Dazza1shot
Active Member
Hi was just wondering is it permitted to post views of home brew stores on here, I would like to post about my experience recently but want to make sure it is allowed first.
Cheers
Cheers
LHBS Reviews
- Thread starter Dazza1shot
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Your title says LHBS so as long as its local i don't see any problem. :thumb:
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stevej
Guest
Great stuff!!!!
My LHBS is the hop and grape in darlington ive used this store from starting out 2 years ago brewing mainly kits since moved on from that tho, Going from walking into the store not having any clue what so ever til this day. The lady in the shop {mel} can not do enough for you and her husband is so nice, Very reasonable prices but whats more important is the knowledge and the passion on what they do
Regards Steve
My LHBS is the hop and grape in darlington ive used this store from starting out 2 years ago brewing mainly kits since moved on from that tho, Going from walking into the store not having any clue what so ever til this day. The lady in the shop {mel} can not do enough for you and her husband is so nice, Very reasonable prices but whats more important is the knowledge and the passion on what they do
Regards Steve
Sadly my LHBS Only seems to sell kits and not only that they all appear to be covered in dust and do not look very fresh.. He sells lots of fermenting equipment and he seems a nice guy but if you wanted to do any kit of extract let alone all grain you'd be out of luck as he sells no ingredients..
Similar experience to Covrich! LHBS's don't seem to cater for grain brewers anyway. And they seem to stock about three yeasts, not kept in the fridge, hops are over priced and often old, etc. I'd love a good one within a reasonable drive, I guess they can't compete with online companies and there aren't enough grain brewers within most localities.
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stevej
Guest
Thats sad mine does stock a lot of kits but im lucky i can walk in and ask for any yeast big fridge with loads of whitelab yeats a good selection of dried yeast every grain you could imagine the only thing is all the grain is stored out back so unless you no what you want its a bit hard to explain what you would like to try i guess
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stevej
Guest
anyone want to buy any lol
ManseMasher
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How local is local? The closest one to me is 30 odd miles away, but they do online as well. Postage v diesel has got to be pretty close, but either way their service is brilliant. If I'm in the area I'll pop in, if I don't think I'll be there for a while, then I order it in. Best of both I suppose.
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stevej
Guest
8 miles for me same goes though mine does online never tried it though
Is that in Partick ?
If so,I bought my Old Conkerwood kit from there one day I was ahem,passing through whilst at work.
Good shop,pretty small but well stocked.
Yeah pms67. Great for any kit you can imagine and Coopers kits are great value. Grain however is too dear for me. I sometimes go through to Edinburgh as TheBrewStrore is cheaper for grain. Oh and the lady behind the counter needs to smile a wee bit more too :-)
Mine is great has lots kits as well as wine kits (never tried them) also has a lot of grain and hops. The bloke who has it has helped me out loads telling me how it all works and showing me his set up. Done my first AG this week and he gave me recipe and then weighed out my hops into separate bags for me to add at the required times
Cwrw666
Landlord.
My LHBS is on the Aberystwyth road in Cardigan, run by a very nice pensioner lady who is always good for a nice long chat. They sell mostly kits but you do have to check the use by date! Price-wise they compare very well with online suppliers who, although cheaper for the kit itself, have delivery charges that put their prices up to LHBS level. Sadly they don't cater very well for AG brewers. As others have said, hops etc. are a bit dear and possibly not so fresh. But I can't see how they could possibly compete with bulk online purchases anyway.
TitanicStruggle
Active Member
Does anyone know if there are any LHBS in Cardiff, only Wilkos that I know of sells HB supplies?
MyQul
Chairman of the Bored
My LHBS is in Brixton (about 20min bike ride from me in Peckham). It's primary buisness isnt selling to HBers, its doing AG beer workshops and as a side business they sell to home brewers.
Quite the opposite to most of your replies here they have couple of dusty kits but most cater for AG and extract brewers. They have a good range of Youngs malt extract (I buy if for starters) and have an excellent range of malts and hops (which they will sell you in amounts you want rather than say 500g or 100g) as when a workshop customer comes in they ask them what beer they want to make during a beer workshop so need to have a wide range of ingredients to make many styles of beer. They also sell an increasingly large range of equipment as well as dried yeast (they stock all or almost all of the Fermentis range). They also give away as many free glass bottles as you like. (http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=52047)
Price wise I'm pretty sure the prices are comparable to online prices. I just give a list of what I want to Karl or Bruno (the owners) they give me the goods, tell me how much it all comes to and I give them the money. They do have a price list on there computer but I can never be bothered to ask how much individual ingedients are. And of course because they get through so much stuff doing workshops the ingredients are always fresh
Both Karl and Bruno are really friendly and knowledegable (they have to be knowledgeable as they run beer workshops and will obviuosly get asked a lot of questions) When I go in on saturdays they're always really busy but stop to do my order up and have a bit of a chat.
