After that, we saw a sharp reduction in customers, followed by a boom while everyone was stuck at home. Then another slowdown during the economic downturn during COVID, and then another boom as life returned to normal and more people were permitted to work from home. This up-and-down, rollercoaster-like sales trends persisted, and is something we still contend with today.
Now, coupled with many various difficulties; including the economic environment, rising cost of our supplies, supply-chain difficulties, and the slowly shrinking number of homebrewers in the US, we are faced with a difficult environment for our business.
As some of you may have already seen on our social media accounts, this increasingly difficult market has factored in our decision to close the West Sacramento Brewmeister. It was no easy decision to do so, and it weighs heavily on us, as the West Sac location was such a large and essential component of our business for so long. But ultimately, it was the correct and necessary decision we believe.
The Folsom location, our home base, will persist. Nor is it in any imminent danger of closure. We will continue to operate our online shop as normal, and extend thanks to our dedicated and valued customers. With that all said; we wish to extend a personal plea: if you value what we provide, the ability to come in, ask questions, see the products, seek advice, feedback, and guidance; please shop local, if only some of the time.
We work very hard to be competitive with online stores; in pricing and in customer service. That being said, we also must acknowledge that big-name online retailers provide certain benefits to their consumers that make them difficult to compete against. It is our hope that the benefits of direct contact with our employees that we offer our customers outweighs that of big-name online retailers. If you agree, spending locally here will assure we remain a resource available to local brewers, winemakers, and other zymurgist.
If you have any questions, please reach out to our Folsom location. Otherwise, we'll continue business as normal in Folsom, and hope to see you there. Cheers!
-Erik, Ray, Owen, and the rest of the Brewmeister staff
]]>Fermentis is widely re-stocked, with the exception of S-23. We have on hand Lallemand Diamond lager yeast to substitute for S-23.
Certain hardware such as certain sized Cornelius kegs, 8.5 & 15 gallon kettles, and some kegging parts remain out of stock at the supplier level. This changes week by week.
Thanks for sticking it out with us!
Original post:
Hey folks, Owen here again with another COVID-19 update.The stores are doing well, and we have you guys to thank for that again. We are experiencing some issues in our supply chain, and I wanted to let you guys know whats happening, why, and what it means for you.
Currently, due to the absolutely massive influx of homebrewers and winemakers due to the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, our suppliers have been quickly overwhelmed. That means our suppliers are both running behind on fulfilling freight orders, and running out of products much more quickly than they expected.
With that being said, I do have to absolutely tip my hat to the effort and coordination from our suppliers; they're trying their absolute hardest to get everything squared away. But it unfortunately still has created some negative effects on many homebrew supply stores, including ourselves and even larger storefronts such as MoreBeer, etc.
Here's a quick breakdown on which items are affected, and our expectations regarding them.
YEAST: Both Imperial and White Labs are out of stock of many of their standard strains. Most Belgian strains from either company is out of stock, along with German and Weizen strains. Imperial is currently consistently out of stock of some of their core and esoteric strains, such as Flagship, Dry-Hop, Independence, Citrus, Joystick, and some Kveik strains. Kveik shortages are an issue right now, especially with these summer months coming up. We've tried to combat that by ordering some dry Kveik strains from Lallemand, we're waiting for those to arrive currently. We're also facing a lot of stock issues with Fermentis dry strains, we've substituted Lallemand yeast in where appropriate.
HOPS: Mostly unaffected. Some more popular hops like Citra, Mosaic, etc may experience some minor outages in the future.
HARDWARE: This is where we're most affected. All incoming hardware shipments are being delayed at least five business days. Some common hardware may be out of stock. Stir plates, tail pieces, aeration hardware, books, keg body post, some Intertap parts, some kegs, measuring equipment, and some gas equipment are the most heavily hit. We are still receiving equipment, but we're expecting at least a week-long delay for all inbound shipments. This will likely be a persistent issue through the stay-at-home orders. We're still accepting special orders for equipment, but do note there will likely be a delay in receiving those items.
CONSUMABLE SUPPLIES (GRAIN, EXTRACTS, ETC): Not experiencing delays but experiencing HEAVY outages. Our suppliers are out of extracts, but we managed to bulk up before they went out of stock. We likely have enough to last us for a couple weeks (now is the time to move to All-Grain if you've been considering it). Malt and flaked adjuncts are mostly okay with some sporadic, but temporary, shortages. Adjuncts and additives such as irish moss, candi sugars, dextrose, etc. are mostly unaffected.
