Bootleggers Brewery New Location. . .

It's right across the street. http://goo.gl/maps/BnjGz

 

Hi,

I thought I would quickly address a few comments posted above regarding our new location and prices.

Parking: There is some limited street parking close, but most of the parking available is at the other end of the alley at the Opus Bank parking lot (we have a shared parking agreement with them). That's 350 ft, or just over the length of a football field...probably not much further than parking was at our old location on a busy night.

Shade/Umbrellas: Yes we plan on purchasing them along with outdoor heaters and a few other odds and ends. When we announced we were opening, we called it a soft opening, because we expect to finish stuff this week before the grand opening. There is also indoor seating and a fairly large covered patio area with shade.

Prices: Yes, we periodically adjust prices just like any other retail establishment. We also recently adjusted pricing to our distributors as well. I think our prices have always been pretty reasonable, and continue to be. Our ingredients costs have been rising (about 5-10% a year), and we haven't taken any price adjustments in our tasting room in 2 years. To add to that, our Knuckle Sandwich costs us almost double our "normal" beers to produce, which technically means we should be selling pints for double as well (which we don't). We could also disguise the price increase by serving it in a smaller glass, but instead, we just try to be up front.

Specifically regarding Knuckle Sandwich growler pricing, it's kind of a no win situation for us. If we have lower prices, but have to limit the number of growler fills, we inevitable have at least one person show up every day saying "I drove XX miles all the way here for a growler fill and you just ran out....and now I'm pissed" Instead, we decided to just increase pricing a little but not limit it.

In general, our tasting room will be evolving as we do. We plan on ramping up our pilot batches there, and eventually filling all 40 taps we had installed. We'll be adding more furnishing and additional plants and other stuff, so please don't permanently judge us from our first 3 days open...

I do my best to be as transparent as possible, so feel free to ask if I haven't sufficiently clarified things.

Thanks,
Aaron Barkenhagen
Head Brewer/Owner
Bootlegger's Brewery

 

They must've upped production, because I saw lots of KS all around LA and SD over the past few weeks.

 

No. The police station is not across the street...it's around the corner with no common sight lines. Plus, 95 percent of the parking is on Santa Fe, which empties onto Harbor, a good distance away from the PD.

 

Thanks for clarifying, Aaron. Your new digs have a lot of potential. I'm looking forward to what you guys do with it.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I clearly missed the "soft" opening on the Facebook post that said unlimited KS growler fills and bottles. I wish you the best of luck in your new location and will continue to try to support local breweries.

 

I hate to break it to you, but this is always going to happen unless you plan on brewing knuckle sandwich year round. I'm not sure how upping the price does anything to save some for the fella who didn't get there early enough. I would better understand the simple "We just moved, gotta make up the cost of first and last somehow".

I'd hate to see how much % the next Imperial Black Phoenix gets charged since it takes more ingredients and time to make.

I'm still a little uneasy with its location being so close to FPD. I mean, it's just a little under two and a half football fields from where Kelly Thomas was beaten. I'm not sure that not having a direct line of sight to the pub won't prevent a squad car on the block or a conveniently placed check point.

 

Dude, there are more bars in Fullerton than hops nuggets in Exponential Hoppiness. Why would the gendarmes focus on Boots? And bringing up Kelly Thomas is just plain whacky. Oh well, it's your paranoia. Embrace it.

 

Much like you embrace your lack of sarcasm detector.

 

Valiant is certainly a step (or two?) above Old Orange. I haven't been a big fan of their IPAs, but the saison was pretty good and the two bitters they've brewed have been decent.

 

More than I'm embracing your classic 'oh, it was sarcasm' fallback response.

 

Eight bones is a pretty standard price for a DIPA bottle. However, $7.50 for a tap pint and 25 bucks for the growler fill? Sheesh.

 

Maybe $8 is the standard being set in the LA area but isn't Pure Hoppiness $5.75 at the brewery? Also, Enjoy By and Ruination can be purchased for $5.99 at BevMo. Maybe KS is on the pricier side due to the ABV (10%).

 

Economies of scale.

 

not really how price setting works for any business person in the busines of profit. increased demand means increase price until demand levels off and you're seeing inventory left over. while it maybe too much for me and you and we should seek out more affordable options, in a capitalist country they're justified to charge what the "market will bear". I get the sentiment, but i can't really blame a brewery for increasing prices.

 

Yeah, I get that, though what does it say about Alpine beers which are generally on the cheaper side? They're nowhere near Stone's capacity and I'm sure are smaller than Bootleggers. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure their beers are expensive to make given the amount of hops they probably use in their hop blasts.

 

Overhead? I'm only guessing here...but I would think Alpine's (lease/barrels produced) is much lower. There are a lot more overhead costs than just leasing though. In general, i'm guessing Bootlegger's is higher based on location.

I'm with a lot of you here though...not so sure about $25/growler for KS. Hell...I never bought one for $20/growler, and I've been going there for 2+ years. $17/growler, and you've got my attention. Everyone has their price, Bootlegger's approach is that they want to price the growlers high enough so they'll sell and still be available for weeks on end. $25 seems to probably be the right price given people are buying them, just not at the same rate as $20 growlers.

 

Probably that Alpine is run by better brewers than business owners. Or that they're selling short now in order to drive name recognition and long term financial growth. Possibly both.

 

Alpine shooting for name recognition? I hear tale that they've been seeking methods of making people forget about Alpine if they are above the North County line.

I'm more than willing to accept that the cost to move means they need to raise prices. But I do also assume that the increased facility space makes the excuse of KS taking up more room/time to make not adding up correctly as to why to increase the price.

Notice how I used the same wording that the Bootlegger's PR folks stated with the "it's just a bit more than a football field"in terms of parking.

Yeah, no fallback there. But hey, shine that armor up some more. I assume that Bootlegger's will need more White Knighting as they continue to raise the prices.