So a buddy and I are thinking of opening a online HBS. We thought about opening a brewery, but we don't have that kind of money. We already buy grain by the pallet, so it got us to thinking about doing this full-time.

We are thinking that we would run it out of our houses' at first, to make sure it is a viable business. We should be able to keep costs low by doing it this way. We are thinking of starting with just grain and yeast.

What are you guys looking for in your HBS?

I look for good selection, good pricing and fast shipping. I know thats kind of general but those criteria are what led me to use the online shops I do.

everyone here loves bmw but when I ordered from them nothing shipped for 5 days so I cancelled the order and ordered from AHS. Shipped same day and I had it 2 days later. I was still able to buy grains by the oz and have it packed in one bag. Yes it cost a little more but I will pay that if i know it ships quickly.

I used midwest because they have things for my party pig. easy to add other things to the order and get everything shipped together.

so, selection, pricing and shipping. being able to buy grains by the oz is awesome but no need for a recipe builder. Just let us choose which bag it goes into and we make it ourselves (like at austin).

good luck!!

i like the brewmaster's warehouse idea of building your own custom recipe... and not getting saddled with 14 oz of caraffa II just because you had to buy the whole pound when you only need 2 ounces. and, buying the grain in moderate bulk might be nice, too... like in 5, 10, 25, 30 lb increments?

like i said in my other post, the url beerwarrior.com is available!

and i'm sure we'd all appreciate a "mrbeerfans" coupon code lo

I could see a bulk hops and grain business being a nice little niche.

It's about time!

I am an Austin guy exclusively. I love their brew builders, i know BMW does it too, but Austin also has literally 1,000 recipes whether it is their clones or their originals. And you can get all these brews AG, PM, or extract. Plus no one, and I mean no one packs the box better than them. The boxes themselves are heavier than you get anywhere else.

I also like the free shipping on orders over $100.

What I dont like about them is that they only sell hops by the oz. I make a house IPA that has 4 oz of hops in a 3.5 gallon brew. If I order 2, or 3 of these and I have to buy hops @ $2 an oz it adds up. So I have been buying my hops in bulk from either Label peelers, or farmhouse.

Grain and yeast are usually what I look for...particularly specialty grains (since I tend to buy my base grains in bulk).

A nice selection of dry yeasts, as well as liquid (I prefer wyeast, but will use white labs if wyeast isn't available), and price is (of course) important to me too.

A good website that's easy to browse is also nice

I am not sure if we will have a lot of recipes at first. We are going to try to order our malt with the idea that if all else fails we end up having to keep all the grain for ourselves. If we do this business we will be open I still plan to keep my Management job for long enough to know whether we can make enough money to make it worth all of the work.

I can promise that we won't get rich off starting this venture. I would love to open this business and have it pay me enough to pay my bills. I don't know any computer programming, so we would have to pay to have someone set-up a website.

You should PM Frosty, I know he does some freelance web design.

I don't know that if he'd have time to take on a full-site design, but it's worth asking him.

With all of the sites currently available I would think you have your work cut out for you especially without computer skills. Not trying to be a skeptic, just realistic. I wish you well if you do go through with it.