If you place an order with us, and your order contains an item that is experiencing shortages, we'll contact you via phone or email to ask what you'd like to do. This situation is ever-changing, so if you have any questions, feel free to call us or chat with us below! Thank you for your understanding and continued support, we're lucky to have you here. Cheers!
During this all, we've received an absolutely amazing out-pour of support and solidarity from customers and fellow homebrewers on our social media and email. It is truly heartwarming to know we have the support from our community, fellow hobbyist, and friends in the industry. For that, we truly thank you from the bottom of our hearts. This support keeps us going and hopeful during rough patches, and reaffirms our belief in the homebrewing community. So to you as well, if you're here reading this, thank you for being here and supporting us through this.
Regarding the mandates and orders from the county and state offices; we absolutely understand where these orders and guidelines have come from, and fully understand the difficulty of the situation behind them. We've unfortunately gone back and forth several times on our ability to stay open, while abiding by the law put forth. As of today, 3/20/2020, we believe at this time we are able to stay open and operate as normal with some rule changes. As a food ingredient store, we believe we are within guidelines set forth as a food retail store as an essential business. California Department of Health also defined beer as a "food" item, further solidifying our interpretation of the law currently. We will operate our shipping as normal as well.
For now, we'll only allow one customer in each of the brick and mortar stores at one time, to comply with the social distancing order. Our staffing for each store usually is only one clerk at a time, so we are essentially operating with essential staff already. We believe these factors of our operations going forward will comply with orders handed down from the county and state. This should keep potential exposure to COVID-19 to a very minimal level, and will keep both staff and customers safe during this outbreak.
As a safety measure, our staff has a modified cleaning routine that includes sanitizing shared spaces and items. If you are a customer 65 years or older (many of our customers are), we do encourage you to take advantage of online ordering with in-store pickup. Our Brewmeister staff will assemble these orders for you, and can walk them out to your vehicles; so your exposure to shared spaces would be minimized further. These orders can be placed and picked up same-day, with minimal waits required.
That's all for now, we'll keep you folks posted on our operations if anything changes. If you are not a current follower of our Facebook page, we strongly encourage you to follow us to receive frequent updates on current operations. Again, thank you so much for being a supporter and customer at this time. Your continued support means the world to us, and we look forward to seeing you soon (from a distance).
Cheers,
-Owen
I only discovered this years after I started brewing and began making yeast starters. Its the one thing I did that took my beers to a new level of flavor and consistency. A starter will get that yeast going so when you dump it into the wort (you just spent hours to make) you will know that the yeast will be ready to turn that wort into beer free of any off-flavors. Almost every off-flavor I’ve encountered has been due to not enough or unhealthy yeast. Another benefit… the faster that yeast ferments, the sooner you get to drink the beer!
Making a starter is easy, basically your just brewing a mini batch of beer to get the dormant yeast munching away on a light meal before you introduce it to your much stronger wort. You can also use a starter to build up your cell count for a bigger and/or stronger batch of beer. Here's what to do:
- Weigh out about 3.5 oz of dried malt extract (DME)
- Dissolve the DME in 1 Quart or 1 Liter of water and boil for about 10 min
- Cool down to about 75 F and pour the wort into a sanitized container (a flask or mason jar works great) I like to use a clear glass container to see the activity
- Sanitize your yeast pouch, scissors, and funnel, cut open the yeast and dump it in your wort, cover the container with a bit of aluminum foil
- Let the starter sit at room temp for 12-24 hours, during that time you should see activity like you would in a carboy of fermenting beer then you have a couple options: you can brew your batch and add your starter when you would normally pitch your yeast, or build it up more by repeating the above process.
- You will see the yeast settle to the bottom once the starter is done, if your using a stir plate, the idea is to keep the yeast in suspension so you can pitch the whole thing into your beer. But you can also pour off the fermented wort and just pitch the yeast layer at the bottom. I usually don't decant the wort unless I don't end up brewing until a few days after I make the starter or I'm building the yeast up for a bigger beer. If that's the case, I'll make another batch of wort (usually a bit stronger than the first by using more DME) and add that to the nice yeast layer at the bottom.
That's pretty much the basics to get your yeast going, starters work with dry and liquid yeasts as well as harvested yeast from a previous batch but that's a whole other topic. Bottom line is that healthy yeast is the key ingredient to a great beer.
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