Where do you buy?

Almost always go to my LHBS, but then again, it's less than 5 minutes from my house. I always like to try and support the mom and pop shops in town when I can, and I like the freedom of putting together a recipe and getting the ingredients on the same day.

 

I primarily go to my LHBS. Luckily I have two within 10-15 mins. from my house. I do shop online for hops and buy in bulk from the source (It's extremely cheaper). Recently started to reproduce a couple yeast strains I like so I always have yeast on hand and again trying to cut my cost per batch.

 

I do a mix of both online and my LHBS which is about 10mins from my house... I typically buy my specialty malts at the LHBS along with any yeast and hops I don't personally stock.

Online I do bulk orders for base malt and hops of popular varieties I use often.

 

I primarily use my LHBS but I started growing my own hops last year (putting many more this year) and I am playing around with growing my own non-GMO barley. Just using my home grown ingredients in a limited way right now. I also visit a local health/organic food store for things like pepper corns, sour orange peel etc.

 

I don't live near anything so all my ingredients are bought online. A few hints:

1. I avoid the big-box stores and deal with pop & mom outlets. It takes a little sleuthing, but I find their service better (same day shipping) and inventory near-equal compared to the big stores. Usually I'm dealing with the owner direct. When buying yeast they seem okay with giving out the date on the package.
2. Many of these stores offer fixed rate shipping ($7 - 8/order), if you are only a state or two away it will arrive by ground in two days (important when shipping yeast). Out of state shipments are not taxed from the smaller stores which saves you 'bout 7%.
3. You already know to ship liquid yeast during the cold months, I go ahead and pay for two ice packs just to be safe and schedule my activities to be around when the big brown truck delivers.
4. If buying your grain crushed, I found a fair compromise is to order two recipes at a time. No constraint if crushing your own grain.
5. Don't ignore Amazon. Example: you can get a pound of gypsum for 7 bucks/Prime versus $4/2 oz from the big store in MN. Deals come and go here.

 

I am very thankful for my LHBS being right down the road from where I work. I go during my lunch breaks, and am there pretty much weekly (I'm always forgetting something that I need). The guys there are awesome and a lot of times I bring in my own brews for them to try. They are also a brewery with a taproom, and they've got a huge selection of malt, hops, and any kind of equipment you'd need for brewing, wine-making, etc.

Only if there's a specialty yeast, or experimental hop that I'm looking into trying I'll order online.

 

This store happens to be my LHBS. I enjoyed shopping at a small shop in Pennsylvania, but it's tough to argue with the convenience and selection I now get living a mile or two away from the big guys.

I buy most of my kegging stuff from kegconnection.com and have been very happy with their service

 

My LHBS is a good store but unfortunately not very local. I purchase from them a few times a year when I have another reason to be in that area.

The majority of my purchases have been online. My last two orders have been from MoreBeer. Free shipping for orders over $59 and I received those orders in just a couple of days.

Cheers!

 

I'm in the same boat as the OP. Closest lhbs is about 55 miles away, but I have to travel near there for work about once a month. My purchases are mixed between the lhbs and online. My online purchases are mostly hops, 10 lb bags of specialty grain, and liquid yeast(during the cooler months). The lhbs can't beat the online guys for those items, but I buy pretty much everything else from them, especially bulk sacks of base malt. The only downside to this system is you have to plan recipes ahead and carry spares of many things.

 

I am fortunate to have a top shelf home brew shop fifteen minutes from my house, so the bulk of my shopping is done there. Great staff, well-stocked, and a very well-organized space. My second choice is on-line. Third is a shop an hour away that is just fun to hang out in, but it's an hour road time each way.

 

I do 90% of my shopping at the lhbs.
It's convenient and both stores I use are brewery adjacent. Who doesn't like grabbing a growler to go or sipping on a pint as you drool over a ruby street system?

 

LHBSs are not created equal, from my experience, due to the employees that are absolutely sure of things that are not always so. I like visiting LHBSs when I travel (yes, I live on the edge on vacation). I've seen first hand an employee running the drill on the grain mill in reverse trying to figure out over the course of a few minutes why it was milling so slow, overheard one attempting to say X grain is a sub for Y grain, when it absolutely was not, share horrible recipes/techniques, and accidently mill 5# of C-malt instead of Pils due to a mislabeled tub.

While my LHBS does not have the selection of bigger or online shops, a I try to get what I can there, and I know I can trust the info. Just like shopping for anything that you are passionate about, unfortunately sometimes you have to be as educated, if not more so, than the guy/gal just wanting to sell you something.

 

I'm 100% local store. I have one place that is 12 miles away and has a modest/good inventory, and another that is 25 miles away with a greater variety of supplies. In the past I once did use an internet place, but I was in town where it is located so I stopped there and used it like a 'local.'

 

I shop at the LHBS I do part time work for. It's 2 minutes from my house and I get a great employee discount. Basically pay cost for ingredients and most everything but equipment; equipment is cost + 10%. Hard to beat!

 

I do about 90-95% of my shopping at my LHBS (about 35 mins away). I really like the guys that own/run the shop and their selection and prices are as competitive as I have seen. Carrying ECY doesn't hurt either.

My other 5-10% will be bulk hop purchases, certain pieces of equipment that I like better than what they carry (personal preference) and other random deals I find on the internet.

 

If you Colorado brewers are shopping dry dock, all I can say is I would be too.
But i'm not so, its morebeer for everyday stuff, specialty malts from mid west and bulk items I have a private arraignment with several outlets.

 

I am lucky in that I am midway between 2 LHBS that are 10 miles from each other and I like to shop local when feasible.

 

In about 150 batches in 10.5 yrs. I could count on one hand the number that did not use at least some ingredients from an online retailer. And FWIW, I'm all thumbs.

 

I bought almost exclusively online for years. The nearest shop was 50 minutes away so I rarely visited. A couple of years ago, a local brewery added a homebrew shop. It's only open Thursday-Saturday evenings but it is between work and home. I stop in on a Thursday evening to pick up ingredients and I brew on Saturday or Sunday.

I still purchase hops in bulk online, though.