Eric's Ale - New Belgium

Likewise, I'm holding out till it shows up online

 

Thought someone posted that it was $14 on France44

 

La Folie, Le Terroir and Kriek all have different barcodes. They are all the $17-18 sour Lips of faith.
NB used to have the three-tier lips of faith at approximately $6-9-17. The low-end of the spectrum has gone away leaving the quarterly LOF and the high-end sour series.
The confusion and convenient barcode/UPC explanation came when Le Terroir returned to the sour series. In it's initial release, LT was the mid-priced LOF bottle and had that barcode on it. When it was reintroduced as part of the sour LOF series, it initially went out of state with that original $8/bottle barcode. Bottles we received in-state were already rebarcoded (it's a word, look it up) with a sticker over the etched original. Makes it easy to claim that it's a barcode issue year-in and year-out even though the other two in the series have a different barcode.
Truth is, in my humble opinion, it is marketing. When La Folie went from the $13-14 range in the beginning of the 22-ounce bottles to the $17-18, I was actually told by a now-former NB rep that it was an image thing. People felt that a $13-bottle of sour couldn't be good, so the price was raised on that alone. Call that hearsay, conjecture or whatever you want, it was what I remember being told and what I think of every time a new top-tier LOF comes out and the pricing conversation begins anew.
The big markup is obviously not coming from the stores. The price is pretty much equal across the shelves at the stores, so unless everyone got together and decided to add an extra 40% on the markup, it's just not happening at that level. If you think that the distributor in Colorado is marking it up that much, then so be it. That's just not a good pr/business tactic on the side of a distributor that size. By no means is the amount of business they do of LOF worth jeopardizing so much of their other SKUs, including the entire New Belgium book.
If it's worth $17 in Colorado, it's worth $17 in the rest of this great Union of ours. As I've seen from many posts in this thread, you can always vote with your dollars.

 

That would mean that the distributors in every other state are mistakenly selling it at the wrong price. I don't buy it.

 

I don't buy it either; it's way too fucking expensive.

 

If it's as good as it used to be, it's probably worth whatever they feel like charging for it. I just don't like the fact that they feel like charging CO residents 40% more for the same beer.
I'm headed to NM tomorrow and will probably just buy it there instead. It's not like I'm not going to buy a world class beer over $5...but if there's any cheaper way to get it, I think we should all do it.

 

That's it, for me it's not that it's not worth $18, but more about that they are screwing over their HOME state. No one else does this.

Avery BA, $12 in Colorado, $15-$18 elsewhere.

Crooked Stave, $7 in Colorado, $9-$10 elsewhere.

And with Avery Raspberry Sour at $13, it makes NBB a lot less appealing, even if their sours are aged longer.

 

I thought you weren't posting anything for at least a week??

 

It would be the stores, but I hear ya....hard to believe.
Still, I'd like to get a clarification of intent or mistake.

 

So is it worth picking up, has anyone tried this batch. I've heard epic things about the first time it was brewed. But curious how it is now?

 

Forgot to add usually in the past Andywoo has been really good at replying on NB posts

 

Yeah, it's hard to believe that every store in the other states are all making the same mistake. And if it's the distributor then everyone of them is making the same mistake??

 

i'm not sure that's what CK21 is saying. What I'm hearing, perhaps erroneously, is it ain't the retailers in Colorado and it is unlikely to be the distributor(s) in Colorado, or the distributors in other states, that are responsible for the documented discrepancy. Or the barcode thing, which, it sounds like, maybe happened only one year.

That leaves a limited number of possibilities. My limited intellect can only come up with one, which would seem to be supported by Occam's Razor: the manufacturer is charging different (higher) prices to its Colorado distributor(s), than to its out of state distributors.

in that scenario, no distributor, here or elsewhere, is "mistakenly" selling at the "wrong" price, but all are taking a margin somewhere between 25% and 30% (typical; 28% has been described to me as industry standard) on what they are being charged by the brewer. And all retailers, here and elsewhere, are taking their customary margin as well.

I guess we can all deal with that information as it pleases us.

 

But NB has said they are selling it the same to everyone. At least that's what was said in the past when this issue has been discussed.

 

Like the post above said, in the past we've been told everyone is paying NB the same price. So that means either the distributors or the stores here are choosing to single out these couple of beers for way higher margins than the rest of their selection and then NB is following suit with their taproom price, or the distributors or stores elsewhere are singling out these couple of beers for way lower (or negative) margins than the rest of their selection.

If the price distributors are paying here is higher, this would all make sense. I wouldn't understand why NB would do that, but the price differences would make sense.

 

When? This year? Somebody from New Belgium has said, attributable for publication, that the delivery price to, say, their New Mexico distributor is the same per case as to CDC?

I thought this explanation dated back to the 2013 Le Terroir release and that there have been no explanations subsequently.

I always (to myself) blamed it on CDC, they're certainly easier to dislike than New Belgium, but something CK21 wrote made me question that:

But on reflection, whether it's NBB or CDC who's ripping me off because I live in Colorado, doesn't much matter. My recourse is to pass, which I will be doing.

 

need to read the rest of my post: "At least that's what was said in the past when this issue has been discussed."

 

cool, well then it doesn't respond to mine, really. i thought that was the intention, my apologies.

 

I would believe the stores doing so, rather than distros as the latter have the ability and presence to actually pay attention Stores have thousands of products to sort through....what's 2 cases of beer?

Here's what we know (or think we know, y'know)
- Some NB beers are way expensive out of state (what about western slope?)
- NB claims that their beers are priced the same throughout their distro network--which includes Coors and Bud houses
- Said beers are even pricey at NB facility. (this leaves me to believe the pricing error/difference is down in the network)
- Some NB beers re-use barcodes
- Some of these barcodes represent different prices when scanned
- To change what the barcode represents, the retailer must adjust their software (easier said than done in most cases). If not, Beer X will be sold at Beer Q price.

Now, why would NB intentionally sell at higher price? Not sure, but they could possibly do this, perhaps b/c those beers are highly sought after here, and less so elsewhere.

Why would distros alter the price? Same reason in CO, opposite reason elsewhere.

Both of those sound like a lot of work for minimal gain. Ergo, I lean towards barcode mix-ups.

 

I haven't seen anything on NB posting anything about price differences for this beer.

All my comments are based on prices being quoted in different places including CO and past quotes from what NB has said is the reason for the price difference in the past when this same thing has come up on LOF beers