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Its a very good price for the carboy. I got my one for €34.99 from Homebrew company.

The main thing we want is to be able to order large quantities of grain, preferably pre crushed (for me anyway). Take a look at hop and grape: [url:1hal26os]http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/catalog/catalog.asp?catid=GRA2125352[/url:1hal26os]

They have pretty much everything we want and I order a lot of my grain from them.
I am not sure if there is a supplier here you could order on the fly from to save you storing a load of stock that might go off.

For me, 3kg sacks are fine but I know others like to order 25kg sacks so they have loads <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

I was looking on homebrew.ie, apalling flash ad on the main page. It seems to claim... wait for it.. that homebrewers are not all in fact hunchbacks with wonky eyes, but some of them are attractive young model types.

Anyway the point is, the carboy is a good price on homebrewwest, but homebrew.ie have a thing called a better bottle, which is a 5g clear plastic carboy, for 19.99 You should stock them, I would buy some. I have a horror of dropping a glass carboy.

Cheers
R

I second the better bottle, I have one of them too and its much lighter and easier to handle. My wife can pick it up when she does her wine <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

I had a near miss cleaning my glass carboy, hit the toilet water tank thing and broke the side of the ceramic lid. The carboy miraculously survived unscathed though <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

I guess you need to do some market research on what percentage of the market are doing kit, extract, all grain. My feeling is that a lot of people are getting in to brewing now in Ireland and are trying the kits. I immediately moved on to extract brewing because I could thanks to a site like homebrewcompany. Otherwise I might still be brewing kits if it was all I could get.

Home brewing in the US is more devleoped than here and it seems from other forums that nobody really uses the kits and extract brewing is the entry point to the hobby. They do sell kits in the US but these are effectively Extract brewing made convenient as they contain: DME, steeping grains, hops and yeast. Packaging up this type of kit with instructions might
be an idea.

As an extract brewer I'd be looking for the 3kg bags of dry extract, good selection of hops and yeasts. Basically, the long term aim should be to stock what homebrewcompany has.

Homebrewcompany.ie has a good site, excellent range, excellent service and market standard prices. I hate to be a bollox but it seems to me that these new companies are jumping on the band wagon after the horses have bolted. I wish them the very best of luck and admire the entrepreneurial sprit but it seems that the market research and competitive analysis section of the ol' business plan may need revision.

I must say homebrewwest's prices are very competitive. Best of luck with the business.