[briggsbits.co.uk]

I am a new member on this forum from the UK and am greatly encouraged by the amount of guys over the water that feel the need to brew proper beer.

We are awash in our pubs with a wide range of wonderful warm, some say flat ales that taste of malt and hops like it always used to. I am aware that in the US this is something of a rarety.

During the 70's and 80's, a movement called 'The campaign for Real Ale' (CAMRA) succesfully battled against the brewing corporations and reversed their decision to fully replace traditional brewing with high tech, low cost, everything must taste the same(preferably of nothing), brewing.

Do many of you go the whole hog and create full mashed grain beers or are good kits available?

Are your ingredients easy to come by?

Fortunately, I have a number of friendly local commercial small brewers who are happy to supply fresh malt & hops, is this the case in the US?

[Heath]

I allgrain brew and although decent beer can be created with extacts , Ive never had an extract beer that was as good.

Many Local home brew shops in the US supply all one needs for either extract or allgrain. Some people have to resort to online ordering because the trend of online ordering has put out of business many LHBS.

I personally will always buy from my LHBS, unless they dont have what I need, but this is very rare.

Heath

[briggsbits.co.uk]

We don't have many local homebrew shops left now. Mainly because there arn't enough people brewing and winemaking. Society has become too lazy for it.

There are however a few good shops that have turned to the internet to spread their customer net. Other than the ingredients that I manage to source through local brewers, I have to turn to the internet and swallow the shipping charges.

Yeast(I always use wyeast), roast barley for my stout, torrefied wheat and a couple of hop types I have to order online.