Rocket City Brewers

General Advice

As a favor to home brewers, many of the local breweries help us out by selling bags of grain. After all - most of the local professional brewers started off as home brewers too. When buying grain from local breweries, please keep the following things in mind.

1. Breweries are busy places, and the workers are typically busy doing things that pay the bills - like brewing beer! Be respectful of their time, and see what if any rules they have about grain sale to home brewers.
2. Buy full bags of your base malts only. I.e. pilsner, 2-row, maris otter, etc. Most grain comes in 55# or sometimes larger bags. They are not setup to measure out individual pounds of your specialty grains, and asking them to do so ties them up and keeps them from getting work done. Plus - do you really want to make them break open a bag to get you 1 pound, leaving the bag open for spillage, infestation, whatever? Get full bags of base malt at the brewery - go to a home brew shop for your specialty grains (unless you need 55#!).
3. Ask what days or times you can come in. Some breweries prefer you order grain in advance, and pick it up on certain days and times.
4. Some breweries may be willing to give you a pull of yeast from the bottom of a fermenter. If you know they will do this, bring your own sanitized mason jar to collect the yeast. In general, its easier on you and them if you just buy your yeast from a home brew shop.