Seven Bridges Cooperative

Homebrew

325 River St
Ste A
Santa Cruz, California, 95060-2733
United States

// CLOSED //
PLACE STATS
Average:
4.39
Reviews:
5
Ratings:
7
pDev:
7.97%
View: Place Reviews
Recent ratings and reviews.
Ratings by bierfreundlich:
Photo of bierfreundlich
Reviewed by bierfreundlich from California

4.46/5  rDev +1.6%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4
I went to school in Santa Cruz and started brewing extract brews while I was there. I have since moved back to my hometown of Bakersfield and converted to all-grain brewing, but I still find myself buying most of my ingredients from Seven Bridges even though it is further away from me now. They offer everything, all organic. I believe they were the first homebrew supply store to offer only organic products and ingredients. The place is small and the people are very helpful. I feel like they consistently have fresh ingredients on hand. They supply green beans if you're into coffee roasting too. Overall, I like this place very much. It is my preferred place to by grain and hops for my brews, although it may be a little steep in price (but they do discount the price of grain if you are buying a lot).
Jan 14, 2012
More User Ratings:
Photo of mjohnd
Reviewed by mjohnd from California

5/5  rDev +13.9%
vibe: 5 | quality: 5 | service: 5 | selection: 5
CLOSED
They shut down earlier this year (2017). I often drive by the shop in Santa Cruz and it is completely empty. The website is still up but you can't order. It's a shame.
Sep 21, 2017
 
Rated: 4 by mctizzz from California

Jun 13, 2014
 
Rated: 4 by BeerisUber from Washington

Oct 21, 2013
Photo of willjschmidt
Reviewed by willjschmidt from California

4.44/5  rDev +1.1%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4.5
An all organic homebrew shop located in Santa Cruz, CA.

I really like this place. They have a nice selection of equipment and a great selection of ingredients. All the malt and hops are organic. The grain and mill is in the back of the shop. You tell the guy at the counter what you want and then a guy in the stockroom mills the grain and packages it up for you. The employees are very helpful and friendly as well.

Even though it's a bit of a further drive for me from my closest homebrew shop, I prefer to go here.
Dec 08, 2011
Photo of karst
Reviewed by karst from Missouri

4.15/5  rDev -5.5%
Bought hop rhyzomes and found the service re. crop availabilty, packaging, and shipping notification- all excellent. Unable to contact me about a certain hop variety's crop failure, they called me personally and offered a substitute or refund check option.

Perusing their twenty seven page illustrated catalog, I found the items available reasonably priced compaired to the shops I have visited locally.

Easy to use web site. Quality, service and selection what you want in a mainstream homebrew shop. I would recommend checking it out.
Apr 21, 2005
Photo of charlesw
Reviewed by charlesw from New York

4.7/5  rDev +7.1%
Caveat: I haven't been inside the store - only ordered by phone, mail and web.

History
The 7 Bridges Co-op is all about brewing organic beer. They formed with the idea of selling supplies for a bit and then morphing into a brew pub and such. They were perhaps a bit ambitious with the original plans and they were peraps a bit too cooperative and not keeping a close enough check on the bottom line, but they say that they'll have profits soonish and may still make it to a brewpub.

My experience
I wanted to brew all-organic beer. None of my local shops sell anything even remotely organic (despite a strong local organic movement, but whatever). I turned to the web for assistance and I found 7 bridges.

The web site doesn't work well with my browser (sigh and Opera, since you ask). They always have monthly specials on several items: a featured kit (extract to all grain), supplies, yeast, equipment. They really do pay attention to this and the specials are good deals and do change every month.

They offer more selection in ingredients than I know what to do with. They buy in bulk and repackage themselves. What you get is vacuum packed in whatever the ordered quantity was. They can crush or mill your grains for you. I have never (1 1/2 years experience) received old or stale product from them. They do (rarely) get too much of something or have something get a bit older - in that case it is explicitly labeled as such and goes on sale as not up to their standards.

They carry a VERY wide selection of White Labs and Wyeast products and ship with ice/gel packs for free (when you order 2 or more). The yeast I have received (on the right coast!) has always been viable on arrival.

In addition to all of your beer brewing/bottling/kegging needs they also deal in (organic of course) coffee beans and roasters.

I usually phone my orders in (because their site doesn't like my browser) and the help is always very friendly. They have some helpful advice for new brewers but I have found that when I have a weird technical question ("Can I add yeast to my brew twice?") they don't always know what to say.

I probably get 3 or 4 catalogs a year including seasonal specials and all of the regular stuff.

Anyway, I've had very good luck with the place and heartily recommend it to anyone!
Jun 18, 2003
Seven Bridges Cooperative in Santa Cruz, CA
Place rating: 4.39 out of 5 with 7 ratings