Brown Box Brew - The All Grain subscription box

[Acott]

Hey everyone, A good friend and myself are launching a subscription box service in the coming weeks called Brown Box Brew - The All Grain subscription box.

It works like most subscription boxes, each month you will receive the ingredients to make a 1 gallon experimental batch of beer. Each box comes with everything you need to produce a fine quality brew - grains, hops, yeast and instructions.

Each month there is a different brew to try, with considerations to the time of year and upcoming festivities. Example, for the month of Feb, the box might be a stout, in time for St.Patricks Day. With this being a monthly subscription, if you follow the schedule you can be drinking one as the next arrives to your door (maturing will make a difference to taste, but you get the idea ).

The site will also feature a social element, subscribers can discuss the brew, brewing methods and review the outcome. The opportunity to submit a recipe is also present, any recipe authors will be featured for that month and will also receive a token of appreciation.

You can subscribe to our mailing list for more updates and be the first to know when we launch : Subscribe Here!

*Our logo is under wraps at the minute so please excuse the font!*

I'd love to get your feedback, if you would consider signing up or if you have any questions please feel free to ask..

Cheers!

[johnrm]

Thank you for submitted.
Eh?
Done. Best of luck with the venture!

[Qs]

Its all a bit mysterious at the moment.

[googoomuck]

Sounds cool to me, any idea of rough price?

[Acott]

Thank you for submitted.
Eh?
Done. Best of luck with the venture!

Thanks for pointing this out John, fixed now

Its all a bit mysterious at the moment.

I'll be happy to clear anything up Q, the site hasn't launched yet hence the tacky landing page. But the main site looks much better, with some nice photography

Sounds cool to me, any idea of rough price?

Cheers Googoomuck, still talking to couriers to negotiate a price on delivery, once we have that I'll be able to let you know. If you subscribe I'll more than likely be pinging out a mail by the end of the week to keep everyone updated.

[googoomuck]

Signed up for the mail shot. Looking forward to it.

[Qs]

Its all a bit mysterious at the moment.

I'll be happy to clear anything up Q, the site hasn't launched yet hence the tacky landing page. But the main site looks much better, with some nice photography

A few questions I was wondering about. Is the grain pre-crushed? Is the yeast dry or liquid. Whats the average weight of grain and hops per box? What is your baseline efficiency for recipes?

You answered googoomuck on the price question.

Its definitely interesting. If the price is right I'd certainly be interested. Also a trial might be a good idea so we could try them before committing for a year.

[Will_D]

I'm in!

As I have just bought a half size corny what about the option of a 2 gallon batch or even a full 5.

The courier price would be the same.

I know I know !! Its great to have a brill idea and then when it goes public all sorts of fek*rs start making all sorts of suggestions to change your basic plan!!

[Acott]

Its all a bit mysterious at the moment.

I'll be happy to clear anything up Q, the site hasn't launched yet hence the tacky landing page. But the main site looks much better, with some nice photography

A few questions I was wondering about. Is the grain pre-crushed? Is the yeast dry or liquid. Whats the average weight of grain and hops per box? What is your baseline efficiency for recipes?

You answered googoomuck on the price question.

Its definitely interesting. If the price is right I'd certainly be interested. Also a trial might be a good idea so we could try them before committing for a year.

No problem! The crushed or pre-crushed grain is one that has me puzzled due to the freshness, obviously it's better to crush your grains on the day of the brew, but not everybody has this option...taking this in to consideration we might offer both, but this has not yet been decided.

The yeast will be dry as we want the price as low as possible.

Average weight of grain and hops around 1.5lbs.

Baseline efficiency around 70%

There will be a couple of options for subscription, a once off so you can try before you subscribe, then a 3 / 6 / 12 month subscription so you aren't tied down to the full 12 months. There will be a saving depending on the subscription period you sign up for.

There's still some parts that need ironing but we are working on them. I just wanted to bring the idea forward to see if brewers would be interested. Thanks for your questions Q, I hope I've cleared some things up.

I'm in!

As I have just bought a half size corny what about the option of a 2 gallon batch or even a full 5.

The courier price would be the same.

I know I know !! Its great to have a brill idea and then when it goes public all sorts of fek*rs start making all sorts of suggestions to change your basic plan!!

Thanks for the feedback Will. Some people I've talked to have also mentioned the 5 gallon option. We thought the 1 gallon would give you a decent taste, and if you didn't like it then you weren't bogged down with a ton of brew you wouldn't drink. Perhaps in the future we can give the option of upgrading to larger boxes.

[Qs]

Sounds like you have it all well figured. Looking forward to see you going live. Great idea.

[molc]

Never tried a 1 gallon mash and boil. Thats pretty much just some large pots I guess.
Anyway the idea is intresting and I echo the calls for uncrushed as an option.

[LordEoin]

There have been other single gallon allgrain brewkits but they don't seem to have really caught on.
I think that the success or failure of this project hinges upon the asking price and quality.

