My favorite LHBS is an hour away, but it’s only 20 min from work.
I used to drive about 15 minutes to get things. Thankfully about 2 years ago a LHBS opened up literally on my way to and from work. I get specialty grain and yeast there. Plus they have a fantastic bottle selection. Typically equipment is ordered online as prices are better and lhbs doesnt have as much gear as i would like. Get my base grains from a local brewery that is about 5 min away because their price is about 1/2 of what I would get it for from LHBS plus they will do specific amounts for me instead of buying by the sack.
I’m about a half mile south of Northern Brewer’s St. Paul location. I feel blessed.
I’m in Central NJ, and there are four LHBS’ easily available to me…one is a mere 4 miles away, and the others are 20, 27, and 50 miles, respectively. The closest one is new, and the others are well established businesses and a pleasant drive to visit.
All are very good shops and all have their own special uniqueness.
I try to spread the love.
The only online buying I do is my yearly bulk hops purchase. For everything else, I stay local with the above shops. It winds up being less expensive, and I am supporting “local” businesses.
It’s the right thing to do.
mine is about 12 blocks away. pretty easy, and pretty convenient. But if i’m looking for real nice equipment, i go to oregon city. which is about 1.5-2 hours away. and conveniently less than 20 minutes away from my parents place
Same here, though shipping costs even it out pretty well.
My closest is about 15 miles, but they focus more on kits, lessons and winemaking, so I rarely shop there. I’d never clocked it and discovered Google Streetview will take you inside the store
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=bev+art+b ... -87.681421The next closest are 25 and 30 and are pretty good. I shop there if I’m in the area, but rarely make trips specifically.
There’s supposed to be a place coming 2 miles away. I’ll definitely give them a chance.
20 miles and out of my way. I’ll go there because the prices are competitive and I like helping smaller businesses. It’s a brew on site (never did it)with awesome walk in cooler for temp control. Bottled they’re first kits two weeks ago and will try them this weekend.
I believe it’s about 75 miles. I’ve only been there a couple of times.
The closest one to me is about 8-9 miles round trip. What makes it really good is I can get on a bus a couple of blocks from my house that practically drops me off at their front door. If I want more than what will fit in a backpack I drive.
8 miles away. Only been here maybe 8 months. Great place, great guy. Three others around, none have quite the grain selection. Mainly go there for hardware and chemicals, etc. I’m still a relatively new brewer, about 11 5gallon extract batches under my belt. All from NB. Hope I’m not breaking any forum rules by linking his site.
http://www.bigdansbrewshed.com/I have 2 about 30 miles away. One is only open wednesday and
saturday so I do not use them as much.
I’ve got 4. 1 - 5 - 12 - 20 miles. the shortest distance is for the stuff I forgot to order or ran short of, good store, new and building up business. The 5 mile is for grain only (Mid Country Malt), the last two are more backup for emergency stuff. I do most of my purchases on line, mainly because of cost.
tom
[quote=“millstone”]I’ve got 4. 1 - 5 - 12 - 20 miles. the shortest distance is for the stuff I forgot to order or ran short of, good store, new and building up business. The 5 mile is for grain only (Mid Country Malt), the last two are more backup for emergency stuff. I do most of my purchases on line, mainly because of cost.
tom[/quote]
Is the 1 mile store Brew and Blooms in Hammond? I forgot about him – seems good for grain but not so much for yeast or hops. And where’s the 5 mile store, that’s probably closer to me than in the city of Chicago.
I’m 5.5 miles from the St Paul NB. I don’t have to get on the highway either, which is nice.
You know, I really envy all you guys that live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. All those LHBS’s to pick from.
I’m about 20 min from Still-H2o and 40 min from NB St. Paul and if I want to drive about 70 miles I have Midwest.
I have one about 2 miles away. The next nearest is about 180 miles I would guess. The local store has about 12 feet of space dedicated to homebrew and wine making. I ordered my base malts from the for $4 cheaper than NB with shipping. it was expensive. They have only dry yeast and the hop selection is lacking. I order from NB for my major purchases, I will pick of specialty grains and other small stuff when I can from the local place. I asked them if they had a mill, “No, but that’s a good idea!”.
Oh well, I will keep stopping by and getting stuff when I can. We have 3 breweries now, maybe this brewing thing will catch on around here and they will expand or someone will open a new place.
I really wish they stocked wyeast!!!
Four blocks away…how sweet.
I know exactly what you mean 
I used to live in the Boston area and had a similar situation. Currently I work about 10 minutes away from the only LHBS within 2 hours, but even though they have a good selection by Finnish standard and they keep adding more, it is still not close to what I used to have.
If only internet ordering was a real option here…
