No love for AG brewers

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poptarts

poptarts

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Why are none of the big companies showing the love for AG brewing? I constantly get ads multiple times a week from Midwest, Northern Brewer, MoreBeer for beer kits and deals, I'm sure most of you do too. But, why are all the promo codes only valid on extract kits. The most recent one is buy 4 kits from Northern Brewer and get free shipping for earth day. Not the best deal but hey buy bulk save some shipping I would be down. But no, its "Buy 4 EXTRACT kits and get free shipping".
Just kinda frustrating that there are never any deals for all grain brewers. Always things like buy this and get a free crap 5 gallon pot or buy x and get a free darkstar burner etc, non of these deals apply to an all grain brewer. Just frustrating some times that the best deal I can get is spend 200$ and get a free carboy but don't forget you spot the shipping so its really spend 200$ and get 5$ off a regular priced carboy.
Not that I'm going to sit here and ask for handouts and everything its just annoying that they only seem to be targeting people new to the hobby. Anyway... end rant I guess.
 
and because most AG brewers don't use kits. NB did run a b2b1 free promo last summer on AG kits...
 
Judging by the fact that people regularly get 2 row for 28$ in group buys and the cheapest on NB is 1.19 a lb I'm going to say there is defiantly not that tight of a margin.
 
poptarts said:
Judging by the fact that people regularly get 2 row for 28$ in group buys and the cheapest on NB is 1.19 a lb I'm going to say there is defiantly not that tight of a margin.
Click to expand...

How can you compare buying 50pds @ .56c to 1pd @ 1.19

Bulk will always save you more money, as long as you have the space for said bulk material.

Also to answer your question, these "BIG" company's are trying to get beginner's to join the hobby with the specials/sales on extract kits. Its not that there trying to discourage AG buying. People who are advanced in this hobby will have 3-4 diff suppliers and rarely buy hops where they buy malts and so on.
 
Johnnyhitch1 said:
...and you want them to sell it for cost while you buy a couple pounds at a time???
Click to expand...

No... I was pointing out the margin isn't like 2 cents, they have room for a discounts and sales without loosing money. Obviously they have to mark it up or they wouldn't be in business.
 
Yeah, I've noticed that too. Kind of annoying. I've thought about doing a couple of the deals from northern brewer even though they are extract kits, but I just don't think I want 4 or 5 extract kits laying around. I only like to brew extract every now and then. There's probably a larger market for extract brewing, and maybe they figure if you're brewing AG they don't really need to hook you in with a deal.

HumulusHead said:
That's comparing bulk vs small quantities...


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Click to expand...

Yeah I think that's his point. He's saying Northern Brewer and the like buy in bulk for probably under $28 per sack and then sell it for $1.19/lb. About a 133% mark-up, which seems like a pretty good profit margin.
 
I'm saying bulk vs small quantities in terms of how he or you or I buy. Not the supplier. Obviously the supplier isn't going to pass on the savings for buying a few pounds of 2 row


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peterj said:
Yeah, I've noticed that too. Kind of annoying. I've thought about doing a couple of the deals from northern brewer even though they are extract kits, but I just don't think I want 4 or 5 extract kits laying around. I only like to brew extract every now and then. There's probably a larger market for extract brewing, and maybe they figure if you're brewing AG they don't really need to hook you in with a deal.



Yeah I think that's his point. He's saying Northern Brewer and the like buy in bulk for probably under $28 per sack and then sell it for $1.19/lb. About a 133% mark-up, which seems like a pretty good profit margin.
Click to expand...

This
Take the sale that is going on right now that I just mentioned. Buy 4 get free shipping. 4 AG kits with lets say 15lbs of grain each.. guess who just bought over 50 lbs of grain at not bulk prices? guess who just could have made a profit?
 
I'm just saying that they couldn't run a business if they sold at bulk pricing.

I'm in agreeance with you about wishing the AG kits would be included with these specials. I would def snag a few up if they were. Yesterday when I got that email from NB I went and looked into it and saw it was extract only and was disappointed. I then check out Midwest and same thing there. I'm just guessing that it wouldn't be fiscally responsible for them...

I ain't no business major tho. I just design roads.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
poptarts said:
This
Take the sale that is going on right now that I just mentioned. Buy 4 get free shipping. 4 AG kits with lets say 15lbs of grain each.. guess who just bought over 50 lbs of grain at not bulk prices? guess who just could have made a profit?
Click to expand...


Yeah 60 lbs of grain. But unless they were all smash kits there could be ten diff kinda of grain within those 4 kits...


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peterj said:
Yeah I think that's his point. He's saying Northern Brewer and the like buy in bulk for probably under $28 per sack and then sell it for $1.19/lb. About a 133% mark-up, which seems like a pretty good profit margin.
Click to expand...

Except they have to pay someone to divide that 50lb sack into 1 lb bags, buy the bags for the 1 lb of grain, mill the grains, pay for the elcticity to mill the grain, buy the labels, pay for the ribbon/ink for the labels, electricity for the label machine, and osme other costs I'm probably not thinking aobut. That profit margin tends to shrinkquite quickly.
 
