Alternative Brewing Avis 

They've got the biggest range of gear at great prices and with fast delivery.

Great products and easy pick up option if you are in Brisbane. Also great customer service - easy to email and quick to respond.

I can't recommend Alternative Brewing enough. I picked up an El Rocio Manus S espresso machine and a Mazzer Philos single-dose grinder to upgrade my home setup. I also grabbed some extra gear, including a Pesado high-extraction basket and a puck screen to help dial in my shots. The ordering process was seamless, delivery was prompt, and the equipment itself is top-tier. It's great to have a reliable local supplier with such an excellent range of high-end espresso gear. 5 stars!

Money well spent

This is a handy stand, small footprint and works well with my Normcore bottomless portafilter. Thanks for the great videos to help me make my decision easy!

One of the best places to buy coffee gear in Melbourne hands down. Prices are usually the cheapest and if they aren't they do price matching and you get points for buying stuff for future savings.

Alternative Brewing was very easy to deal with, customer service is A1, friendly and helpful staff. My delivery of the Varia VS3 Gen 2 grinder was fast and lucky I was home to receive it.

The team at Alternative Brewing are a terrific bunch and super professional. Fast response with queries and very helpful with orders. Highly recommended and I will be a repeat customer moving forward.

The purchase experience through Alternative Brewing was impressive. The site is easy to navigate, the correspondence and communication through the process always clear and prompt and the good arrive well packed and as described. Added with the keen pricing and discounts its a win every time.

Great product and service. Highly recommend.

I have purchased from these guys a few times now, every time despatch has been efficient, goods have arrived as expected. The one time there was a delay, I had a real person contact me and provide good information, which made the experience excellent, despite a couple of day delay.

We purchased a Lelit Anna - it's a fantastic little machine that makes great coffee. Also had a great experience with Alternative Brewing!

Very nice!
Practical, fully featured, and aesthetically pleasing.

I love alternativebrewing! The videos make it so easy to pick what I want and then when i checkout everything is shipped so quickly.

Daniel Isaac

Alternative Brewing and Barista warehouse. Are rude, dismissive and unhelpful I Bought a ROK Coffee maker and the ROK grinders, etc.,.almost AUD800. I asked for help using the two-handed manual coffee machine. I asked for a call so they could explain what I was doing wrong. I was told to watch the video. I was told to make a video of me using a machine that requires 2 hands. I said I was unhappy with the attitude and can I return it. No, it is used.

Product: Hario Alpha Electric Kettle
Order Number: #718692
Author: Senyang
Overall it is a great kettle . I can feel it is made by good materials, with ergonomic designs that makes the pull over so easy. One little concern is that it keeps boiling the water for one minute after boiling point has been reached. Not quite sure if one minute of boiling is by design, or a bit too long?

Do not risk your money with Alternative Brewing. If your product arrives in perfect working order, you will be fine. But if you receive a defective unit out of the box, expect a grueling, multi-month battle filled with corporate deflection, lack of accountability, and a complete denial of your statutory consumer rights.

I purchased a brand-new DF54 espresso grinder that arrived with a major factory assembly defect (loose internal fasteners). This caused the hardened steel burrs to clash during operation, resulting in permanent physical damage, metal deformation, and a persistent safety risk of shedding metal shavings into the coffee grind path.
My experience navigating their service framework revealed a business model built entirely on bad faith, incompetence, and deflection.
Reading through other negative reviews, a consistent theme emerges: Alternative Brewing completely refuses to take accountability as the retailer. They consistently attempt to hide behind their suppliers or importers, treating their own customers as a middleman rather than honoring their legal obligations under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

Countless times, their team tried to claim everything was "normal" without making any effort to actually listen to my performance concerns. I provided side-by-side videos and high-resolution images of the inconsistent grind size, yet they completely ignored the evidence.
They used the mere fact that the machine's motor turned on and could physically push coffee out as an indication that it was "working perfectly." This is the equivalent of a retailer claiming a brand-new sports car works perfectly because the engine starts, completely ignoring the fact that it cannot drive above 20km/h. There was zero effort to understand the actual technical issue (the machine clashed at settings below 10 and could not achieve a fine espresso grind).

When I first returned the unit for inspection, their testing was utterly sub-par. Instead of testing the machine against the specific faults I documented, they simply ran it, failed to identify the true problem, and shipped it back claiming it was fine. To add to the chaos, they provided tracking details but shipped it to the completely wrong address, forcing the unit to be shipped twice and dragging the timeline out further.

