LHBS Service?

[MrBIP]

I finally made a trip to my nearest "LHBS" .. a place that opened up just a couple of months ago about a 45 minute drive for me. Very cool place, very friendly, prices a little higher than online, but service and "local", so it's good... anyway.. I was surprised when one guy was gathering my list of stuff, the other guy walked me over to their "kitchen" where they brew and have a bar and kegerator and while talking about brewing gave me three samples of what they had brewed there in the shop. They aren't selling it, so I guess that's ok? I didn't expect to actually drink homebrew at my "LHBS". ... I'll be going back.

So, my question from that story is (obvious), is that typical at the LHBS?

 

[chessking]

I couldn't imagine not sampling beer at my LHBS. We do tastings all the time.

 

[Nosybear]

I take my stuff in, the staff gives feedback. I thought that was normal....

 

[The Brew Mentor]

Wow!
I wish it was that easy in Ohio. The license for us to produce and sample is $3906.00 per year. :shock:

 

[Scrumpy]

Standard around here.
Cheers to making the drive to shop local. I wish everyone would choose the local lumber yard over homodepot, and the locally owner grocery over walmart, corner book store before barnes and noble, ect ect.
It took me too long to discover that my Lhbs will order anything for me with quick turn around and no shipping. Even if I just need a 85 cent pack of dry yeast they don't stock.

 

[Nosybear]

I still may have to order smoked wheat malt, since I don't want a 50-pound bag of it but all in all, I can't imagine not going to the Brew Hut for my supplies. For one, if I use malt extract, I can ask them how old it is....

 

[chessking]

Wow!
I wish it was that easy in Ohio. The license for us to produce and sample is $3906.00 per year. :shock:

Mentor, can home brewers bring in samples for tasting, or are they restricted under the license as well?

 

[LarryBrewer]

It took me too long to discover that my Lhbs will order anything for me with quick turn around and no shipping. Even if I just need a 85 cent pack of dry yeast they don't stock.

That's actually a VERY good tip when it comes to specialty yeast strains - they can get them ordered in. It just takes some planning. Hey, we're brewers, we should be able to handle that!

 

[The Brew Mentor]

Wow!
I wish it was that easy in Ohio. The license for us to produce and sample is $3906.00 per year. :shock:

Mentor, can home brewers bring in samples for tasting, or are they restricted under the license as well?

Because I have my Wine production licence I can't even have any beer in the shop. If I did and got caught, I could lose it.
This will all change in the near future. We got our federal approval for our Beer production license and as soon as we can work out an extension on our lease, we'll bite the bullet and pay the state fee.
With this license, I'll put in a bar and serve Beer and Wine that we make. We are also expanding into some specialty coffee's.
I'll keep you posted on the progress.

 

[Hammer1]

I guess I'm pretty lucky, I've got 2 LHBS less than 20 miles away. One I can bring my brews in and taste some of their samplings and the other is attatched to a full service liquor store that has about 40 beers on tap that I can bring home growlers of.