Price:
There have been other single gallon allgrain mashkits but they don't seem to have really caught on. In fact NHC members have 10% discounts with one of them for about a year now and last time I checked not single one was redeemed. From general feedback it looks like they priced themselves out of the market at €15 a pop.
The customary price point for a 5 gallon mashkit is ~€15-25, so unless you can price the kit in the region of €7-10 including delivery you probably won't see a huge take-up  or continuation of subscriptions. Anything more and the delivery would be a disappointment.
Imaging receiving [1.1kg pale malt, 100g flaked rice, 7g hallertau pellets and a sachet of lager yeast]. Although it's a scaled down version of an AHA medal winning lager, such a small ingredient pack would leave a bad taste in the mouth if it was overpriced.

Quality:
The second factor is quality. If you can hook people on the idea of a monthly 4.5 liter brew, then you'll need to make sure that the quality is exceptional as a single poorly developed recipe will cause a hemorrhage of subscriptions. Anyone working on a subscription basis knows that a lost subscription is is incredibly difficult to attract back.
If you do go down the 5 gallon route later on, remember that many homebrew shops already have medal winning recipe mashkits available and you'll need to at least match their quality (and price) to be competitive. After all, the surprise of the contents removes the benefit of any choice.

Just my tuppence.
I wish you all the best with it and if the price is right I'll propbably sign up on a trial basis.

[Acott]

There have been other single gallon allgrain brewkits but they don't seem to have really caught on.
I think that the success or failure of this project hinges upon the asking price and quality.

Price:
There have been other single gallon allgrain mashkits but they don't seem to have really caught on. In fact NHC members have 10% discounts with one of them for about a year now and last time I checked not single one was redeemed. From general feedback it looks like they priced themselves out of the market at €15 a pop.
The customary price point for a 5 gallon mashkit is ~€15-25, so unless you can price the kit in the region of €7-10 including delivery you probably won't see a huge take-up  or continuation of subscriptions. Anything more and the delivery would be a disappointment.
Imaging receiving [1.1kg pale malt, 100g flaked rice, 7g hallertau pellets and a sachet of lager yeast]. Although it's a scaled down version of an AHA medal winning lager, such a small ingredient pack would leave a bad taste in the mouth if it was overpriced.

Quality:
The second factor is quality. If you can hook people on the idea of a monthly 4.5 liter brew, then you'll need to make sure that the quality is exceptional as a single poorly developed recipe will cause a hemorrhage of subscriptions. Anyone working on a subscription basis knows that a lost subscription is is incredibly difficult to attract back.
If you do go down the 5 gallon route later on, remember that many homebrew shops already have medal winning recipe mashkits available and you'll need to at least match their quality (and price) to be competitive. After all, the surprise of the contents removes the benefit of any choice.

Just my tuppence.
I wish you all the best with it and if the price is right I'll propbably sign up on a trial basis.

Thanks for your feedback LordEoin,

I agree 100%, price and quality are the biggest factor in this. HBC do great 23 litre kits from €15 upwards. I know The Brooklyn Brew Shop do 1 gallon kits for around $15, which seems to be the going rate for 1 gallon kits at the minute, we would love to be cheaper than this. I think the price is a major challenge for us, and can be the difference between going ahead or not.

As you say €7 - €10 delivered would be the ideal price, at the minute we can't get close to this and it's the couriers that are pushing our price. As we have yet to launch, we fall under the "potential business" category, we can express how many people who are interested but not how many will actually sign up. So most of our negotiations are done under speculation and because of this they can't really budge on price, is it any wonder why I'm bald?? So this is up in the air at the minute.

With regards quality, we intend on using the best grains, yeast and hops available. The recipes will be based on award winning brews plucked from books, the internet , clones and users. The idea behind the subscription is that you're brewing something you wouldn't normally brew. It's also an introduction for those who might want to move from extract to all grain without splurging on expensive equipment.

Everyones feedback is valuable, and the main reason why I posted here

[danger_zone]

Great idea. i've been toying around with the idea of brewing 1 gal batches for a while now especially seeing as Brewdog have just released a 1gal Punk mashkit set

[Greg2013]

Acott first off a good idea but like LE and others alluded to there are more pitfalls with what you are trying to do than say if you were a HBS selling mash kits.To be honest although it is early days yet you are giving us little to no solid information but asking us to sign up to an unknown entity,basically you are asking us to take it on faith,sorry boss but that 'aint happening.

You say you cant get near €7-€10 because of couriers but you have not actually said what your starting price is,you should have some idea and tbh it is only fair that you say what it is before asking us to sign up.

Look i wish you the best i really do but it is a bit cheeky to come on here and basically say " hey lads  we are starting this new service for one gallon batches,why don't ye take out a subscription and then i will let ye know what pricing etc will be",can you see where i am coming from ?

I would be interested also as i am winding down my brewing for various reasons but i certainly am not going to hand over money and not know what it is going to cost etc first.