Alternative Brewing Avis 

Title: Excellent Service and Quality Products

I recently purchased some coffee gear from Alternative Brewing and was thoroughly impressed with both the service and product quality. Their website is easy to navigate, with a great range of brewing equipment at competitive prices. Shipping was fast, and everything arrived well-packaged.

What really stood out was their customer service—they were responsive and helpful when I had a question about my order. It’s clear they’re passionate about coffee and committed to ensuring customers get the right gear for their needs.

If you’re into home brewing and want quality products with reliable service, I’d highly recommend Alternative Brewing.

Brilliant customer service. Great products. Have made many purchases. Easy to get assistance and advice.

The Bellman CX-25 seal kit arrived quickly and was easy to install. Now I’m back to making great coffee when camping again!

Pretty good quality, well made coffee machine, the milk steamer works well. Good for camping

Excellent service. Have bought several times, always helpful and great products.

So easy to use. Saw a few people talking about the dial being a little fidget-y. But turns out, it was quite nice and notchy which is kinda nice. I also like how compact it is.

I had problems with the courier not leaving the goods at my front door. I work full time and was never going to be at home for deliveries. The courier took the item back to their depot which I thought was 60km away but is actually 80! I tried to explain to them my predicament but they just sent the product back to the interstate company I had purchased from. For some reason it was too hard to redeliver when other parcels were being delivered to this
area.
Second attempt with the help of Alternative Brewing was successful. They did their very best to assure the delivery and by chance the courier came late in the day and I was home.
Thanks for all your support, Alternative Brewing and I will use your service again.

The product working extactly what I need.

AB is great
AB is a company that provide quality products, useful product review videos, and are helpful with any question.
I have purchased from them before and I will again. I recommend AB to anyone needing coffee or tea supplies.
They post with tracking - which is helpful too.

We bought a Rancilio coffee machine and Vario grinder bundle pack. We couldn't get the coffee machine to brew coffee for the life of us. Water wouldn't go through the coffee regardless of how it was ground. We followed the manufacturers instructions and videos for both the grinder and machine and contacted Alternative Brewing with our concerns. They offered suggestions so we followed their instructions, did videos as requested and got no where. Still didn't work. 12-14 emails later we were fed up and sent the machine back requesting a refund. $70 to send the machine back as they don't offer any return service or shipping assistance. Terrible customer service as the issues are never with the product, only the user. They refuse to give you a phone number so you can talk directly with them and they won't video call you. Their response is 'we don't refund if it's been open or used'. They constantly tell you to try this, try that, and when it still doesn't work it's all the users fault. We asked numerous times to return it and get a refund. Honestly, worst experience ever.
Buy elsewhere. There is a reason for so many 1 star reviews.

I placed an order on the 27/12, and a month later, the item has still not arrived due to multiple issues from the poor courier used for their '1-4 day' flat rate delivery.

Despite contacting Alternative Brewing three times and the courier five times, no resolution has been provided. I even gave the company five days notice to fix the issue before writing this review, but they’ve done nothing to help.

I expect Alternative Brewing to either deny this review or respond with a generic, automated reply. Let me be clear: this reflects my genuine frustration. Their failure to ensure delivery and address customer concerns is unacceptable.

At this point, I regret my purchase and the time spent dealing with this is no longer worth it.

I ordered a grinder and some other stuff with alternative brewing co. While I was pleased with the prompt shipping, the courier company Aramex, which alternative brewing uses is horrendous. If you’re not home when they deliver the package, I’m forced to either pay another delivery fee or collect from their warehouse which is a 45minute drive away. Secondly you can only collect between 8-5 Monday to Friday. Not ideal when you work full time. Aramex’s reviews are 1-star from 4,165 people. I would suggest Alternative brewing co use a different courier company as this will likely drive business away from their website.

Ordered an espresso machine, grinder and scales during the black Friday sales in the hopes that my shipment would arrive in 4-6 days as advertised on their website. 6 days came and passed and no sign of shipment or tracking info update so I got in touch with their customer service via email (no phone number to ring - shouldve seen this as a red flag in hindsight). I was told there was a slight delay due to the volume of sales during the black Friday period but the order would ship the following day. Fair enough, I get it, businesses are busy this time of year. 2 days later with no sign of tracking info update I rang the freight company who advised they still had no scan of collection of this shipment. So I got back in touch with AB who advised it had definitely shipped and that they would follow up with the freight company to locate it. After another 7 days of this backing and forwarding between the freight company and AB they finally admit the consignment wasn't shipped after all this time due to a system error in that one of the items ordered that was showing in stock at the time of order was actually out of stock and now on back order causing the order to be 'held', but that the other 2 items were definitely now shipped. Once again rang the freight company who told me the same story that they had no scan of the consignment. Requested a refund after this as I had no confidence they would ship it at all. AB did refund me promptly hence the 2 stars instead of 1 but what a complete and utter waste of everyone's time. Buyer beware that stock shown on their website may not reflect actual stock levels and customer service wil happily give you the run around telling you otherwise. I'll be buying elsewhere in future.

