What are you brewing?

[nzbrewer]

Since this is the most popular thread on the RealBeer.co.nz forum I thought I would start it here just to see what happens

[jt]

the service is worth it alone

Yes, Welly has been very badly served Home Brew wise for years and I think Liberty's offernings and service have gone a long way to making good brewing a lot easier round here.

Both Stu and Brendon have been very helpful to me - not only in selling me stuff lately :-) - but before that too with advice, milling grain, feedback on beers and just being great champions of the good beer cause, be it homebrew or good commercial

I'd be gutted if the shop out east went west ...

cheers, jt

[Reviled]

Why will liberty be closing down?? :o(

[Brendon]

Hi Guys,

It's most likely that Stu and I will be winding up Liberty Brewing as a homebrew supplies outfit. It's reached that point where we can't really continue to do it as a hobby anymore and needs more commitment of time. Both Stu and I have other things on the go and when push comes to shove the other things are going to win out.
For Stu that's probably family, cycling and more Yeastie Boys product. Me.... haven't decided yet but probably more time on my other business.
We kind of considered other options (like going back to bulk ordering for Wellington, etc) but really think it's better to let someone else have a shot. We aren't the first to try (and I think) realise that it needs a bigger time commitment than we could provide to make a truly profitable little business.
So, not to leave people in the lurch, Stu and I are going to catch up this weekend, have a beer (since I've only seen him in passing since he's been back) and figure out the exit strategy.
As a brewer I too hope someone else will pick up the mantle!

PS... the server issues really are annoying! The timing is just a coincidence and didn't precipitate anything. Hardware issues that I need to resolve.
Glynn: I might need to give OpenSolaris a spin next time! ;-)

[Reviled]

Reckon youll be open in 2 weeks so I can get some Rye off of ya Brendon??

I hope so...

Very sad to see you guys go but can completely understand where you are both coming from!!

[Glynn Foster]

Also disappointed you're thinking about winding up, but like Reviled I can completely understand - thanks for the service up until now, very much appreciated.

(I wonder how many sales queries Cryer Malt and NZ Hops have gotten today?...)

[jt]

Yup, understandable.

Next up though, how to fill the gap in Welly ?

[Glynn Foster]

Would be interesting to know what the minimum order quantities are - obviously the more you order, the larger the discount. What's the magic number? Maybe we could organise homebrewers around Wellington to order a couple of sacks of specialty and then buy off each other like a good distributed network :)

[jt]

My understanding is 500kg from Cryers - 20 x 25kg bags -

[Glynn Foster]

For base malt and speciality malts? That's quite a burden on space let alone cash up front.

[jt]

Yup, but it was probably a lot easier to start Liberty than go through 86 pages of forum discussion to organise a bulk buy ...

[Mike Neilson]

Dudes forget about it wait for Jo to start distributing Global Malts. He proved how efficient he is with the bulk hop order!! Imagine that Malt, US Hops what next Yeast?

[jt]

That'd be good too !