Jester King Craft Brewery

There's obviously a lot of thoughts on the new laws, pricing, etc. I just don't understand why some people are confused why others aren't exactly thrilled with the new laws. Other than having a bottle share at releases this doesn't exactly benefit a large group of JK supporters. Am I happy for JK and other TX breweries, yes. Am I happy as a comsumer, no. It is possible to be both ya know.

I fall into the whiney, bitching group on this one but at least I'm honest about it and I have no problem admitting it. I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm just speaking for my self and at least a few others when I say its not completely advantageous to everyone to have to deal with a special release just to get the more desirable JK beers. Why can't even the JK homers see that? If anything at least say "yup, sucks to be you" or "living in Austin is badass and convenient but I see why you would be bummed out about this" but don't act like you can't see why we're not all happy as consumers.

I guess I'm just saying I'm surprised (not really actually, lol) that there are people who think we are all anti JK just because we express discontent about not being able to pick up these beers off the shelf anymore. If I didn't like any of their beers then maybe I wouldn't be dissapointed.

End rant. I'm also waiting for the "sucks to be you" quote thrwon back at me.

 

Now it is the overhead? Having a bartender a lot more days of the week should be covered by how much beer you sell. They will make a lot more money being open and able to sell beer than they did previously so the cost of staying open longer should not really be a factor to make their prices more than a bar.

My thoughts are that is is just going to "scare" people away who are not big beer fans. They will go out there, see the prices, and never go back. Being able to sell beer to the public, I would think that you would want people to come out and try the beer and try to get the word around. But, at this price point, I do not see it happening.

 

I think they're going overboard in trying to avoid undercutting their retailers.

It's ok to undercut retailers a small amount. It's not like you're in the heart of the city, Jeff. The cost in time and gas to get out there is prohibitive for most people to do on a regular basis as it is.

 

I really dont see how anyone thinks these prices are not in line with other bars. I have paid $5 or $6 for an 8 oz snifter of JK sours at Draught House and didn't think that was crazy. This is the same as what JK is charging.

 

sucks to be you.

 

Be friendly

 

Always! ;-)

 

So now we are getting upset over a bar charging bar prices?

 

IMO that is an indication that taproom prices are excessive. At most breweries around the country the taproom is the cheapest place to buy the brewery's beer on tap. It should be more expensive to drink off-premises because there's distribution costs involved. I'm happy to drink at a brewery and give them 100% of the cash for their beer but if I'm paying the same prices for the same beers then why drive out to JK instead of drinking at Draught House where you have a large selection and less time and money spent driving? Admittedly, you're not going to find that many JK beers in one bar but how many non-beer geeks are driving out there for the same prices?

For those of you happy to drive out there I'm sure you will have many great beers and many great times.

 

I'm betting part of the pricing being "so high" is also because, if you undercut all of the other places that sell your beer, everyone will just come to you instead of going the local bottle shop. While it would be awesome to buy a bottle of Funk Metal at the brewery for $10, that would be shitty to all the places that have sold your beer in the past. In fact, I think this was one of Sam's (E 1st St, Grocery) concerns about pricing beer on site.

This is kinda what I'm talking about. You can't undercut the accounts that have been selling your beer in the past.

 

You know who it really hurts? Stanley's Pizza.

 

I just hope off premise bottle prices are cheaper than what we see here. I will use FFF as my example. Their to go bottle prices for bombers are generally about a buck cheaper than most retail locations. They are also a brewery outside of a major metro area.

They don't worry about undercutting prices since they know its far enough away from Chicago that if people want to grab it locally they'll pay a buck extra.

That said their pours at the brewpub are a tad cheaper as well on average.

The big difference is FFF will have 10 beers you won't see anywhere else or in a bottle.

 

Give it time. I'm sure the same will happen at JK and throughout the state.

 

I'm sure more revenue will help.

 

Ive always theorized that secretly Jeff IS Stanley. *dun da duuuu*.

 

I know I have never seen the two of them in the same room at the same time*






* I actually haven't seen either of them in any room

 

That argument is proven invalid by pretty much every other state with breweries that can sell on site.

