New Glarus 2015 R&D

Its their best decision ever as I was able to grab a pair 5 weeks later . Double whammy for me today and love this brewery for everything they do!

 

Didn't some of this allegedly hit Distro? How are they "stuck" with this beer. They can take the rest to retail anytime they want and it will sell. I love the notion that a beer that has primarily been sold at the brewery is considered a shelf turd.

 

Looks like wild bitter is gone. Buddy grabbed the last two.

 

I see your point, but if a guy does it for this beer he wil try to do it for all limited releases. The fact is these DB's need to be stopped.

 

As I wrote in the Great Taste thread, the solution to a shortage is a price increase. At least in this case New Glarus is utilizing lines to promote its brand ("Look! Our beer is so good that people travel long distances to get it, there are lines out the door, and we have to set quotas on it!"), and/or New Glarus is trying to avoid the inevitable negative publicity that would result from a substantial increase in prices. In other words, pricing below market-clearing levels is a marketing technique designed to protect goodwill and increase hype for the sake of producing greater long-term profits at the expense of short-term profits. Of course, if more people understood that, the marketing trick wouldn't be so effective.

Artificially low prices are great for "truck chasers" who have the connections to find out about special releases and the time and flexibility in their schedule to run to chase them down. The hunt is part of the hobby for such people, and, for that reason, it seems that travelling long distances and standing in line is part of the fun for them. Artificially low prices are bad for everybody else, who will never get a chance to try the beer even if they're willing to pay a premium for it or will have to waste their time and resources in the limited secondary and beer trade markets. The former sort of consumer represents the vocal minority and the latter sort of consumer represents the silent majority.

Of course many other breweries utilize the unnecessarily low prices / intentional shortages marketing trick. It's just that, as with almost all else, New Glarus is among the best at it.

 

Wild Bitter announced gone 20 minutes ago (I know it was stated above, he's correct). Wish there was a bit of sun today to warm things up a bit but overall a good day....good day to sit and drink some good beer.

Also, fuck Brown Paper Tickets. Count me as one against going that route.

 

Or Dan and Deb Carey just like to make good beer and share it with good people. Amazingly, not everyone thinks like you.

 

That brewery is beautiful. The exchange was smooth and everyone was polite. Looking forward to opening a bottle tonight. Ended up buying two Wild Bitters for the hell of it.

 

Just stopped in. Plenty left. Unless there is a big afternoon rush should last until 4.

 

Deb Carey is a sophisticated and savvy businesswoman. She understands what she's doing. As a New Glarus fan, I think that's great. More financial success for New Glarus means more great, experimental beer from New Glarus.

Assuming that the supply is fixed (not necessarily an accurate assumption), all we're talking about is how the scarce product is allocated. Should it be allocated based on queuing to people able and willing to stand in line for it or should it be allocated based on price to people who are willing to pay for it? Unless you're defining the former as "good people" and the latter as "bad people," I don't understand your point.

For the record, I'm definitely not one of those people who would be dropping big money on New Glarus releases. 40 cents an ounce is about my normal limit. I pass up on supposedly great beer all the time because I don't want to pay the going rate for it.

 

Any places around that would still have any wild bitter left? Heading up soon.

 

No, brewery only. No Distro.

 

I know there was at least one bar in Milwaukee that sold Wild Bitter a week or so ago. But you were correct in saying No...it's not available anywhere around town

 

Thanks for the clarification.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

Customers crying for price increases. Now I've seen it all.

I'm glad that we line up to support the brewers who make a great product and sell it at a price that puts it within reach of most everyone. Hopefully Three Floyd's doesn't read this and decide to increase the price of Dark Lord to $50.

 

Dude, you do some great stuff in the Twin Cities forum, but this whining for price increases because you're in love with hearing yourself yammer about economic theory is just silly. I just checked & EconomicsAdvocate.com is available if you want a platform to go on & on about things that only Econ professors care about.

 

Do you like apples?!!...

(I hope this reference is somewhat understood with what's occurring here)

 

This is silly. I think that everyone in the beer community would agree that we enjoy the fact that R&D sour beers are high quality sour beer for only 10 dollars a bottle! Where else do you see this happening in the craft beer world? It is not very common. I know I appreciate what Dan and Deb do at New Glarus. Thank you Dan and Deb for making the best sour beers in Wisconsin and also thank you for not ****** our pocket books for said R&D sour beers! A class act for sure.

The real spin on what your saying goes like this... The reputation of the quality of R&D beers preceeds its self. This beer series bring people to the brewery because it is worthy of the praise. It is great "press" for the brewery to be cranking out a series of beer like the R&D series does time and time again. It also gets consumers to buy more beer from the beer depot after they pick up the 2 R&D bottles that day. It is a win win for the consumer and brewery that gets customers in the doors. Dan and Deb have never tried to sell expensive beer. They make the money on sheer volume of sales. This is no "marketing trick" as you say.

 

Yeah! I wanna keep delicious luxury products out of the grubby, unwashed hands of the poor as well!

Come on, man. Part of yhe reason NG (and the R&Ds in particular) is so successful is because they're so affordable. I love being able to grab 2 world class sours/experimental beers for $20 when I'd likely pay at least that for 1 from another brewery. I don't want to see beer become wine and spirits. Beer has always been a blue collar beverage. I'm okay with it becoming classier, but part of the appeal of it over wine and spirits is its affordability. Economic theory sounds good on paper but is seldom perfect in practice. Let's keep beer (and festivals) within the reach of the average Joe.