BCS, KBS, DL, etc....All Year Long

BCBS is becoming year round, btw.

 

thanks

 

yea I was wondering about this too. I mean I know they cleared out tank room by exporting production of 312 and Honker's to another AB plant, but how can they produce enough BCBS to make it year round? Where will they store all those barrels on top of the ones for Sofie (also year round) and any other BA Belgian they put out?

 

!

About 16mins in, Mike Stevens (Founder's Co-founder) explains that they're restricted to brewhouse size, and the fact that they stop production of everything else for an entire week to only make KBS. I would imagine the rent/lease or whatever arrangement they have for the caves isn't too cheap either.

 

Unless you're the bruery. But your point definitely stands. It can work for some breweries, but not most. I think a lot of it is about cost vs. quality. To focus on barrel-aging you have to have a superior product worth paying more money for (Russian River, Cantillon, Jolly Pumpkin, etc.) I think the the problem is most breweries can't produce a barrel-aged stout or sour that worth paying over a $1 an ounce (retail).

 

Anyone who wants to claim this is simply marketing, breweries driving up hype and demand is very short sighted.[/quote]


Kzoo is on point as usual. These breweries can't even produce enough of these beers for them to get to shelves the one time a year that they do relase them because of capacity/time/barrel/labor constraints. These beers generally don't provide a good (if any) profit margin and areoften brewer vanity projects. Chalking limited supply up to marketing is lazy and ignores the reality of beer production.

 

I actually read that interview that was posted here somewhere last week, I cant find it or I would post it, with Laura, I think, a brewer from Founders and she talked about the amount of work that goes into brewing and specifically mentioned barrel aged beers.

She basically said that they're extremely difficult to make and there is a lot of loss involved. I think she said that when she does a barrel aged beer she expects to lose at least 1 gallon to every 5. I think she also said it was one of the hardest jobs in the brewery and that everyone basically hates it. I wish I could find the article.

 

I wonder how it will be before some of these folks realize they are losing money on this process? I take the beer as is before the barrel. I mean its nice thing for small batches if your into that, but for production, just too much work.

 

Raise the price and they could last all year, on the shelves.

 

I think they know exactly how much money they're losing on the process, which is probably exactly why these beers are only brewed occasionally. Why they do in I'm not sure, I suppose to provide a special beer for fans of the brewery.

Yeah and that pushes a lot of people out of the market for them. Some of us cant or wont spend 20 30 50 + bucks for a bomber of beer. As far as I'm concerned they're expensive enough as it is. Raising prices to decrease demand, no matter the original intention, just looks bad from a consumer perspective.

 

yep 5-7 is my bomber price limit. 8 for imports after that well its either snpa, or bm or homebrew for me. there are many I never try, oh well sometimes if the bar price is 5 bucks or less for a 14oz shaker I can do it. I am just saying no to half pours anymore, someone is got to take a stand.

 

Speak for yourself - I'm very happy, for example, that North Coast charges fairly steep prices for its barrel aged stuff. It means that it's actually available to buy pretty easily. I'd rather be able to actually buy something like CBS/BCBCS/King Henry at $20-$35 then hypothetically be able to buy it at $12-$15, but only if I'm the fastest one to the store.

 

BCS used to be plentiful. I could easily find older bottles in stores. I'm not sure exactly why it dried up. Maybe because of the variations coming out and building a lot of hype or just a lot of new fanatics. I think that would be the only one I'd pick up year round out of the more accessible big name stouts.

 

Well I guess that is one way to look at it. But being on a tight fixed income I do not have any option other than saving up for things I cannot afford. I think making a profit is great, but charging over about 35% markup is well just price ****....But fine if you want beer to be like wine, I just stick to the cheap stuff until they price me out of it.

 

Dislike!