Welcome! I'm from Fond du Lac, also. I bought my initial equipment kit from Homebrew Market, too. Like abelbrau said, Point Brew Supply is a great place, too. Unfortunately, they're about two hours away from where I live, so I don't get up there as much as I like. My first truly successful brew was an Irish Red Ale ingredient kit they put together in the shop. Man, was it good! The whole batch lasted about a week, consumed by a lot of people who assumed anything homebrewed would be crap...
My one issue with Homebrew Market, and it's not a big one, is that when I bought my equipment kit, it came with ingredients to brew a first batch. Those ingredients consisted of a can of prehopped extract, and some extra LME. Now, sure, those can make o.k. beers, but an extract kit with steeped grains makes such a huge improvement in quality, and it's not much harder at all to do. I kind of wish I would have gotten something more along those lines to start out with. But, like I said, it's a small complaint, and I do buy most of my stuff there. The owner is very knowledgeable, and more than willing to help out, which was invaluable to me when I first started doing this.
