Fremont Brewing/Pine Box 1st Anniversary beer!!!

Fremont said next week, no limit set (so far) and not sure on price, when I called today.

 

Well, "dicks" is a little strong. Hairy and tattooed maybe, but, no, not dicks. Here's the deal: The First Nail was an extremely expensive beer to brew based on the grain bill and the added ingredients. Now, add in the extra $1500 for labels on a 60-case run, and then the bottling and the high cost of wax, and then you start to get the picture. Neither Pine Box nor Fremont (us) jacked up pricing to screw people out of money based on this beer being "rare" etc. Fremont's philosophy is exactly the opposite of this mentality. We line-priced the beer based on costs. Period. If we wanted to play the price game based on popularity, we would charge much more for Bbomb or KDS or Summer, etc. So, please, put the pitch fork away. We make about $12-18/hour. How much do you make? If you make more, are you "screwing" your customers out of money?
Remember this, too: the craft beer business is a ton of fun and very rewarding, but margins are extremely low. Most of our customers make more money than we do. I'm not complaining, I'm just laying down the facts. We keep our prices low to very fair in order to allow our customers to access beers that normally would be priced beyond their means.
On another subject: with only 60 cases made of The First Nail, we decided not to distribute through our wholesalers and simply sell it at the PB and the brewery rather than face the wrath of every account who didn't get "enough" or any due to the limited number of cases.

 

I was being facetious and a bit tongue in cheek, sorry if you missed that.

I have never felt that you guys jack up your prices. You are easily my favourite brewery and I buy a shit tonne of your beers and will continue to do so. Don't worry about how much money I make, just remember that us customers keep your lights on.

 

I love hearing from Texwild not once do I see his screen name and think "dammit, diatribe coming".
I tell many aspiring brewers the same thing he said... Brew for the love of craft beer, not to make money. Because you won't make any money for a LONG time.
As far as bypassing a distributor, that makes sense to me. Will you line price your bottles with pine box so there is no internal competition? Not a big deal but I'd drive across town to save 5$ a bottle. My $0.02

 

Yeah, sorry if I missed that. I know you're a great customer and thank you for walking with us as we go on. It's hard to communicate how much that means to me. The price thing is such a double-edged convo it requires a beer and face to face hang time. Either way, I don't worry about how much anyone makes.....that's why I left the law and started a brewery

 

Thanks for the kind words...some day you have to tell me where you work b/c your knowledge of the industry is clearly backed by either 1. a ton of drinking beer with industry folks at beer events or 2. job experience. I always appreciate your input to these forum postings.

Pricing. Well, your point is well taken. However, the difference reflects two things: as we step into the shoes of the distributor by self distributing the beer, we then sell beer to retail accounts with the retail markup usually charged by the distributor as opposed to the price we sell beer to distributors as a supplier only. The 30% markup of the retail account is your price. For example, our Bourbon Abominable sells for $15 at the brewery and $18-20 in the market.

Ian and Dean will easily sell through their bottles. However, I would not charge customers and extra %30 to line price a beer with any retail account. Now, Ian and Dean are amazing guys and we had many beers talking about this beer. All is well. No rivalry intended, just two businesses who understand their own model...and care more about the beer.

Back to beer...have you tried the SBW Pale?

 

Headed down to the Pine Box tonight for the first time and I was pretty impressed by the number of taps they had running and the quality of beer on those taps. Started with a Tilquin Gueuze, followed by Sucaba, Hop Venom, and finally First Nail, which was different, but pretty damn delicious. I really dig the cinnamon in it. It's very reminiscent of the BA Abraxas I got to try at a bottle share. I feel like the depth of flavor here that a lot of people including myself love in barrel aged stouts comes through great with the cinnamon. Nice beer, Tex!

 

It's my group of friends. We're just having fun.

 

Texwild is selling this beer for $15 at his brewery. Pine Box marked it up to $20.

 

Agreed, especially since we can get a growler of Dark Star Imperial Oatmeal Stout for the same price. Of this, I am a big fan.

Regardless, I'll pick up a bottle of 1st Nail anyway.

 

(Collective)You are pretty much showing Fremont to not make interesting beers with your sandy vagina whining. Seriously, if you don't like the price don't buy it. They price their beers due to ingredients and market not to make 6 figures.

 

While not barrel aged, First Nail also had more ingredients than just the malt, water, hops, and yeast. If nothing more, there was a ton of cinnamon used which I'm sure isn't cheap and it also makes the beer much more interesting than other typical Imperial Stouts that aren't barrel aged. The way I see it you pay for that interesting aspect in a good beer either with the barrels or, if no barrels are used, some other creative ingredients.

$20 is not that big of a deal guys. Try the beer before you cast any judgement, and if you still don't like it but are bitching about an extra $5, I'm sure you'll see another $5 in your life pretty soon.

 

Well, I went by today and the person working said I couldn't take a bottle to go because they had hard liquor. I was a little confused by this, and with the price, $20 for on site consumption seemed a little crazy. I was a little sad that I couldn't take one on my way, because I doubt I will be able to pick one up at Fremont before they sell out.

 

This was at the pine box? That person was either very wrong or someone screwed up planning their anniversary because I took 3 bottles home the other day.

 

We need beer to continue this one and a sit down face to face. Cost is a fun subject but too much to capture here. For the record, we provide 100% covered health and life insurance and sweet salaries for the industry so our "cost" for the beer is high compared to the industry norm. Again, not bitching and def not laughing on way to the bank but another element to consider. Anyway, I'm off to read books.

How about a BA get together next month? We can feel out and drink $4 pints at the brewery.

 

That was "geek" out, not "feel" out

 

I'm SO in when and what time?