When presented with photographic proof of the severe physical scoring inside the unit caused by the loose hardware interference, they tried to falsify information. They claimed the internal damage was just "standard production machine marks" and even sent photos of a supposedly "new unit" with the same score marks. Having spent years working professionally with high-tolerance precision machined components, I called their bluff. It was only after I formally threatened an independent technical assessment that they immediately backed down on this deceptive claim.

Another consistent theme mirrored in other reviews is their immediate reflex to push the blame onto the consumer to justify their own failures. In my case, they went as far as falsely insinuating that I had tampered with the internal hardware, trying to use the fact that the screw heads were clean as "proof", ignoring that I had cleaned the unit precisely as instructed by their own staff's email.

It took an astonishing 68 back-and-forth emails, two separate return shipments, threats of a formal financial chargeback, and logging complaints with consumer watchdogs just to get this retailer to acknowledge a glaring physical defect. While they finally backed down and replaced the compromised internal parts because I was moments away from initiating a charge back with my bank, the process took over two months. I paid a premium for a pristine, brand-new machine, and I have been left with a marked, scuffed, and refurbished unit. Yes, it works now they have fixed the issue - but it was not worth the turmoil it took to get there.

Preemptive Note to Readers: If you look at Alternative Brewing’s negative reviews, their standard corporate practice is to post highly defensive, scripted responses to save face. They will likely respond to this very review claiming that they "resolved the issue," "replaced the parts under goodwill," and "complied with the ACL."

DO NOT BE FOOLED!

A forced repair at the tail end of a draining, 68-email battle does not erase weeks of terrible communication, blame-shifting, fabricated technical claims, and a compromised end-product. They do not respect customer loyalty. As someone who prefers to support local Australian businesses, it pains me to say this, but take your money elsewhere.

Alternative Brewing are the distributor for Varia grinders in Australia. Under one year in and my VS3 started drifting whilst grinding a single 18g dose. On Varia's guidance I applied food safe grease; this made no difference. AB suggested I changed to the spare set of supplied springs; this made no difference. AB then dispatched stiffer springs and at that time I advised that this constituted their attempt to fix the unit under Australian consumer legislation. The springs fixed the drift by making the adjustment totally unusable (the entire grinder moves instead). I made it clear that the product isn't fit for purpose and that's supported by the coffee roaster from whom I purchased the unit. AB won't acknowledge the consumer right to a refund (they also chose to ignore the video demonstrating the stiffness caused by the new springs); it's quite clear that it the unit presented like this on arrival I would've rejected it outright, instead they're insistent that I need to submit it for warranty inspection and repair.

EDIT:
"I am sorry that this is frustrating however this is a repairable fault and not considered a major fault in the unit. At this stage I can not offer a refund for this unit. I am still happy to offer a return label to have the warranty team further asses this unit for further resolution weather that be repair replacement or refund." 24/04

The above email is not accurate with respect to ACL and runs contrary to AB's response to this review. I'll proceed with the return and edit this as appropriate.

We bought a $450 coffee DF54 grinder which clogged up after 2 months even though it was used exactly as directed. It took many weeks of frustrating communication for them to take it back and service it which was supposedly "a favour to me". Subsequent searching shows that this is a known fault with the system so I think in 2 months from now I will be arguing for a refund after it breaks again.
If you buy from this company, you will have no after-sales warranty support without wasting a lot of your time or paying for it yourself. Extremely poor service.

Invoice Number : 710631

As a follow up to their reply. They have told me that in humid environments like Sydney, this item is prone to frequent clogging every couple of months, which requires a service by them to fix, which they want to charge for. As per Australian consumer law this means it is not fit for service but they think it is fine. There are multiple complaints about their neglect of warranty issues. Reporting to the ACCC only takes 10 minutes.

Absolutely love my Bellman Espresso & Steamer CX 25P.

After having a flat white from my friend's one while we were out camping, I knew i had to get one. To be able to make an espresso coffee with steamed milk with just heat alone is perfect. We use it at home every morning, and bring it with us in the van for a flat white in the early mornings in the mountains. Feels very fancy. We also use the steam wand on its own for hot chocolates in the evening. We were considering buying a benchtop espresso machine, but this one is so compact and doesn't need electricity and minimal water, it's just a no brainer.

10/10 so stoked.

Top tip for anyone thinking about buying one though: check to make sure it's the one that comes with a tamp and milk jug. Unfortunately I bought the one that was just the coffee machine, so I had to place a second order for the tamp and jug and pay for shipping from Australia twice, gutted.

Also I've just learned you can get a reusable coffee filter as opposed to the disposable paper ones, wish I had got one of those too.

So don't be a numpty like me, just order the right product from the beginning.