 

I'm just saying it was a point brought up by Jeff and Sam. And I think Jeff said that he was advised by other breweries in the same situation not to sell bottles too cheaply.

I think one of the big advantages to Jester King selling bottles on site is that they will have some beers that will be gone in most bottle shops, selling brewery only releases, and it maybe being a buck or two cheaper but not much more than that.

 

The main difference here in Chicago taxes vs small town Indiana taxes. Even Chicago Loop taxes are way higher than outside of downtown, which nearly makes up the dollar between Muenster and Chicago. I don't know Austin's tax code but seriously doubt there is the same discrepancy.

 

We've seen price brought up before as an issue with our beer, and I certainly don't hold any ill will against anyone who has done so. What I'd simply point out is that the biggest cost in making our beer is time. Of the sixteen beers on our menu for June 29th, seven are aged for 6 to 12 months in oak (Funk Metal, RU55, Viking Metal, Boxer's Revenge, Ol Oi, Das Uberkind, Experimental Sour Blend), two more are blends of young beer with old, barrel aged sour beer (Das Wunderkind, Salt Lick) and the rest currently still take 6 to 12 weeks to make (Le Petit Prince, Noble King, Mad Meg, Black Metal, Wytchmaker, Weasel Rodeo, Commercial Suicide). Even our beers that don't spend time in oak are starting to trend toward taking longer to make (about three to four months) as we move toward incorporating a more diverse culture of wild organisms into all our fermentations (we'll have more to say about this topic in the future).

As a result of how we make our beer, we don't have very much to sell and our prices are higher than beer made in a much quicker fashion. As my partner Ron Extract has said before, whether you feel the extra time warrants the extra cost is a decision you'll have to make. Speaking of Ron, I remember him writing about this topic before in a different thread. For anyone interested, this is what Ron wrote:


Weyermann Organic Pilsner Malt, our base malt for Le Petit Prince, Noble King, and Mad Meg, actually costs $1.17/lb, and some of the specialty malts that we use cost even more. Organic Caramunich, for example, is $1.43/lb. The recipe for this beer also calls for approximately 1.5lb per barrel of European noble hops, which, as I'm sure most of you know, are not cheap. The hops required for a batch of Le Petit Prince actually cost more than twice as much as the those required for the same size batch of Wytchmaker.

The biggest cost factors for all of our beers, however, are time and labor. We're very limited in what we can produce, and as a result, we need to charge a little more for what we're able to make in order to sustain our business. Our non-wild beers typically spend anywhere from 3-6 weeks in tank, followed by another 3-6 weeks bottle/keg/cask-conditioning. A brewery making less highly attenuated beers with a quicker fermenting yeast, and force carbonating could conceivably produce in about a week what it takes us anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks to make. Whether you feel that the results of this extra time warrant the extra cost is a decision that only you can make.

Le Petit Prince is actually far and away our least profitable beer, but even if we more or less break even on it in the end, we'll keep brewing it for our own consumption and sell what we're able to sell. We tried to be as aggressive as we reasonably could with the pricing, taking into account that it is meant to be a session beer, and not wanting the bottle price to stand in the way of that. We targeted a $5.99 retail, but taking the realities of the market into account, that target isn't always possible to hit. Maybe it will become more possible with time.

In order for a brewery our size to sell its beer at more "competitive" prices, it seems to me that they would either need to plan on growing significantly so as to achieve the economy of scale necessary to make such pricing viable, or they would need to use far less expensive ingredients and processes than we do. We've already said that we're not willing to compromise on our ingredients and processes. We're also not trying to become the next large regional producer. We're a small artisan brewery, making the beers we want to make, the way we want to make them, and though we are growing and hope to keep growing to the extent that we can do so organically, we're not striving to be anything other than that. Not everyone is going to like what we do, and that's OK. There's plenty of other beer out there for those who don't care for ours.

Cheers,
Ron Extract
Jester King

http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/weasel-rodeo.18540/page-2