Local brew shop malt prices

You got about 14 pounds of grain (roughly 12 pounds of base grain and 2 pounds of specialty grain) + 2oz mt hood for $38....

morebeer would have charged you roughly $30 plus shipping (unless you increased your order to $59 and then you'd get free shipping.

So I'd say you paid a fairly standard LHBS price. If your $38 included tax, you definitely did OK.

 

Far more than my LHBS.

If the $38 included the hops ... then 14# grain cost ~$34 = $2.42 / #

Far more than my LHBS.
MO - $1.50
Crystal - $1.70
Wheat - $1.35

 

Last bag of Rahr pale ale malt: $39.00 for 55 lbs (was on special). American 2-row is $39.00 / 50 lbs regularly.
Nonbulk malts are $1.45/lb, pretty much irrespective of the malt.

OP's malts would have been ~$20.00.

I must add that my LHBS generally has really great prices. Turnover isn't great so I don't generally buy yeast or malt extract there.

 

All of that would run me ~$30 at my local LHBS, closer to $34 after tax.

 

Higher than I pay, but not egregious. That would normally run slightly over $30 without tax.

However, I did notice that NB lists two prices for Mt. Hood 1oz packets. One of the options was $4/oz while the other was $2/oz.

 

It's steep. My LHBS is steep on foreign grain, foreign hops, and specialty grains. I pay upwards of $2 per pound of each. $2.50/oz of EKG. I need a bulk order soon.

 

This is why it pays to buy base malt in bulk.

The only way I can get to $38 is if they charged somewhere around $2.25 a pounds for maris otter ( which is not egregious for a per lb LHBS sale). If so that was $22-25 right there, when you could've had a 55 lb sack for about $55.

 

What's your lhbs? I'm in VA too and would love to find some better options.

 

Could be worse. The only LHBS here in Columbia is 2.50/lb base malts, and 2.95/lb specialty malts.

 

I would have probably paid about $8-10 less locally.

None of the malts are close to $2 a pound. Maybe 1.50 or something for MO. The hops would have been under $2 an ounce.

 

$38 certainly feels like a lot for an all grain recipe but when I break it down, it doesn't seem excessive. My experience is that hops from the LHBS go for about $4/oz and grain around $2/lb or maybe a little bit less. After tax and milling, $38 doesn't seem terrible until you figure you could have purchased a case of SNPA instead.

 

One thing that is not really being taken into account here is the type of Maris Otter your LHBS is stocking. If they've got a floor malted variety...than you should be paying a premium (for a good reason). If it is not, then you maybe be getting a bit over-charged. One thing though that you have to take into consideration is the homebrew shop's side of this. How much are they getting charged to ship the grains to their store? Are they weighing out and crushing the grains for you? I don't mind paying a bit of a premium if I'm getting good product and good service.

 

Where in Texas are you shopping? Some shops here are full on gouge pricing on grain. It's hard to find anybody selling in bulk at a meaningful discount and most/all of the homebrewing bulk buys have dried up. LHBS know there is less competition so prices are up.

Those prices would not be unreasonable if you bought a lot of English or Belgian variants of that grain bill but I would have a hard time paying those prices for Briess.

 

Y'all might could be way the F up north with the rest of them there damn Yankees.

Weekend Brewer
Chester VA

 

Nope, I'm in Hampton, even farther south than you, podna! I'll check 'em out next time I'm in Richmond. Thanks!

 

I don't have an LHBS so I mail order my grain. I do it on a batch by batch basis, so I am paying a premium over bulk buys. My most recent order had 21 lbs including 20 lbs Maris otter and 1 lbs pale chocolate malt. Mean price was $2/lb, plus shipping, so probably more like $2.50-2.75 per pound. So your cost was a little higher than mine. As long as I could get all ingredients from the same place, I would pay a little more to support an LHBS. The convenience of being able to return to the store when I forget to buy the yeast beats having to place a second mail order and pay shipping charges twice. Can you guess what I forgot to buy when I ordered my Maris and pale chocolate?

 

My local shop has a virtual bag.
This allows allows you to buy 50# of base grains(2-row-pilsener,6-row,etc) for 38.99
This allows me to split the cost between two batches of beer and only really pay for the specialty grains every other batch.
So 1 batch runs close to the OP the next batch can be run for bout 20 bucks including hops and yeast. (depending on yeast needs)

As for the price on hops, i average 2.50-3.99 for 2 oz of hops at my LHBS.

 

I paid $70 for a 55lb sack of Best Malz Pilsner malt from my local shop.
Compared to online prices with shipping I thought I did pretty ok.

 

Try to avoid poppin' in within an hour or two of closin'time b/c sometimes they already be gone.