Beware. This business does not accept returns if a machine has been used, even if using the machine is the only way to know if it is fit for purchase. They are also puzzlingly unhelpful and rude in their email responses.

I purchased the Varia VS3 grinder because the Lagom Casa was out of stock. I was told that it was similarly low retention and that static was not a big problem.

After calibration and 3 test grinds, it was apparent that static and retention is a problem and that the bellows make a huge mess. The instructions recommend the RDM process and say that static should reduce after around 2kg of grinding.

To me, the mess, the need for RDM, and waiting for 2kg of grinding 18g a time for things to get better make this machine not fit for purpose. Even with online reviews — and note that AB’s video is very positive — how is one supposed to know if this grinder is fit for purpose?

I cleaned it and asked to return it for store credit, because even though I was unhappy with the grinder, and felt that I had perhaps not received the best advice, I still hoped to build a long term relationship with a local distributor.

However, AB doesn’t care. Their representative Jack wrote the following to me:

“We won't be able to accept a return of this grinder. You were notified of the return requirements and willfully ignored them. Australian consumer rights do not give the end user the right to "try before you buy" and whether a product is of acceptable quality is not at the end user's discretion to decide.

We will not be accepting a return and I would suggest you sell the unit privately if you would no longer like to keep the grinder.”

Even if they did not want to take the machine back, they did not even try to provide any suggestions for improvement that might persuade me to keep it. This is both poor after-sales service and also very different to the friendly and helpful manner in which AB presents itself online.

So, caveat emptor applies to me, sure, but for anyone reading this, you also have a choice, and I would suggest you exercise it elsewhere.

Good products and selection, but "24/7 Australian Customer Support" isn't.

I bought a Varia Hybrid Evo Grinder from AB and while I appreciate the price and fast shipping, I wasn't able to get support with the product—stopped grinding correctly—this Saturday morning around 9:20 am AEST despite the advertised 24/7 support. The chat agent advised that their product support would not be available until Monday.

This is misleading marketing IMHO.

Edit: while I appreciate the business' reply, let's face it... this wasn't a particularly difficult issue to solve. All I had to do was tighten a screw with the included hex key. Thanks for being willing to improve the honesty of your advertising.

Update 30 June 2025: the grinder’s motor died 6 days after the warranty expired. Alternate Brewing came through anyway, which was generous given I live outside of AU and would have had an uphill battle with AU’s consumer protection laws. That act of grace is enough to promote this review from 3 to 5 stars. Good recovery.

They’re not the cheapest but the depth and breadth of knowledge is sublime! I thoroughly enjoy giving them my money to enhance the experience of the brewing and consumption of 30ml of liquid black gold. I’ve bought a few things but most recent is the Normcore Spring-loaded Tamper V4, for lack of a better word it’s ‘Brilliant’. Perfect for all my home barista needs.

Bought a Mugen from AB for my afternoon office coffee. Produces a surprisingly rich balanced brew by just dumping the water in from a random kettle. Way better than expected. Great products and service.

I travel a lot, like a lot. I also love a good ristretto to get my day started. those two things are not alway compatible.

That can be hard to find, specially in some remote destinations and even in larger cities. The amount of times I have to explain how to make one, and that is even if they have the beans or capacity to produce one. I have had some very bad coffees at $5+

So... fast forward and after a lot of research. I opted for something that would be the most practical. Needs no power, just boiling water. You can even get tha on a long flight. I also opted for the Wacacco Exagrind manual grinder

It took me 3 goes to get the extraction right. That is not bad for a machine that I have never used.

I must say, I am impressed with the quality of the Picopresso and the quality of the shot it brews. With my current beans, 15 clicks on the grinder, filled to the top of the inside divisions, makes the perfect ristretto, with the Picopresso filled just shy of the top.

Very compact. It all could fit in my jacket pocket and the cary case it comes with is excellent.

Both very good products that will pay for themselves in just a few months

Excellent customer service
I bought from Chile and the communication was super fast. If you live in Australia I’m sure it’ll be faster.
I preorder in May and they sent my parcel as soon as they got the dripper. HARIO suiren

I recently bought a Gaggia coffee machine, but from the very first use, one of the lights on the panel wasn't working. I contacted them about the issue, and they sent me a prepaid postage label (although for the first time they sent me to the post office with an expired post barcode on Saturday and no one was available to help me even the online chat!) to send it in for repair. It's now been two weeks since I've been without the coffee machine that I paid approximately $800 for. When I requested a full refund, they said that they are not able to provide me with a refund for the machine while it is being repaired!
Their product is faulty and their service sucks!
Stay away from these people