Rumors-did AB/InBev buy Northern Brewer and Midwest?

[mashani]

I knew that Northern and Midwest were under the same umbrella since lots of the kits have identical ingredients. I mean exactly identical. They are just renamed and packaged differently.

As far as the LHBS / Drive thing, I have one LHBS very close (15 minutes drive time round trip) but they are just a small part of what otherwise is a beverage store, so they are only useful for 1# bags of misc. specialty grains, 1oz packages of hops, dry yeast, or 3+ month old liquid yeast. Base grains in bulk - don't have. Bulk malt extract - don't have. So I will go there to pick up some random items, but I can't / won't buy a bunch of 1# bags of overpriced base malt or old canned extract to build an entire recipe around.

If I'm willing to drive more like 80-90 minutes round trip time, there are a couple of other LHBS's I can get to, but that much time out of my day tends to be a drag once I add "shopping" time into it. I tend to only go to them if I'm already going near them for some other reason. And neither have bulk extract. I can get bulk extract if I drive more like 2 hours round trip but that's just BLAH.

So unless I'm doing one of my small batch AG BIABs, I can't get what I want to make beer unless I was to resort to old canned extract.

Folks who drink my extract beer tend to say "I can't believe this was extract" or such, and that's because *I don't use* old canned extract, but only very freshly packaged stuff.

So that leaves me with some online place that sells stuff that turns over fast.

I like MoreBeer because of my location compared to their east distribution center, I can get their stuff next day with free shipping, and I have talked with and like the folks there.

[Beer-lord]

Another interesting take on this discussion:
http://brulosophy.com/2016/10/20/the-in ... -ab-inbev/

[Whamolagan]

Oh boy, all this talk of LBHS and stuff, I feel blessed. My LBHS gives me a 10% break by buying in bulk. They have a great supply of specialty grains. I go every couple of months, get a couple 55 lb sacks of base grains and 5-10 lbs of 10 -12 different specialties. I usually drop about $175. I get my hops and yeast online from more beer. I like the bulk deal, that way I don't have to try and schedule going to town, which is 20 miles away. So the way I see it inbev can have midwest, there are other online retailers out there. Maybe I could start one and sell out so I could get the rest of my money to open the brewery.

[Beer-lord]

More people talking about it.