Rebel Brewer closing warehouse

[Beer-lord]

This doesn't sound good. See why they are shutting down their brick and mortar store. This is all new to me.
http://www.rebelbrewer.com/blog/warehouse-closing-faq
Got a sale going on too if you are interested.

[swenocha]

Yep, its been all the news here. They are my backup LHBS so it kinda sucks. I think the sales here locally at the warehouse that would be worth me looking into if I had the time to get out there...

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[Beer-lord]

It seems like they only want to continue selling the big ticket, hardware items.
I used them often. Not the best price but reasonable and fast!

[swenocha]

They've apparently been considering it for 2 years. Shrinking of the homebrew market (much to coincide with the exponential growth of the craft beer market, especially here local) is the story I've been told.

[RickBeer]

Not that I keep up on the ins and outs of the homebrew market, but I see their stated reason as not making any sense. First I've heard that it is shrinking.

AB-InBev buys Northern / Midwest and Adventures buys Austin because the market is shrinking? Adventures also opened a call center and fulfillment warehouse (vs. doing it out of the Ann Arbor location), so Rebel's excuse seems off. Perhaps "our competitors are killing us" might be more valid.

[FrozenInTime]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I use them for my main source and have a huge order I need to make.... sigh...... Now I need to find another supply house darn it. I won't buy from In-Bev. I guess Austin will get alot more of my orders from here on.

[HerbMeowing]

Put me down for $2 on 'shitty customer service' as the reason for their demise

[alb]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I use them for my main source and have a huge order I need to make.... sigh...... Now I need to find another supply house darn it. I won't buy from In-Bev. I guess Austin will get alot more of my orders from here on.

I use this one from time to time and I've been happy with them. Very friendly. http://www.love2brew.com

[bpgreen]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I use them for my main source and have a huge order I need to make.... sigh...... Now I need to find another supply house darn it. I won't buy from In-Bev. I guess Austin will get alot more of my orders from here on.

I use this one from time to time and I've been happy with them. Very friendly. http://www.love2brew.com

That's a new one for me. I'll have to check them out. I try to give my LHBS a lot of my business, but also use online stores.

[swenocha]

Not that I keep up on the ins and outs of the homebrew market, but I see their stated reason as not making any sense. First I've heard that it is shrinking.

AB-InBev buys Northern / Midwest and Adventures buys Austin because the market is shrinking? Adventures also opened a call center and fulfillment warehouse (vs. doing it out of the Ann Arbor location), so Rebel's excuse seems off. Perhaps "our competitors are killing us" might be more valid.

Sure about that?

The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) reports the number of physical U.S. homebrew shops peaked at 820 earlier this year and has dropped to 808. Gross revenue at all companies specializing in homebrew supplies grew by double digit percentages every year from 2009 to 2012, slowed dramatically in 2013 and 2014 then went negative last year. Revenue has continued to drop by an average of 5.5% each of the last four quarters.

What’s worse, AHA director Gary Glass expects those numbers to keep falling.

“There’s very much a correction going on,” he says.

“Craft beer is so big now that everybody who used to homebrew to brew styles they couldn’t buy are like, ‘Screw it, I can just buy it, ’” says Jimmy McMillan, owner of the Philly Homebrew Outlet

annual trips to homebrew shops have dropped from 11 to eight since 2013. And when new brewers ... do visit the shop, they’re spending less -- not because as casual hobbyists they’re not dropping bucks on high-end equipment. No, these new homebrewers are diving right into more sophisticated techniques like brewing challenging all-grain recipes instead of stepping up from traditional extract malt as their base ingredient. All-grain malt, it turns out, is cheaper than extract.

But it appears it’s not frugality that’s necessarily causing the market to retract. Rather, blame the inverse: larger disposable incomes generated by a strengthening post-recession economy. More jobs mean more money to spend at bars and less time to brew at home. When the BA overlaid a graph of white male adult unemployment from 2006 to now onto one that shows Google searches for “how to homebrew,” the correlation was pretty close.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/taranurin/ ... 06960d51fd

http://beerandwinejournal.com/decline/

http://brulosophy.com/2016/07/28/brus-v ... mebrewing/

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/ ... ng.347876/

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/ ... c=27766.15

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=573347

https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/co ... e_decline/

https://www.experimentalbrew.com/podcas ... rimentally

https://www.homebrewsupply.com/learn/is ... dying.html

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Homebrew ... 0129810306

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/535506211927589501/

I could link several more if you'd like. As you say... you don't "keep up on the ins and outs of the homebrew market" as much as Tom does. He's living it, and has been discussing this for two years. Most of us thought things might have leveled off for him, as this was expected back then but they stayed open. I consider some of the Rebel folks friends, and they are well liked in our local homebrew community... I trust what they are saying. BTW, they are keeping some semblance of the online open, including (or maybe exclusively) hardware/equipment sales. Even my main LHBS (All Seasons) has said their sales are down in the homebrew area. I'm hoping beyond hope that they get the residual business from Rebel's storefronts (both their main storefront and the one at Craft Brewed) closing to keep them afloat. Otherwise I'm pretty well sunk on LHBS options. There's one other one, but it's small, has limited selection, is pricy, and is mostly geared toward winemaking.

[MadBrewer]

This is happening everywhere, with many retailers of different kinds. I think the main factor is online purchases. People aren't doing their shopping no matter what it is at brick and mortar stores, instead they are buying it cheaper, online with free shipping at the click of a button and not having to leave the house.

I have only used them once or twice. They turned me off when I ordered some dry yeast. 2 packets of a dry lager yeast and one was expired. I emailed them about it, they apologized and said they would send a replacement ASAP...they never did. I didn't push it, instead I never used them again.

[RickBeer]

While online is eating retail's lunch, I didn't know that homebrew sales were down. Couple that with growth of the top few, makes sense the smaller ones are hurting.

[Beer-lord]

Seems Rebel Brewer is back: http://mailchi.mp/rebelbrewer/your-rebe ... ce1cc5d033.
Might be somewhat of an uphill battle but they seem to be trying hard.

[swenocha]

Yeah, haven't quite figured this out yet. They are now out of Minnesota. I think the Rebel guys here may have sold the name to this other company, but not sure. They do mention on their website opening a new retail store, but I don't know if that means here (and maybe they've just farmed out the warehouse portion of their business). Regardless, it still stinks that I'm down two LHBS options since they closed (and thus closed their outlet at CraftBrewed as well). Hoping they maybe open back up here.

[mashani]

I still go buy random things (yeast, hops, small bags of specialty malts) from my closest LHBS, but they are also a beverage store, so they aren't going out of business, the LHBS part of them is really more because one of the owners brews on the side as a hobby.

But they don't have everything I want (IE fresh bulk extract). Neither does the one Steve goes to, which is more catered to AG brewers. I will buy things from them like yeast and hops and specialty grains or some base malts for PMs if I'm in the neighborhood though.

So that's why I order on-line a good bit, normally from MoreBeer as I get free shipping and it's often delivered here next day or in 2 days as long as their PA warehouse has it. Which is most of the time.