Sad News 1 of Australias best homebrew Stores closing for good

[ozdevil]

Gday All,

its sad news i know and understand we all have our favourite places to buy our gear from.  But i can recall  when i used to live in Adelaide i would save my penny's up for when i travelled to Melbourne for a weekend away  to visit this store   GRAIN And Grape.   There 1st shop was in Rosamond Rd Maidstone (Near Highpoint shopping centre)   this store wasnt a very big store but the staff was friendly and very helpful  and parking on Rosamond street was  horrible but worth the shop at this home brewshop.    

They then decided there little brewshop in Maidstone was quite small for the amount of stuff they was selling at good prices  they then Moved to Yarraville  where they are today  in a thriving  shop that served the needs of many in Australia and some of there fresh wort kits  was pretty good   and the bonus you could save the Wort containers  for your own brewing needs.

Anyway for those interested 

 

Quote

Grain & Grape Closure - A Personal Message from John Grain and Grape will be closing on 14th May after 34 years of business. I am turning 65 in July and plan to retire. Our current lease finishes in July, too. I would like to thank my staff for all their help over the years and to our great customers. It’s been great fun and while I’m sure I could have done lots of things better I’m very happy. I’m very proud of our involvement with ANHC, running Systems Wars, being the first shop to run all grain brewing demos, involvement in VAMI and the IBA and for being voted and nominated Best Home Brew Shop multiple times. Manufacturing our Fresh Wort Kits, distributing Wyeast and Speidel products have been great experiences. Hanging around and chatting about brewing and related topics with customers and co-workers has been a great way to spend the majority of my working life. Another of the things I have enjoyed greatly over the years has been mixing with pro brewers, particularly in their startup days. Dave and Cam from Mountain Goat, Paul from Holgate, Dave from Red Hill who created our first website in 1999, Dereck Hales, Jayne from Two Birds where we ran a number of System Wars events, Brendan O’Sullivan, Michael Leslie, Dan Dainton and Steve Henderson (Hendo) who brewed Worts Kits for us and has been a great supporter of the business (notably with System Wars) for many years, and many others. Some of these have of course worked for us.

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Staff I want to make a special thanks to the great staff who have worked with me over the years. Firstly, to my Managers Chris and Matt, thanks for being tolerant of a sometimes- irrational boss, for keeping the troops and me in line and for your technical knowledge and organisational skills. Both great friends, workers, sounding boards and setting a great example to the rest of the staff. Ben for your unbridled enthusiasm for the hobby, great demos and social media prowess. Steve also for your technical knowledge and organisational skills. I still don’t understand how you managed to fit everything in the warehouse. Together, Matt, Ben and Steve have set the standard for Home Brew Shop customer service in Melbourne. Simon for making the business more than just the best home brew shop. Everyone reading this should get out and visit one of the more than 50 Braumeister based breweries around the country. Geoff for professional and technical advice and for running our events and demos for many years. Jeff for running our newsletter and also for being a great sounding board for ideas in the same way Geoff has. Joel, Pete and Heath again for your brewing knowledge, great rapport with customers, and tolerance for short notice in shift changes. Paul (Riggers) the original all grain demo guy and a great help and friend of the business. Oscar – A special thanks for the great design work. Helen and Dan, our dynamic demo duo. Also, a big thank you to Brendan O’Sullivan who did monthly demos for many years and worked in the shop and even produced Fresh Wort Kits for a while. Georgie, Michael and Tom – for keeping our shelves stocked and for being great self-starters. You can pick great people, and good workers very early. Sams Slaney and Poolton, Rod Patterson and Nik Dontschuk were early terrific contributors and great co-workers. A special thanks also to Andy Davison, Phil Yeung, Mark Johnstone and Gwyn Moore of the ANHC and to Mark Hibberd of just about every Home Brewing organisation around. Apologies to anyone I’ve missed. I am almost 65 after all.

This Store Will be sadly missed by Many that have Shopped and brought  grain and gear from these guys, I wish John all the best for his retirement and a huge thankyou to Johns Staff  that have been very helpful over the years and i wish them all the best for the future and hope the staff get  re employed in the brewing industry  in some form or another


Sad Day Come May the 14th 2024

Cheers
OZ

 

[Uhtred Of Beddanburg]

My first real brewing journey started with equipment and product from that store also.

Obviously none of the current staff wanted to buy or take it further. Didn't see anything about if that was offered or not.

[ozdevil]

2 hours ago, Uhtred Of Beddanburg said:

My first real brewing journey started with equipment and product from that store also.

Obviously none of the current staff wanted to buy or take it further. Didn't see anything about if that was offered or not.

Just quitely  i believe John is thinking of selling up  , but you will want  to have a good quid behind you with stock etc. = lease

but as it stands the store is closing at this point.


in all honesty  with kegland and keg king  coming out with new products all the time   ,  it would not be an easy task  to keep a shop like grain and grape going 

Cheaky peaks  have downsized  and are not selling  grain or any  other brewing stock except for the nano brewing gear, once there current stock  of products have dried up 
its just nano brewery gear    and i would feel  if someone was to take over grain and grape  they may head down this path as well

Beerco  are  good company to purchase of here in the west of melbourne and i am sure they will gain plenty of sales  from grain and grape as they was a similar clientle as each other 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Uhtred Of Beddanburg]

@ozdevil yes I was a bit annoyed the last time I visited CP to find this out. Got their last 3 FWK were all ale kits and I was after Lagers. So I brewed and IPA as a lager anyway was still nice. 

I now have to pay freight from Melbourne, still works out cheaper than buying beer. 

[RDT2]

When I bought hops from grain and grape they were the freshest hops I have ever received and they were in mail to wa! 

[Kegory]

Grain and Grape is such an awesome shop, and it's just within a reasonable drive from my place. I've only really just got started but I know I'm gonna feel their absence.

I'll have to check out Beerco. Keilor East isn't too hard to get to from here.

[Classic Brewing Co]

Here's an article on it.

Grain and Grape closes as John Preston announces retirement Beer & Brewer spoke to Grain and Grape owner John Preston about his career and what he sees in the industry’s future.