Country Malt orders

[bperetto]

I think this information is important enough that it should be shared with the widest population of homebrewers as possible:

For those who have relied on NCM / Country Malt orders to keep their brewing costs at a reasonable level, I have bad news for you.

As of March 7th, they are now charging homebrewing groups 30% over list cost on all their products. Just because.

You can e-mail me if you want a copy of the MP3 of the voicemail left, but the imporant part is transcribed here: "This is George calling from country malt group. I just wanted to give you a head's up that the homebrew pricing has increased by approximately 30% across the board..."

When we called back, we were given this example: A bag of Bairds Maris Otter would be $54.50 for homebrewers, not the listed $40.15 sold to other customers.

This is for your information only. Some people may consider $55 a bag to be a good deal. That's up for you to decide. I just want you all to be aware if you were planning a bulk order.

FYI: We have been ordering from them twice a year for the past 10 years.

[Brandt]

Yep. We ran into the same problem. They eventually honored the old pricing, but said they would not going forward.

[TheDarkSide]

I found I could get close to the same pricing from my LHBS after I figured in shipping from NCM, so I just go with them. They also host our homebrew club meetings and said he would throw a sack or two on an order if we give him enough notice, which definitely helps with the price as well.

[Bugeater]

Our club's last order went through at the old price. A couple of our members are in the process of opening a brewery. They have promised to piggy back bulk orders from the club onto their orders. Make friends with your local brewers. They might do the same for you.