Privacy policy

This policy explains what personal information 24x7.beer (including Brew Notes) collects, why, and what you can do about it. We follow the Australian Privacy Principles. We also give everyone the rights set out in the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), whether or not those laws strictly apply to us.

Last updated: 21 October 2026 (added the shop, country and gear links)

Who we are

24x7.beer, including Brew Notes at 24x7.beer/brew, is a free home-brewing website run by Graham Doessel of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia ("we", "us"). Graham is the controller of the personal data used to run the website, your account and the community.

The shop is run by a separate seller: I Did A Thing Limited, a company connected with Graham. The seller is the controller of the personal data in shop orders. In this policy, "we" also means the seller when we talk about shop orders.

You can contact us about privacy at any time through the contact form (choose "Privacy request" as the topic) or by email at hello@24x7.beer.

Whether or not the Australian Privacy Act 1988 strictly applies to us, we have chosen to follow the Australian Privacy Principles.

What we collect

If you just read the site

• No tracking. We do not use analytics, advertising cookies, tracking pixels or social media plugins.
• Server logs. Like any website, our hosting server records your IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time. We use these logs only to keep the site running and secure.
• Your browser only. Your theme choice, batch size and the brew log on recipe pages are saved in your own browser (local storage). They are not sent to us unless you are logged in and choose "Save to my brews".
• Fonts are hosted by us. Apart from our host, IONOS, no other company receives your IP address when you load a page. The one exception is the shop's payment step, which loads Airwallex's payment page and script, so Airwallex receives your IP address.

If you create an account

• Your username and display name.
• Your country, so we can show help lines and shop links for where you live.
• Your password, stored only as a one-way hash. We cannot see it.
• The date you joined, your last login, and the time you confirmed you are of legal drinking age and accepted our terms.
• Brew notes you choose to save in My brews: batch names, dates, sizes, gravity and temperature readings, and notes. They are private to you; only you (and we, when running the site) can see them.

When you create an account, we do not ask for your email address, real name, date of birth, phone number or payment details. The only time we ask for your real name is when you sign a recipe suggestion (see below).

If you post or submit something

• Forum posts, which are public.
• Recipe suggestions: the recipe, the name you want credited, the full name you type as your signature, your confirmations, an exact copy of the terms you signed, the time, and your IP address. We keep these as a record of the rights you granted. Your signature name is never published.
• Contact form messages: your name, your email address if you give one so we can reply, and your message.
• Shop orders: your name, email, phone (optional), delivery address, what you bought, the payment reference, your IP address, the version of the terms of sale you agreed to, and the order's history (paid, shipped, tracking). We use them to process, deliver and support your order, and share your delivery details with the supplier and courier who ship it. Card payments are handled by Airwallex on its own secure page; we never see your card details. Airwallex collects your card and billing details under its own privacy policy, at airwallex.com.
• Shop link clicks: when you follow a gear link we count the click and the country it was for. We don't record who clicked. See our affiliate disclosure.

Security information

To stop spam and break-in attempts, we record the IP address and the time of failed logins, sign-ups and form submissions. We automatically delete these records after 30 days. The IP address kept with a recipe suggestion is different: see "Recipe suggestions" above.

Cookies

Our main cookie is BREWSESS. It is set when you open a page with a form (such as log in, join, contact or the forum reply box) or log in. It keeps you logged in and protects forms against forgery. It is strictly necessary for those features, so it does not need consent. It expires when you close your browser or log out. It also holds what's in your shop cart.

If you choose a country in the footer, we set a second cookie, brew_country, so we remember your choice for a year. It only holds the country code.

We do not use the browser's Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signals because we do not track you in the first place.

If you don't choose a country, we guess it from your browser's language setting (for example "English (Australia)") to show local help lines. We don't store that guess.

Why we use it (and the legal basis under GDPR)

• To run your account and show your posts. Basis: performing our agreement with you (our terms).
• To keep the site secure and free of spam, and to moderate content. Basis: our legitimate interest in a safe, working site.
• To keep a record of rights granted in recipe suggestions. Basis: our legitimate interest in being able to show we may publish them.
• To reply to your messages. Basis: our legitimate interest in answering messages people send us.
• To process, deliver and support shop orders. Basis: performing our contract with you (the terms of sale).
• To keep order records for tax and accounting. Basis: our legal obligations.
• To prevent payment fraud. Basis: our legitimate interest in protecting customers and the shop.
• To show help lines and shop links for your country. Basis: our legitimate interest in showing you relevant information.
• To comply with the law, where we are legally required to.

Who we share it with

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information. We do not share it for advertising.

• Hosting. The site and its database are hosted by IONOS on servers located in the United States. IONOS processes the data only to host the site.
• Shop orders. Airwallex processes payments. The supplier and courier who fulfil your order receive your name, delivery address, email and phone (if given). Our suppliers are mainly in China and the United States.
• Legal. We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety.

Anything you post in the forum, and the credit name on a published recipe, is public and can be seen by anyone.

Where your information is stored

Our servers are in the United States, so your information is stored and processed there. The US may not give your information the same protection as Australian, EU or UK law.

When you use the site from Australia, we take reasonable steps for your information to be handled consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles, including using a host bound by data protection terms. If you are in the EU or UK, you send your information to us directly, and IONOS processes it for us under its data processing agreement.

Shop orders are also handled by the seller in Hong Kong, by Airwallex (which operates in several countries, including Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and the US), and by our suppliers and couriers, mainly in China and the United States. Sending your delivery details to them is necessary to fulfil the order you asked for.

How long we keep it

• Account details: until you delete your account.
• Saved brews: until you delete them, or your account. Deleting your account deletes them too.
• Security records (IP addresses for logins and forms): 30 days.
• Server logs: kept by our host for 30 days, then deleted.
• Forum posts: until you or we remove them. If you delete your account, your posts remain but show as "deleted user". If you ask, we will remove your posts as well.
• Recipe suggestions and their rights record: for as long as we own or use the recipe, and for 6 years after that, because the record shows we may use it.
• Contact messages: up to 12 months.
• Shop orders that were never paid: 90 days.
• Paid shop orders: 7 years after payment, because tax and accounting laws require it. If you delete your account, your orders are unlinked from it but kept for that period.

Your rights

Everyone can:

• ask what we hold about you;
• ask us to correct it;
• ask us to delete it;
• object to, or ask us to restrict, how we use it;
• receive a copy in a portable format.

We may need to keep some information despite a deletion request, for example paid order records we must keep by law. Logged-in users can download their data or delete their account themselves from the account page. We will not treat you differently for using any of these rights.

In Australia, if you are unhappy with how we handle a complaint, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

In the EU or UK, you can also complain to your local data protection authority.

In the US, state privacy laws such as California's apply only to businesses above certain size thresholds, which we are below. You still have all the rights listed above, and we do not sell or share your personal information.

We will respond to requests within 30 days. For EU and UK requests, we will respond within one month, which the law lets us extend in complex cases. We may need to confirm the request comes from the account holder.

Age

This site is about making alcohol. Accounts are only for people who are 18 or older and at least the legal drinking age where they live. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If we learn that we have, we delete it.

Security

We protect the site with:

• encrypted connections (HTTPS);
• hashed passwords;
• limits on login attempts;
• bot protection that does not rely on any outside service;
• restricted administrator access.

No website is completely secure. If a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm, we will tell you as soon as we can, and tell any regulator we are required to tell.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If the changes are significant, we will also put a notice on the site.