recipe demonstrated. And of course, a few home brews available while waiting for the mash.
For the owner I mentioned, he did one beer but made the whole process hands-on. For example (and I never attended, just heard this from my dad), he would let the attendees do everything possible to make it as interactive as possible. By doing it that way, you show that the process is quite simple. He would also do things along the way to help illustrate what's happening. Examples might be an iodine test. Not to show that you HAVE to do an iodine test, but to illustrate that starches are being converted to sugar. Another example from him, he would take thermometer readings of the wort as it was chilling. That's a pretty obvious thing, but still illustrates how quickly wort can be chilled. I'm sure you could have them do hydrometer readings throughout the boil, again, not that you HAVE to do them, just illustrating the point of boil-off. You could have them help with milling grain, weighing grain, weighing hops, making the hop additions to the kettle, etc., etc., etc. I think, for me, that would have been a nice thing to attend before starting to brew. And obviously you could make it as complicated or relaxed as you wanted. Maybe do the first few more relaxed then get more in-depth as you do more demos.

And yes, he had homebrew for everyone to taste. I think he has ~4 taps. So they would sample the fruits of his labor. But if this is a recurring theme, you could easily have the beer from the previous demo on tap. That might open up dialogue with comparing the kits you sold them to the beer made at the demo; same recipe, different brewer, different taste, why?. That could be interesting, plus free beer.

As for selling the kits you're brewing during the demo, I think that's a great idea. You could have AG and extract versions so as to include all skill levels that attend.
Last edited by BrickBrewHaus on 11 Oct 2011, 23:46, edited 5 times in total.
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