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

I live in Pennsylvania,  a state with notoriously outdated and ridiculous alcohol laws.  It’s been one of the challenges I had to overcome during this year to meet all my goals.  At least, I thought it would be one of my challenges.  So far, I have tried a wide variety of beer from all over the world that I have purchased within an hour of my house, tried while I was traveling or that I purchased online.  I really need to take the time to update my goals page as I have really racked up a pretty impressive resume of beer over the last 5 months.

But enough about all that, the point is, if you try hard enough, regardless of the laws, you can find legitimate sources for great beer.  Selling beer online is a really tough business but there are some great sites out there that have a wide selection and will ship to your door unless you are in a state where they aren’t allowed to ship.  The law varies based on the state you live in and the state from where they are shipping.  If you intend to buy beer online you will need to make sure that particular store can ship to you.

The options that I am aware of are below but it’s far from comprehensive.    If you know of others, please tell me so I can add them to the list.  If you have any experience with any of these stores please let me know so I can post that as well.

Brewforia

I don’t know how long this store has been around but I got the impression that they were fairly new.  I only just came across their site a few days ago so I haven’t bought anything from them yet.  I like the site and the people behind it seem to know what they are doing but was a little disappointed in the selection.  They didn’t have a lot of the beers that I was looking for.  But, I do intend on trying them out and I hope they grow their selection.  You can find them at Brewforia

Bruisin’ Ales

This beer retailer was recently voted as the 3rd best beer retailer in the world by the community over at RateBeer.com.  They are based in North Carolina and have a brick and mortar store in addition to their online presence.  They have a full list of the beers that they have available on their web site but they don’t have an Ecommerce platform that allows you to order the beer online.   You need to email them your order and they will contact you for payment information.  They have a very impressive list of beers available.  I first found out about this store on Twitter.  They are very active on Twitter and are always talking about good beer.  You can find out more about them at Bruisin’ Ales

Liquid Solutions - (Out of Business)

LiquidSolutions.biz is the first store I came across that sold beer online.  I found them a few months ago.  I wasn’t impressed with the site itself, the design and layout was clunky (my real job is a partner in an Ecommerce business so I am pretty picky) but they had a great selection.  I had intended on ordering some beer from them but I waited too long.  Unfortunately, they announced just last week that they are closing their doors and liquidating all of their inventory.

BeerGeek.Biz - (Out of Business)

I believe this store has also gone out of business.  I have never ordered from them but they had a very wide selection and had intended on giving them a try.  Unfortunately, when I went to buy something from them earlier this week I noticed that I couldn’t add anything to my cart and that each item has a message added to it that says they have ceased shipping inventory.  I can only assume that they are out of business.  You can check out their web site while it is still up at BeerGeek.biz

Beer on the Wall

Beer on the Wall is based in California and specializes in West Coast Beers.  I have never ordered from them but they claim that their #1 priority is to offer the best selection of beer that they know they can send while it’s still fresh.   I respect the fact that they are specializing in a region to try to deliver the best product they can.  That doesn’t mean they only carry West Coast beers, they just specialize in it.  They sell individual bottles of beer, sampler packs, beer of the month club, beer gift baskets and beer memorabilia.  You can check them out at Beer on the Wall

Bottle Trek

Bottle Trek is located in Oregon.  I have never ordered from them because they aren’t allowed to ship to Pennsylvania, we aren’t reciprocal states.  I know, it’s stupid, but that’s just the way it is.  They have a good selection of beer with over 500 beers to choose from online and have a handful of rare/vintage beers that are hard to find.  You can check them out at Bottle Trek.

Bierkraft

Bierkraft is a beer, cheese and chocolate shop in Brooklyn New York.  They have both a retail store and sell online on their web site.    Unlike a lot of stores, they sell the beer in 6 packs and cases, you can’t get individual bottles which is actually what I prefer to do.   They claim to have over 1000 beers, 250 artisan cheeses, and 100 gourmet chocolate bars.  Pretty impressive!  You can check them out at Bierkraft

Well, today, my wife turned this doubting Thomas into a believer.  There is a Wegmans just a few minutes away from Victory Brewing company which we just toured yesterday  (read my Victory Brewing Company Tour blog post).  Not only is it truly a fantastic grocery store they have an awesome take out beer section.  Pennsylvania has some wacky liqour and beer laws, one of them is that Beer is only available from a beer distributor where you have to buy it by the case or from a bar/restaurant where you can get it by the 6 pack.  Most bars have the standard crappy selection of 6 packs and they are overpriced.   Wegmans, on the other hand, has a cafe that they setup in their grocery store and in that cafe is a very impressive craft beer takeout section.   They had a very tiny little corner of the beer section that had a few cases of the large commercial beers.  The vast majority of the beer was from microbreweries across the United States and tons of great International beers.  They even have single bottles that you are allowed to buy which I thought was illegal in PA.

We had already spent more money that we had budgeted on our beer and lunch session at Victory Brewing Company so I didn’t want to spend a lot.  I got a few beers but now that I know where to go to get more, I am sure we will be making more frequent grocery trips to Wegmans.

I picked up:

• 1 750 ml bottle of Ommegang Abbey Ale
• 1 500 ml bottle of Samuel Smith Tadcaster
• And 1 355 ml bottle of Lindemans Framboise Lambic

I have never had any of these beers before so I am excited to try them.  In fact, I have never had a Lambic from any brewery but have heard some really interesting things about them so I am looking forward to trying it.