This might be a ploy for my wife to get something for me ;-) Hint...hint...oh, who am I kidding? She doesn't read this stuff.
Times certainly have changed. Back in the day you would need to scour the earth to find a
local homebrew store (like Artisan) if you wanted to buy something for that special homebrewer. Even then
SWMBO might find it hard to walk into such a place. She would probably be thinking the worst. Perhaps, "I'm not going there. Surely a secret handshake or some grunting must be involved." or worse, "He'll probably ask me something about those stinky ingredients." Just think about it. All her holiday shopping is complete in four hours at The Mall with just one more stop at the home brew store, in the industrial park, on the edge of town, with no lights in the parking area. Yeah that's the one. She probably just decided to skip it and have you go with her and "just pick something out". Where's the surprise in that?
Of course homebrewing isn't just for men. In fact now that we got the
Internet you'll see that there are in fact plenty of
women brewing and
blogging about it. And that's not all. Now, not only are there homebrew stores on main streets in towns and cities, you might even find them...wait for it...near The Mall (actually
Mr. Dunderbaks in Tampa FL was in a mall for almost 40 years and may not sell homebrew stuff anymore, but, that really messes up my point, anyway...). Hey while your on the
Internet you can even shop online. No shortage of homebrew stores can be found and even Amazon sells stuff. That's right. You can create a wish list on Amazon and have people buy the stuff right off the list. Some of the stores are just
LHBS that accepts online orders. Some stores raise the bar and stock everything from bungs and bubblers to fermenters, faucets and FBAs, aka fresnel brewing apparatus (
ok I just made that up, but, I was inspired by this).
So if you are looking to buy a present for that special brewer I recommend the following:
- First, support the local guy and find that local homebrew store (like Artisan). If you need advice, pleasant service and a real human to talk to, this is the place to look first :-) (find a shop near you using the HBA site, or use The Beer Mapping Project, OMG there's an app for that too!, OK this is getting ridiculous there's even android apps)
- Did I mention finding a local homebrew store? Unless yours sucks.
- Then if you're looking for that hard to find item try a place like Northern Brewer
- If you don't find what you are looking for or maybe you need it shipped quickly, Amazon? They have everything from books, dvds, faucets, fermenters, draft systems, beginners kits, etc. (see for yourself
) [Yes that is a referral link.]
Where would you shop?
NOTE: Honey, if you are reading or maybe if one of my friends is reading, wait oh damn. I guess what I'm saying is that I accept gifts from complete strangers. It's my only hope. Anyway
these are cool.
