Hi all,
I’m going to start a new series and update whenever I can. It will likely be a short series as it depends on the availability or willingness of others to be interviewed by yours truly! I am in contact with several people in various areas of the beer industry, both home and commercial and will update with a new post whenever I can.
Last Week in New Beerginnings
Last week I feel was fairly well documented in my previous post where I brewed a stout for Christmas with a little bit of a spacey twist.
Now onto this weeks content…
Professional Series #1 LHBS
In this series I’m going to be posting logs of some interviews I’ve done with various people in the beer industry. I hope to gain some insight to their role and how it relates to, or helps us home brewers.
First up, your friendly local home brew store or LHBS. These guys are the face of the industry that we would see most often, we go to them for ingredients, equipment and advice in times of joy and panic!
In this post I’m interviewing Steve, the owner of Hoppy Days Brewing Supplies, if you’ve read more than one of my posts you’ll know how much of a promoter I am of these guys. Wherever I can I use links to their website in hopes of supporting them because I think they’re the best home brew shop around. They not only service local brewers but, as you’ll see in a moment, a large online community of brewers as well. They are there for advice on equipment and ingredients as well as helping troubleshoot brews that may be going down the wrong path. Steve has got me out of hot water more than once! They’re not an official sponsor of this blog but they may as well be with the amount that I recommend them! I’m keen to work something out if you are Steve!
My advice is contact these guys, start a relationship and order through them. The lengths they’ll go to to help is truly outstanding. If this isn’t an option for you, I urge you to find a home brew store in your area and do the same thing, that’s what they’re there for.
Now onto the interview. For this one I sent Steve a list of questions and and pasting his responses in here, so thanks Steve for doing some of my writing for me! I’ll owe you a beer!
How long have you been running the store?
We just had our 4th birthday just over 3 years from my residential property & since in the Virginia store.
What made you start it up?
After starting all grain brewing we saw an opportunity in the market to bring quality ingredients at an affordable price to the Brisbane Northside.
What’s your favourite part about the business/industry?
Meeting people from all walks of life that enjoy the craft, especially when they drop a beer in for us to review & enjoy!
What’s the biggest change in the business you’ve had so far since starting?
The amount of products in the market, from ingredients to equipment there’s always something new around the corner.
Is there any aspect to the shop that you didn’t expect to encounter before starting up?
The amount of women now getting into brewing seems to have evolved over the past year. Really good to see.
What are your day to day tasks?
As a director I pretty much do everything. Mornings generally sending out online orders, attending to walk in customers, managing accounts, stock control/ordering, website input/updates along with social media, packaging of goods.
How much of your job is shop/product or sales related and how much is advice?
I’d say 75% Sales, 25% advice.
What questions are the most common?
We get a lot of questions about how to clone certain popular beers! Both recipe and process related questions are common.
Fermentation questions, how long, how to tell when it’s done, is this infected etc the same ones that are often posted online!
What do I need to do to make beer?
The range of questions can be vary broad.
What’s your top few bits of advice for brewers? The “get these few things right to really up your beer game” types of tips?
First thing is to sort out your fermentation – temp control, space, sanitation etc
Baby steps keep it simple with recipes to start, then build from there.
Once process is understood, then you can really start to look at your water quality/additions, reading mash pH etc. But get your process for fermentation and cleaning down pat first.
Who is your average home brewer? Is there a demographic that’s more prevalent than another?
Quite broad, our youngest brewer is 18 & our oldest 96. The biggest area of growth recently has been in the 20-40 age bracket of men in trades/miners. We get lots of guys with young families.
Have you seen this change over time?
Yes the demographic will keep changing as more people enjoy craft beer & want to dabble in making their own.
Would you say most of your business is local or online? Have seen or do you expect this to shift?
75/25 online/local. I think this will stay pretty similar as people are time poor so online shopping is increasing. Approx half of our online orders go outside Brisbane & a lot interstate.
Any changes in brewing trends you’ve seen? In terms of popular styles/techniques/equipment etc
Styles are always quite seasonal, with more fuller bodied beers / darker styles in winter, light easy drinking in the warmer months.
With the affordability of all grain equipment especially in the last 12 months people are more willing or keen on getting straight into it where previously they would do kit & kilo or partial mash for a while and upgrade over time. Fresh Wort Kits such as the ones from All In Brewing Co. have also become popular with new brewers & time poor people to knock out a quick brew.
There is a trend towards people wanting to always make better beer so the more knowledge they get & get process right this will improve across the board.
Have you ever considered going down the road of brewing classes/workshops as well as the shop?
Yes this is something we have definitely considered! At present we are concentrating on the growth of our business to support our customers. There is absolutely a market for it but there are varied levels of expertise available, if we decided to do something like this we would be involving industry professionals.
What advice would you give new brewers to go and learn as much as they can and get familiar with some resources?
Do lots of research. The net is your biggest asset (with wonderful blogs like that New Beerginnings guy! Edit definitely not made by Sean!) Work out how much time & funds you want to invest in crafting your own product.
Home brew clubs are a good resource for brewers of all levels.
Ask lots of questions, if you have mates that brew ask to come along & help out.
Always bring beers.
Cheers Steve
Thanks for joining us this week, I hope it was reasonably informative for you and hope that future posts in this series will feature a brewer to give you guys some tips as well!
Cheers for now,
Sean
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