I don’t have any home brew stores in my immediate area, the closest one is an hour away.  There are 3 that I know of, all an hour away.  I am not complaining, I don’t mind the drive and the stores are good but I don’t always have the time to make that trip for supplies.  When I can’t make that trip, and I am smart enough to think ahead, I order whatever I need online.

Over the last few months, I have written about a new home brew shop based in Brooklyn New York called the Brooklyn Brew Shop.  I thought it was a pretty interesting concept, while most home brew shops are selling bigger and more expensive equipment, Brooklyn Brew Shop keeps it simple.  They only sell all-grain kits and they specialize in kits that you can brew in a small New York apartment.    They sell kits for making 1 gallon batches as well as 5 gallon batches if you prefer to make something more typical.  As I blogged about a few weeks back, I bought a Black and Tan kit, that comes with two brewing kits plus ingredients to make a dry stout and an ESB.

I received my kits a few weeks back and have already brewed my first beer.  I brewed the dry stout and it was the first all-grain beer I ever brewed.  I have wanted to try all-grain brewing for awhile now but I was intimidated.  I have read a lot but it was information overload and it made it seem a lot more complicated than it actually is.   The kit made it easy to brew and because it was only one gallon of beer, I didn’t need any more equipment.  Instead of adding a lauter tun to my pool of equipment, I simply needed a standard kitchen strainer and a 2nd brew pot which I already had.  You can read more about this at my first all-grain homebrew experience.

The point I am trying to make is that there are more advantages to the one gallon kit than just the space, it allowed me to brew an all-grain batch without any additional equipment and with very easy to follow directions.   I also like the idea of being able to brew small batches when I want to experiment with something new.  If I don’t want to spend the money on a normal grain bill for something I am not sure I am going to like, I can make a small test batch.  For a pretty reasonable fee, I received enough equipment to make two 1 gallon batches at at a time and enough ingredients to make my first batch.  I am very happy with my purchase.

I also want to mention that their customer service is fantastic.  My experience with them wasn’t completely without hickups.  When I received the kit, the thermometer was broken and it was missing one of the two rubber stoppers.  I emailed them twice and got no reply.  I was almost ready to give up before I found a contact form on their web site.  I used that and got a reply with an hour.  Apparently, the email I was using was no longer their main email address and it wasn’t forwarding on correctly so they didn’t get my two replies.  Within 2 days I received a package from them that not only had a replacement thermometer and the missing rubber stopper but it also had a hand written thank you note along with ingredients to make another batch of beer.  They went above and beyond to make sure my experience was a good one and they certainly earned a repeat customer out of me.

If you haven’t checked them out yet, I recommend you do so, you can find them at Brooklyn Brew Shop

1. Matt Hendry Says:
   March 25th, 2010 at 8:41 am

   Theres Brooklyn Homebrew in Park Slope for NY based brewers who are opened all the time in a retail location and offer a full service homebrew store compared to Brooklyn Brew shop’s 1 gallon kits .

2. Brian Says:
   March 25th, 2010 at 8:44 am

   Thanks for the tip, I live in PA so it would be a bit of a drive for me The point is that Brooklyn Brew Shop has carved itself out a nice little niche. It’s a big marketplace and there is room for a wide variety of homebrew shops both online and brick and mortar. My experience with Brooklyn Brew Shop was excellent.

3. Tweets that mention My Experience with Brooklyn Brew Shop | YearlyLesson.com -- Topsy.com Says:
   March 26th, 2010 at 1:26 pm

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4. Scott-TheBrewClub Says:
   April 13th, 2010 at 12:55 pm

   You’ve made some interesting points, and even though I’m relatively close to NYC, its a royal PITA getting there!