March 5, 2008
I have been working on taxes this month, so I have not been able to update very much -- it is my classic February schedule - but that should soon end, and I'll be able to throw up a couple of more pages that are half-completed. In the meanwhile, I posted a new hop rhizome page. We will be selling hop rhizomes for the garden this year, and are accepting pre-orders right now. We should have them in by the end of March.
The Page of Yeast and our Sterilizer Page have been uploaded. I'll be fine-tuning them in the next few weeks, but most of the info is accurate and valid...
The next newsletter will be out in a few weeks, too, so keep your eyes open for that. There are lots of new things coming up that will be announced in the newsletter.... Untl then, Cheers!
February 3, 2008
Hey, all -- just finished watching a great SuperBowl -- what an ending!! And just finished uploading some new stuff.... Blichmann Engineering has just released a great line of brew kettles. Called the Boilermakers, these are state-of-the-art boil pots, and pretty competitively priced for everything that is included in them. See the Blichmann Page here for the definitive information, and then go to our catalogue page for pricing and availability...
I also have been working on updating some of the Winexpert pages, and built this **pretty awesome** (if I do say so myself) image map to help navigate to all the different levels of kits that they now have. I am still working on fine-tuning some of the deeper wine kit pages, with all the descriptions of the wines, but give me a little more time.
I am also working on my Page of Beer Yeasts, for all of you that called in to mention that it doesn;t exist.....
January 15, 2008
I just finished re-reading, re-writing and updating ALL of the information pages on the website. Whew! It took me awhile, but some of them were written almost ten years ago and although the information never goes bad, I think I was able to re-word alot of the stuff to make it more clear. I am also working on uploading some Quicktime videos about the beermaking process. Stay tuned for those! I hope to upload the first of them in February.
December 2, 2007
The Winter newsletter is finally done. I have been working hard on it for a few weeks and I'm happy to announce it is right on time. I try to have it done and e-mailed out around December 1. If you are not on the e-mail mailing list, feel free to sign up here and you will start receiving the Spring newsletter; for now you can download the Winter newsletter directly from this link.
We are flush - once again - with hops. A few days ago we were down to about three or four varieties, and about ten or fifteen 2-ounce bags of hops TOTAL but we received about 120 pounds of hops on Friday, so the Main Street hop coolers are maxed out right now. We do not expect to see any further lapses in our hop stocks for awhile, although prices have gone up slightly.
For the average five-gallon batch of homebrew it is fairly negligible, but - if saving money is paramount - the thrifty brewer can "downgrade" to a dried yeast (if you were using liquid strains) and save $5.00, or use more powerful varieties of hops, so you have to use less of them. Either of these switches could more than save you the extra few dollars that hops will add to your bill this next year or two. Bottom line: homebrew is still less expensive than commercial beers, and will be even more so when the hop prices start to be reflected in microbrews you buy from the store.
Anyway -- all you can do is drink and forget how bad the world is getting.
More news coming in a few more days -- I need a break after getting this newsletter out! See ya at the store...
November 11, 2007
We recently got about 50 pounds of hops in, but many of them are still 2006. This may be good, because the 2007 hops that I have seen will be going up in price. I have been inundated with on-line orders of people around the coputry trying to stock up on whole leaf 2006 hops at the "old" price. We are getting wiped out of our 2006's rapidly, so if you are interested in getting some, please place an order with me as soon as possible.
I am still not sure when the bulk of the 2007's will arrive. We do have 2007 Columbus in stock right now and they are VERY aromatic. Unfortunately, the price has gone up a bit, but - as mentioned down below - it will only add a nickel or so into each bottle of homebrew.
The good news: we do have a very limited supply of 2006 Summit hops available. The bad news: there will be no 2007 Summit hops available -- if we were to get the in (bit we're not!) they would retail for about $60 to $70 per pound this year!! We may not see any Summit hops next year (2008) either, so if you want to try these highly-touted hops, get them while the getting is good.
That's it for now -- more updates coming to the hop page this week as I find out more info about this year's crop.
November 4, 2007
Sorry for the slow update cycle, but I have been swamped with wine season. Typically, September and October are our busiest time of year (with winemakers, cidermakers and beermakers all coming by in full force) and this year has not been an exception. I have been working seven days a week for the past many weeks, and things are just now starting to slow down, giving me a chance to start updating things here on-line, and taking care of all of the things that fall by the wayside when the store is busy.
Hop News: Our 2007 hops should be arriving by the end of this week - around November 8 or 9. As may of you may have heard, the hop world is in flux right now, with demand far exceeding supply; here is a link to one of the many articles you can find about the situation. Here at Main Street, we will be relatively OK - I think. Prices will be going up, but I am not sure how much yet. Supply will be good. We expect to have as many types of hops - and as much quantity - as we had last year, for the 2006 crop. We will know more about pricing when the first bag arrives later this week. On a positive note, even a significant price increase on hops would only raise the price of a bottle of home brew by 5 or 10 cents, maximum. And because we locked in our order before the mass panic of the past few weeks, we should be seeing minor price increases at worst. They expect this hop situation to last for at least two years before it resolves itself.
Barley News: Many of you may have heard that barley is going up in price as well, This is less problematic than the hop shortage, and you may see no increase at all at the retail level -- we are still waiting to see any significant increases from my suppliers, and so far I have been able to absorb the small increases I have seen with my old pricing.
So, in general, although prices are going up, on the homebrew level it should have negligible impact. It will be worse for microbreweries that use lot of hops and have to buy thousands and thousands of pounds every few months. Never fear the future, me droogs: this is just another reason why we love homebrewing!
