NEW TO BREWING - UNIMPRESSED WITH LOCAL HBS

[gregb]

Olive Oil discussion should be continued over here.

Cheers,
Greg

[aurelius121ad]

Back on topic of bad local homebrew shops....I have some encounters with the clueless also.

It's not that I am ungrateful to have access to some of the Coopers extract kits... but the guy selling the stuff out of his apartment is not incredibly helpful. He is only open on weekdays from 9-5 so I have to call him and arrange for him to mail me cans of extract. He refuses to sell me more than 1 packet of yeast per can of extract I buy. The first time I made a purchase I took a day off work a while back and went in to see what he had as well as to ask some questions (I can communicate in Chinese much better in person than over the phone). I asked about a bottle capping device and caps: "No, I dont carry those. But why do you want that? Just use Coke bottles." Of course they work but I just dont feel right pouring alcohol from a plastic bottle. (Fortunately, I did end up getting a bench capper sent in from the US.) Then I asked about brewing sugar (I dont know how to say malt): "What? special sugar for brewing? All you need is 1 Kg of plain white sugar. Why would you want to use anything else?"

Last time I ordered extract he called right after sending the package to explain that he was out of stout and replaced it with lager... I'm still not incredibly happy about that!

But I really shouldnt be complaining; I should just be (and am) grateful to have access to extract here!

[JubJub]

One of my local HBS guys told me that he couldn't help me with my inquiry as he didn't actually brew himself.

When he said that it was in the context of brewing beer, he did however brew spirits using essences which I consider to be more of an answer to the impending oil crisis.

Jub

[rohanbutler]

I think the last two post although completely different, they cover why the people who use this forum are unhappy with their supplier's service.

These guys don't question things, they take the on the can instructions as gospel

"What? special sugar for brewing? All you need is 1 Kg of plain white sugar. Why would you want to use anything else?"

and often they don't have the same tastes as us, (i.e. the guy who runs a hbs but his game is distilling spirits), these guys are just different not bad my locall bloke is just my supplier not my advisor, he likes VB and well... I don't , so I'm over trying to convince him that partial or even better all grain brewing is the go and hopefully he will back off on telling me to use all extract and brew everything at 24 degrees.

[earle]

While I was in Melbourne last week popped into a very well known HBS, the bloke had not heard of Swiss Lager Yeast (dry). I couldn't remember that it was S-189 but surely these particular guys who have a reputation for being knowledgeable should have known this.

[rwh]

Weeeelll.... maybe. I was under the impression that Swiss Lager is the name that Ross gives his repackaged S-189. It's not an industry standard name at all (quite deliberately, I assume for legal reasons).

[Tipsy]

Weeeelll.... maybe. I was under the impression that Swiss Lager is the name that Ross gives his repackaged S-189. It's not an industry standard name at all (quite deliberately, I assume for legal reasons).

In Beersmith it has S-189 listed as a German yeast

[earle]

Weeeelll.... maybe. I was under the impression that Swiss Lager is the name that Ross gives his repackaged S-189. It's not an industry standard name at all (quite deliberately, I assume for legal reasons).

Fair point I guess. Though from the Fermentis web site

Saflager S-189

From the Hurlimann brewery Switzerland. Neutral flavour development for a large range of lager and pilsen beers.