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What sites are people using to buy hops online? What sites have the best pricing and shipping costs?

I'm looking to get some different kinds of hops and hoping to get galaxy in my order. I've come across a few sites but I'd be interested to see what sites people have had experience with.

Thanks!

Allot of us keep saying Everwood but Dave's prices are hard to beat. His flat rate shipping is up to so many pounds before shipping increases. Play around with the amounts but his prices are very competitive. I usually wait until 1 or 2 of others want to order and split shipping unless I want to stock up.

Where are you located?

Sandy

I'm really happy with the service Everwood provides.

I recently ordered hops and liquid yeast, awesome to see them shipped with ice packs to make sure it doesn't get too hot.

whitnes10 wrote:What sites are people using to buy hops online? What sites have the best pricing and shipping costs?

I'm looking to get some different kinds of hops and hoping to get galaxy in my order. I've come across a few sites but I'd be interested to see what sites people have had experience with.

Thanks!

Not all hops are equal. Purchasing on price alone may not have the best results. Things to consider:

Are they fresh? Just like groceries aim for a place that has a faster turn for best results.

Are they stored correctly? Try to avoid places that have master bags that get broken down for filling small orders. The extra handling does not help hops and will create issues. Like stale sawdust hops.

How are they packaged? Look for Nitrogen flushed packaging. Avoid vacuum packed hops if want to ensure optimal freshness and the lowest chance of degradation.

GAM wrote:Where are you located?

Sandy

Clayton Park, Halifax


I still haven't made it out to Everwood, must make a point to get there.

he's your best option IMO

Both NG and Mw&B have hops. MW&B are nitro packed by the oz and lb.

S

GAM wrote:Both NG and Mw&B have hops. MW&B are nitro packed by the oz and lb.

S

I have only ever bought my stuff from Noble Grape, love it there, always a great help, but I want some different hops. Also right now, for what ever reason all the the Noble Grape's have no to very low amounts of LME (I'm an extract brewer with partial mash). What is MW&B? Where is it at?

info@WineEmporium.ca will get you a list of hops or you can request a hop and have it ordered.

Hop union nitro bags.

S

yeah, I have had zero freshness issues with dave's vacuum packed hops - he keeps them cold (freezer cold, not just fridge cold) once they're broken down from the large nitro bags and into the vacuum bags, and moved inventory very quickly (like gets in citra and it's sold out within days quickly).

The two sources of hops I have tried are the nitro flushed hopunion from MW+B (and once noble grape when they actually had the full hopunion bags out in the fridge) and vacuum sealed from Dave at Everwood. No complaints for either. I would not buy hops out of a shitty tupperware container in a fridge like noble grape normally sells them.,, And I would imagine sitting in a box in summer in a UPS truck will do far more damage to them than moving them from a nitro environment to a vacuum environment.

You really can't beat everwood on more or less any category of ingredient or most equipment. Especially if driving out there once in a while is an option so you don't have to ship anything. I also shop at MW+B because they have a lot of stuff that's more wine or bottling centric while Dave really focuses on kegging and ingredients for the most part, they're open more hours, and they're literally a 7 minute walk from my front door if I need something to use right away... But for hops, malt, and yeast Everwood is king.

Everwood all the way.


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I've got hops from Dave and tend to stock up on Willamette. Some have sat 8-10 months before using. Zero complaints.

I made a few batches of poor beer and was very disappointed. It took me a long time to figure out why, and it was bad hops that I had just bought online. Now I will only use N2 packed Hop Union hops. You might save a couple of $ but it's false economy if you make bad beer and waste all your time and other ingredients. If you are competing, extra care with this sort of thing is needed. I was very resentful that I was sold bad hops as well.


They say the keys to quality beer are sanitation, sanitation, fermentation control etc. But quality ingredients should be up there at the top of the list. Or perhaps I should say quality hops.

GuingesRock wrote:I made a few batches of poor beer and was very disappointed. It took me a long time to figure out why, and it was bad hops that I had just bought online. Now I will only use N2 packed Hop Union hops. You might save a couple of $ but it's false economy if you make bad beer and waste all your time and other ingredients. If you are competing, extra care with this sort of thing is needed. I was very resentful that I was sold bad hops as well.


They say the keys to quality beer are sanitation, sanitation, fermentation control etc. But quality ingredients should be up there at the top of the list. Or perhaps I should say quality hops.

My past two brews have been "off" on the finish and I have been racking my brain about what it is. I have been using hops from my freezer, which are loosely wrapped in plastic (were once vacuum packed) and your comment made me wonder how old they were. Looked it up and they are almost 2 years old now! I think this is my problem. Thanks!

You got burnt on that Mark. The bottle you brought to Keiths a few years back was not pleasant.

At least use your eyes and nose when buying non-pro packed hops.

S

Did not mean to start an argument. Nor do I know processes of other shops. Was just giving the original poster advice to help navigate all the options and get a quality fresh product.

We tried vacuum packing here years ago. We even had nitrogen flush vacuum chambers. Proper storage. Minimal handling, we only opened the bag up once and repackaged it all instantly.

Lot control was brutal. When you buy a 11# or 44# bag of hops you get a foil bag that is likely already compromised. Roughly 2/3 of the bags from all suppliers (and we dealt with them all in large volume) do not have an active seal when they arrive. They also are poorly labelled and generally just have a sharpie showing the AA and variety. Typically no year, supplier, lot info etc. These portions are meant for breweries and packaged for brewery needs. Not for commerce.

Even with all the best practices when we time tested to ensure it was working we noticed loss of aroma and clumping against the control ounces from Hopunion we opened up once every month or so to compare against. The difference was night and day. Even with a 10 000 dollar nitrogen flush vacuum packer we could not get the hops to retain all the aroma and moisture content at optimal conditions. All our hop quality control issues went away the moment we went to nitrogen packaged hops packaged from YCH/Hopunion.