Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Beercrafters closing

This is some sad news:

As of Sept. 19, Beercrafters homebrew supply shop will fold its tent. In the meantime, there's an everything-must-go sale.

Online discussion board chatter didn't reveal why the shop's closing after a 16-year run, and the folks at the store today we're pressed for time and couldn't talk.

The nucleus of the Gloucester County Homebrewers club, Beercrafters got a lot of people into homebrewing and helped a lot of neophyte brewers step up to making better beer, from extract brews turned out on stovetops to all-grain masterpieces crafted over gas flames in kegs turned into kettles.

Back in the mid- to late-1990s, Beercrafters was our go-to supply store, saving us a trip to far-off Philly's Home Sweet Homebrew and the related expense of parking in the city. Their selection of grain and hops was always respectable, their advice reliable, and the people always friendly.

And come the first Saturday in May, you'd find hordes of homebrewers in Beercrafters back lot, tending mash tuns in celebration of the American Homebrewers Association's annual Big Brew day. In fact, the winner of the AHA's first YouTube Big Brew video contest was shot at Beercrafters in May 2008. (The second video is from Big Brew 2007, shot in the first year of this blog.)