HomebrewZ

No Longer In Business

Yeah, this place makes no sense. It’s a tiny shop located right next to Wild Wolf’s brewpub. The store’s divided into two rooms. The front room of the store is devoted to hot sauce and novelty glassware (want to buy a UVA conical pint glass? You’ve come to the right place!!!). The back room’s a modest home brew shop featuring the usual range of supplies. I understand this place is a legacy of Wild Wolf’s beginnings, but it just feels like an afterthought of a shop.

Great selection of fresh ingredients, way more than I expected for a shop outside of the city. More kits and adjuncts than I’ve seen in the brew shops in C-ville. Serious selection of hops, both pellet and leaf, and yeast too. Best thing is its so much closer to where I live, and they even ordered in some specialty malts for me.

This whole set-up is weird. Way back when, Wild Wolf Brewing Company was a combination nanobrewery/homebrew shop. Now Wild Wolf is a much bigger brewpub that has constructed shops around it, and one of the tenants is a homebrew shop, which I believe is because the brewpub wanted a homebrew shop there. The shop is weird... a hybrid of a homebrew shop with a barware/kitsch shop. The homebrew stuff is in the back and actually has a solid selection for a very small space. The selection is definitely ingredient oriented and you will only find the most basic equipment. The shopkeeper, who I think is the owner, is nice, but I didn’t ask any homebrew questions. Plenty of parking, and while I only looked at the prices on the hops, they seem fine. Fifth Season in Charlottesville has a better selection than here if you can’t get to Fermentation Trap North of town.