The Flying Barrel — Local services in Frederick

I am a twenty year plus customer of this great store. James, the owner, and other staff are very knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. The store has is a huge selection and is always ready to help customize a recipe to fit the nuances of actual ingredients, tastes and circumstances. I don't understand the one star reviews that show up first on Google, and would love to know of better (especially local) homebrew stores because they would be even better than this already excellent one.

I brew at home, but I will also say that they offer a great introduction to brewing with their brew on premises option. When buying my ingredients, I see so many happy customers learning how to and then making their own beer. I did brew once there with my lab and it was a good experience that resulted in several...

I recently decided that I want to get into home brewing and found this little place. I had actually been to Monocacy Brewing Co. quite a few times without realizing what this place was. The Flying Barrel is a great place to pick up brewing supplies. I decided to take their "class" and brew a 5 gallon batch for the first time with no experience. Their people are very knowledgeable and take you through the brewing process from start to finish. Dan was especially cool and helpful. The 5 gallon IPA that I brewed yielded two cases and turned out pretty tasty. I will be back to try a porter, next time in a cornelius keg....

There are better homebrew stores within reach. Specifically when they want to charge $4.95 for dry yeast packs. You read that right... I was in there last weekend to get some yeast for my cider (didn't have exactly what I wanted) but I ended up buying a vial of White Labs liquid yeast. $7.95 for a vial which is close to the going rate. I just picked up some dry yeast at another homebrew store for less than a dollar per pack. What a joke.

I have also observed their 'bulk' hops not being stored properly in individual sealed bags or vacuum packed.

Very steep prices but if you need it, they...