Out Of Key Brewing

I don’t normally write endorsements of Online Homebrew stores, not sure why, I suppose I just never had any reason to.  Normally I order my supplies from one of two homebrew shops.  They both are large and do a fine job.   What I find lacking is their customer service.   It has just never impressed me.  While listening to an archive show of BrewStrong I heard an ad for the fine people at Brewmaster’s Warehouse.  Their hook?  10% off if you use the coupon mention BNArmy at checkout.  That was enough to get me to check them out.

The site is well designed and easy to navigate.   The search functionality works well.  Grain is organized into logical groups.  They support the ability to build custom recipes online, order the grains, and then share them with the interwebs.  But lets be honest here, while all the above may have drawn me in, what kept me there were the prices.  Their specialty grains are the best priced on the internet (even before the coupon).  I have been in the market for an oxygen system for a couple months.  I would have liked to buy it a couple months back but they have been out of stock at one large retailer for over 2 months.  BMW had them in stock and at prices that were extremely competitive.  I ended up placing a large order for all my non base malt grains for the next several months, my oxygen system, and some flasks for yeast starters.  This was on a Friday after close time for them.

Monday morning I got a call from them.  My first thought was that something was out of stock and would need to be removed from my order.  Fine.  It happens.  My concern was that when this happens at other stores it moves your orders to the bottom of the list and it typically takes a couple extra days to ship.  Imagine my surprise when they told me that instead of removing the items they were going to swap them out with better items at no extra cost.  Check this out.  I had ordered a pound of Calcium Chloride.  It was out of stock.   What they did for me was,  send me 2 oz (solving my immediate shortage), and once the pound is in stock they are going to ship it to me.   At another homebrew shop, my only option was drop it form the order or wait.  This was way above and beyond.  Add this to the fact that that I received my shipping notice that afternoon and the order was delivered two days later.  I was impressed.

The order was well packed,  The yeast was sent with a gel ice pack,  All the flasks were intact, and all the grains computer labeled with maltster and grain type in heat sealed heavy plastic bags.  Perfect execution.

The only thing I found lacking was the ability to save your cart.  Personally I find it nice to be able to be build a shopping cart over the course of a month or two.  Think of something I need to brew my Imperial Wit next spring, log in, add it to my cart, and log out.  Then when its time to place my order, it is already full of stuff that I would otherwise have forgotten.  Minor and something that can be rectified with alittle technical work.

So in summary Brewmaster’s Warehouse:

Great Prices.         Check.
Flat Rate Shipping.   Check
Customer Service.     Check.
Above and Beyond.     Check.
My new brew shop.     Check.

TLDR:  Brewmasters warehouse has great prices and great service.  Use BNARMY coupon for 10% off your order.  Its my new brewshop of choice.