HumulusHead said:
I'm just saying that they couldn't run a business if they sold at bulk pricing.
Click to expand...

Right, nobody said they should sell at cost though. We were just saying that it seems like they have a wide enough profit margin that they could still make a profit even if they did a few AG discounts. I wouldn't expect them to sell at or even very close to cost, because like you said they can't run a business that way.
 
Trox said:
Except they have to pay someone to divide that 50lb sack into 1 lb bags, buy the bags for the 1 lb of grain, mill the grains, pay for the elcticity to mill the grain, buy the labels, pay for the ribbon/ink for the labels, electricity for the label machine, and osme other costs I'm probably not thinking aobut. That profit margin tends to shrinkquite quickly.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's a good point. I have no idea what kind of overhead costs they're looking at. But all of those overhead costs would still apply to extract as well.

I'm thinking it's probably just that they're trying to hook in newer brewers. And maybe they sell more extract kits than AG kits.
 
The last all grain kit I got from Midwest consisted of all my grain milled and shoved in a plastic sack with a handwritten sticker that said "Belgian" on it. No special box or labels or printer ink, just a cheap Avery and a ball point pen. I can appreciate that there are employees, and electricity and all the other goodies. But those prices are applied to extract as well. Especially if they are measuring and pouring fresh LME.
 
OP: I thought about this too but then figured they cannot really do 50% off and make money but it would be nice to see maybe 10% off. I get 50% off once a month on a chosen recipe through my LHBS but you must buy on one certain day and their recipe. Still a good savings if you enjoy that beer.

dlester said:
PROFITS!!

Let this be a lesson: AG costs less, tastes better.


Cheers
Click to expand...
LOL please. I would put good money on the fact that you cannot tell the difference providing both beers were brewed right. Comments like these really do make AG brewers look like they're full of themselves because they brew AG. I brew AG and frankly, I just can't agree with you.
 
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the shipping cost of extract vs grain.
 
Also extract ages poorly, grain really doesn't, they might put these on sale when they have a surplus of extract or are able to buy a bunch cheaply.
 
I've always heard there are many more extract brewers than all grain brewers, so that's their bigger market.

Does anyone know the percentage of extra brewers?
 
I think they sell far more extract kits than AG. I remember hearing on the Brewing Network years ago JP say Morebeer sold far more extract kits than AG.
 
poptarts said:
Why are none of the big companies showing the love for AG brewing?
Click to expand...

Because the majority of homebrewers are extract brewers. Therefore, because of this and the larger margins are on extracts suppliers are going to target that larger and more profitable market.
 
I also brew quite a few AG kits. I don't have a mill yet and I haven't found any group buys less than 5-6 hrs away and my local hbs wants $78.00 for a sack of 2-row. The kits provide an easy way to try styles that I haven't brewed before.
 
+1 to those of you that said it is because more people brew extract, meaning that is a bigger market.

An even bigger + to those that said it is a matter of freshness of the extract. They have to keep the extract flowing out the door, so they can maintain freshness and quality.
 
Flipadelphia said:
Fascinating. Learn something new every day
Click to expand...

Yeah, I do it for a number of reasons. There are some really great recipes out there that have been made into kits. Good beer is good beer, whether I create the recipe or not. I'm not willing to discount great recipes out of pride.

By brewing the kits that I buy from various suppliers, I get to try out their recipe exactly the way they created it. When I use a recipe from a book, I don't know the exact grain supplier that was used. I can use Briess, Rahr, Great Western, Weyermann, Muntons, Gambrinus, or Dingemans. It's fun to experiment and change recipes, but sometimes it's fun just to leave things the way they are.

I don't currently buy bulk grains. I would like to, but I don't right now. Buying kits means that I don't have to store anything. Even when I build my own recipes I buy the exact grain bill, or as close to it as I can given the minimum purchasable specialty grain weight.

Sometimes kits come in cool looking boxes, and it's just fun to open them :p
 
gwaugh said:
I also brew quite a few AG kits. I don't have a mill yet and I haven't found any group buys less than 5-6 hrs away and my local hbs wants $78.00 for a sack of 2-row. The kits provide an easy way to try styles that I haven't brewed before.
Click to expand...

Northern brewer will ship a sack of 2 row to your door for 60
 
Thought I would shed a little light here. One of the big reasons we do not run a lot of All-Grain sales is that they absolutely bury the grain room.

In general our grain room has to work at 95% to stay ahead of regular orders (12lbs of this 2lb of that 1lb of these three things). You have to remember all of the grains have to be weighed and bagged by hand. This is the real reason why we do not offer a lot of AG deals. If we run an All-Grain kit deal we end up 3-4 days behind in orders, and then we disappoint customers.

With that said, we are always trying to increases our grain room efficiency, and hopefully we will be able to bring you guys an all grain special soon.
 

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