Do we really hate over priced bottle shops?

This past weekend, I was visiting Chicago. After dinner, I walked into a dingy-looking convenience store to get some caffeine for the drive home and saw that they had 4-packs of BCBS and BCBBW in their surprisingly decent craft beer section.

Now, barleywines are my favorite style, and I've never had a BCBBW. But upon closer inspection, I saw a $50 price tag on the 4-pack. At that point, I walked right out and crossed the street to another shop for my 5-Hour Energy. I didn't even want to spend $3 supporting a run-of-the-mill liquor store that would jack up prices that high.

 

Because Fou Foune isn't that good

 

No, it is. I think you just don't like fruit blended lambics, based on your ratings.

 

I think the reason it bothers me so much is the conceit factor. What makes Overpriced Store A think that they are more worthy of charging a higher price than Reasonable Store B? It's insulting to customers, particularly when you think about the markups in relative terms instead of absolute. For example, I typically can find a half liter bottle of Weihenstephaner for about $3. I recently went to one store that was selling it for $5. A $2 difference isn't a big deal if you're talking about a $13-15 bottle of Speedway (for those of us outside of CA), but for the Weihenstephaner that's a 66% markup!! I can guarantee it won't be 66% tastier than if I bought it elsewhere.

 

Nah, it just means "disagree with." Try to keep up here in the age of pitchfork nation!

 

There was this store near my old apartment that was expensive but always seemed to have the latest Pipeworks or Spiteful barrel-aged release on the shelf with no limit. I was happy to pay the markup. Those bottles never even hit the shelves at most stores.

Similarly, plenty of liquor stores had BCBS/BCBBW around Chicago for $30-40 a 4 pack. Overpriced? sure. But it sure was nice to grab some without waiting in a line.

 

This suggests to me that, despite a few #newmoney people, the market will shake out those stores that are truly gouging, versus those pushing the profit margin a little. Obviously @darktronica is probably not the first to see this an pass, and likely not the last.

 

Where are you seeing that in my ratings? And are you even looking at the vintages sampled? Probably not. Fou is a fine beer but not worth the crazy distributor markup and the hoops you have to jump through to get it. RdG, St Lam, Vigneronne, LPKriek are all much better Cantillon fruit lambics.

Even when Cantillon was always on the shelf nobody bought Fou Foune.

 

It depends. For the Pittsburgh area, I have found that bottle shops in the city can be a good deal more expensive than bottle shops outside the city. I usually shop outside the city for that reason (and traffic...), but every once in a while I will go to a shop in the city just because they may have a few beers I can't find outside.

 

Like anything, my opinion is based on what's best for me.

As a general rule I don't like paying more for stuff than I have to - I would have thought most people operate the same way.

But when it comes to certain special/limited releases - I work full days at a job where I can't/won't duck out for a couple of hours to get first dibs on a release.

So if it's a choice between:

1. Not being able to buy beer X for MSRP (let's say $10) because it sold out (at a fair price)
2. Having the option to buy beer X for the inflated price of $18

Then I'll take option 2 every time, even though more often than not I won't buy the beer.