They also have a bottleshop selling ale from various micro breweries from around London. They do a homebrew club once a month (which I can never get to because of work) and have recently opened a second site which is a microbrewery
http://londonbeerlab.com/home-brew-supplies/
Quite the opposite to most of your replies here they have couple of dusty kits but most cater for AG and extract brewers. They have a good range of Youngs malt extract (I buy if for starters) and have an excellent range of malts and hops (which they will sell you in amounts you want rather than say 500g or 100g) as when a workshop customer comes in they ask them what beer they want to make during a beer workshop so need to have a wide range of ingredients to make many styles of beer. They also sell an increasingly large range of equipment as well as dried yeast (they stock all or almost all of the Fermentis range). They also give away as many free glass bottles as you like. (http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=52047)
Price wise I'm pretty sure the prices are comparable to online prices. I just give a list of what I want to Karl or Bruno (the owners) they give me the goods, tell me how much it all comes to and I give them the money. They do have a price list on there computer but I can never be bothered to ask how much individual ingedients are. And of course because they get through so much stuff doing workshops the ingredients are always fresh
Both Karl and Bruno are really friendly and knowledegable (they have to be knowledgeable as they run beer workshops and will obviuosly get asked a lot of questions) When I go in on saturdays they're always really busy but stop to do my order up and have a bit of a chat.
They also have a bottleshop selling ale from various micro breweries from around London. They do a homebrew club once a month (which I can never get to because of work) and have recently opened a second site which is a microbrewery
http://londonbeerlab.com/home-brew-supplies/
TitanicStruggle
Active Member
That's random, Canton house is about a minutes walk from my house and I've never seen or noticed an advert for homebrewing supplies. Is it still there? I'll give them a ring later, Having just spent £40 on HB supplies from Tesco direct seeing as there's a sale on I'm fully stocked at the moment. thanks
Dazza1shot
Active Member
Okay seeing as I started this thread I will add my review of my local store
Love Brewing they have two shops one in Liverpool on west derby road and one in Chesterfield
The Liverpool shop Is my local one and have been using them since I started brewing in December.
Firstly I will add that my first kit complete with barrel Fv and all the other associated kit was purchased onine But after my first brew I was bitten with the bug and wanted to have another barrel conditioning while driving king one dry
so off I headed to love brewing to purchase my neXT barrell all was going just well I nursed my evil dog brew through near three weeks of fermenting and barreled it the night before returning in to work offshore dreaming of drinking my spoils on y return.
The disaster four days into my trip offshore my Mrs Cntacts me to inform me that that my tap had come loose and I had lost a third of my beer
Gutted I called the store where I spoke to the manager (rrichard) who advised getting g her to tighten it as much as she could, he even offered to call round and help if he was nearer to his store.
Well I salvaged my brew and it was highly drinkable fast forward a month and a half and I am transferring my bad cat I to the very same barrel four days in and yup you guessed it the dawn thing leaks again, tightened it up leaked once more and yet again three ti es I tightened it, three weeks later the brew was ruined.
I called the shop and was advised to call in the next week when Richard was in running his classes which I did, spoke to the guy and he gladly swapped the barrel for a brand new king keg leaving me with just the difference to pay, not only that but he gave me Half the price off my next kit and even gave me so e 8g co2 bulbs for free to tide me over as I am starting to use the s30 gas cylinder.
Overall I will never consider using another LHBS as this guy and his staff are very knowledgeable and very keen to help and the customer er service by Richard and his staff is amazing.
Not to mention the loyalty bonus they offer you get a tenner off for every hundred spent.
Love Brewing they have two shops one in Liverpool on west derby road and one in Chesterfield
The Liverpool shop Is my local one and have been using them since I started brewing in December.
Firstly I will add that my first kit complete with barrel Fv and all the other associated kit was purchased onine But after my first brew I was bitten with the bug and wanted to have another barrel conditioning while driving king one dry
so off I headed to love brewing to purchase my neXT barrell all was going just well I nursed my evil dog brew through near three weeks of fermenting and barreled it the night before returning in to work offshore dreaming of drinking my spoils on y return.
The disaster four days into my trip offshore my Mrs Cntacts me to inform me that that my tap had come loose and I had lost a third of my beer
Gutted I called the store where I spoke to the manager (rrichard) who advised getting g her to tighten it as much as she could, he even offered to call round and help if he was nearer to his store.
Well I salvaged my brew and it was highly drinkable fast forward a month and a half and I am transferring my bad cat I to the very same barrel four days in and yup you guessed it the dawn thing leaks again, tightened it up leaked once more and yet again three ti es I tightened it, three weeks later the brew was ruined.
I called the shop and was advised to call in the next week when Richard was in running his classes which I did, spoke to the guy and he gladly swapped the barrel for a brand new king keg leaving me with just the difference to pay, not only that but he gave me Half the price off my next kit and even gave me so e 8g co2 bulbs for free to tide me over as I am starting to use the s30 gas cylinder.
Overall I will never consider using another LHBS as this guy and his staff are very knowledgeable and very keen to help and the customer er service by Richard and his staff is amazing.
Not to mention the loyalty bonus they offer you get a tenner off for every hundred spent.