October 3, 2007
Wine season has been keeping my extra busy this year, but I am putting the final touches on my Fall newsletter as I write this. I hope to finish it up and get it sent out right around this weekend. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, the Winexpert Limited Edition wine kits have been announced. Check them out right here, and be sure to order before December 15.
September 13, 2007
I have been hammered with lots ot do for our Fall Grape Buy from eastern Washington, so I have not had very much free time, but I was able to whip out some new oaking information for all of you winemakers, and I fully revised some of my "how to make wine" pages on the info pages. This should make it a little more clear and in-depth on how we like to do it as we approach the busiest time of year for winemaking...
Let me know if you see any problems or typos -- I haven'd had any time to proof then yet......
There should be a new newsletter coming as we get towards the end of September -- hang on...
August 27, 2007
Finally got the pictures up on my press page -- if you are interested in any of these units, we still have a few left at our 10% Summer discount, but we are selling out of a lot of them. Please call or e-mail ASAP to lock in the best price available. The Grape Crush is coming soon!!
August 24, 2007
I know most of you regular customers don't go to the "about us" page any more, but check out the cool google map I put up there: you can manipulate it on the page without jumping off to a separate Google map page. The wonders of technology!
August 21, 2007
We have finally finalized the deal with our grape grower in eastern Washington. He recently sent me GPS coordinates for all the grape fields up in Richland where the grapes come from so I will post them in the next day or so using Google maps so you will be able to zoom right in and see where the little babies live while they are ripening.
I recently posted a new page on the web site in anticipation of the Crush coming up in a few weeks, The Page of Wine Yeast. Be sure to check it out, we have a lot of new varieties that we've found and are now carrying for almost any style of wine that can be made.
We also found some new forms of oak: oak staves and oak cubes that we have had many people asking about. I hope to write a page tomorrow night with all of that new information.
That's all for now -- stay tuned!
August 12, 2007
You may have been noticing a *lack* of updating on the web site these past few weeks. Well, here's the story-slash-excuse. I was very excited to be learning "advanced" web design and updating all my pages with Cascading Style Sheets. I had learned basic web design many years ago and had considered myself fairly adept at whipping up web pages as I needed.
Then I started trying to figure out CSS coding and the program Dreamweaver and realized that this stuff is really damn hard. I was lost. All of the code jockeys who like to analyze source code made it quite clear when they came into the store that I was a babe in the woods with this newfangled way to design web pages. I got the impression that they kind of pitied me when they offered their services at fixing up the old web site.
What was I to do? I locked myself into my brewery with a few kegs of beer, a laptop and The Idiot's Guide to CSS and have been trying to position graphics and float things left for the past half month. I needed to learn more about HOW to build my web site before I wasted any more time trying to build it.
And I am slowly figuring the whole thing out. I have recently gone back to actually uploading pages, and have posted the page of Grape Destemmers and Presses. I will fill all the pricing and pictures in tomorrow when I double-check the information, but we already have some of the units in the store ready for sale. If you are interested in these Presses and Crushers, before to get them soon -- we sell out every year before The Crush actually gets here.
More updates will come soon, now that I am beginning to see the Zen of Style Sheets, and feel that I am finally becoming one with the code.....
July 22, 2007
The long-awaited Page of Hops is finally up. You can read all about it here. I will be finishing it up with some hoppy graphics and external links in the next day or two, but here is the info. More pages coming soon.
July 9, 2007
We are changing our Sunday hours, slightly, to better accomodate our customers. Most of Sunday's business has been from 1:00 to 2:00 pm, so we are shifting our hours slightly later. We will now open at 11:00 am on Sunday mornings, not 10:00 am (which better suits those customers who tend to stay up late on Saturday night!) and we will stay open until 3:00 pm, not 2:00.
So, in a nutshell, as of today: our new Sunday hours will be from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm.
Also, Doug has recently taken up the hobby of beekeeping, better to feed his mead obsession. If you have any questions about this ancient and noble pasttime, please be sure to ask him. Main Street is also able to provide you with various beekeeping tools for those that are seriously interested in this interesting endeavor.
And finally, I am working hard to get the Summer newsletter out to you -- I hope to post it by this coming Thursday, July 11. After that, I will be able to post some new pages on the web site. Stay tuned for the newsletter e-mail anytime this week!
June 26, 2007
I have been working diligently on the Summer newsletter, so I have not had much time to update the website. Once the newsletter comes out, in a week or so, I will be back to posting more pages on the website. tay tuned for the newsletter!
June 14, 2007
Just finished the Beer Additives Page. I am going to start work on the Hop Pages, and the Wine Yeast Page next. Keep checking back for updated info.
June 13, 2007
Finally finished the Blichmann page at 10:30 pm. Will get to work on the other pages tomorrow and over the weekend. Stay tuned.
June 12, 2007
It looks as if little is changing on the website, but then how am I putting in so many hours?? For those that build web sites, you know. Web coding and design can be a full time job. The two or three hours I put in each night barely keeps up with inventory changes, much less a full re-design, as I am doing these days. But just to show you that things are a-changin', I will post the most recent updates here, as I do them each week.
I am now in the middle of my Blichmann pages. Check them out here.
I will be finishing that page this week, and then working on Beer and Wine Additives. More upadtes coming quickly. Thanks for visiting.
May 20, 2007
I am in the process of rebuilding the entire Main Street web site implementing an updated web design, deleting old and outdated pages and adding new and improved information throughout the catalogue.
Unfortunately, I am learning this new coding (CSS) on the fly and so for the next month or two (May and June, 2007), you may see some design "issues" as I rearrange the information on my pages and try to make everything easy to navigate. Rest assured we are still hard at work at the store and hope to transform (what I hope is a) great beer and wine-making web site into an even better one for all of my wonderful customers.
Thanks,
Sincerely,
Kevin
