Trade Value of Drie Fonteinen

I'm going with the assumption that he plans on using one the bottles to get beer he couldn't otherwise get. If letting the customer buy the beer is not something he wants to do with his bottle, trading with him is the next best thing.

 

Maybe, maybe not. At some level people were getting concerned about this immediately after the great Cantillon purge, and we're a good 18-24 months removed from that, yet 3F is still not that hard to come by. I do think it will be harder to get, but I don't necessarily think it will be like Cantillon. Also, I'm cautiously optimistic that people are going to start relaxing over the whole "OMG rare lambics on a shelf must buy it!" mentality that crushed Cantillon. Once they find 3F, they're also likely to start finding Girardin, and Hanssens, and Boon... and suddenly they'll realize this stuff isn't nearly as rare as they thought, so there's no reason to hoard any of it.

 

I hope you're right and I don't know much about how much lambic gets sent to the US, but I'm afraid the amount of people buying lambic is going to go up across the board and the lambic producers won't be able to handle the increased demand. More people drinking sour beer plus people figuring out lambic is superior to pretty much all American Wild Ales. Cantillon is gone of ATL shelves, 3F is only there sporadically, and I've seen less and less Boon Mariage Parfait. For Fruit Lambic, there isn't much else. Fortunately quality Gueuze is still available - I can still find Girardin, Cuvee Rene, and Tilquin.

 

The market might expand a bit, but then so should the supply from Belgium. Sure, some of the operations are small and limited, but others are not as much, and there's nothing saying new ones can't get started if the demand is there. If nothing else, I'm sure Lindeman's could pump out an order of magnitude more Cuvee Rene if they could sell it, and that beer is as good as anything, particularly once you factor in the low price tag.

Tilquin is a great example of how hype is driving the lambic market. It's a fantastic beer that actually contains Cantillon, but because it doesn't say "Cantillon" on the label, it doesn't sell as well as it should.

 

FWIW I would never trade any 3F for a dark lord..and tilquin flew off the shelves here in Philly. Pretty much any good lambic does.

 

though i don't really research such things, given its apparent size i don't fully understand why lindemans doesn't crush the american lambic market.

i know a lot of people turn their nose up at cuvee renee, a lot of people love it, and a lot of people think it's good but a few tiers below cantillon, 3F, etc, but i would say that if they can make as much cuvee renee as they do, they could probably pump out specialty lambics good enough to raise their USA beer geek profile in a matter of months. it's hard to believe they'd be unable to put out sufficient quality, at least i think so.

---

edit: it would take more than "months" to produce said lambics, but the point is that by now they should see the potential and have stuff in barrels. surely their kool aid "lambics" don't sell so much that they can't use some of the space for higher end profile-raising beer.

edit2: and we're not talking about russian river / hill farmstead presumptuous fan "THEY SHOULD EXPAND!!! how hard could it be to expand a small business and retain quality, i am an Expert!" lindemans is nationally available, and seems to more than keep up with demand... i can't imagine why in the world they wouldn't want to make some seasonal lambics (throw a random fruit in them and either use the cuvee renee name to signal "this is a real lambic" or come up with another differentiating name).

 

It's a good question. Perhaps Cuvee Rene just doesn't sell very well compared to what we would think. I mean, they don't even bring the Rene Kriek into the US and that seems like a no brainer.

 

Completely agreed on Lindemans. Look at Cuvee Rene Kriek. If I could buy a bottle of Cuvee Rene Kriek for less than $10/375 in the US (I realize it comes in 750s and is EUR only), I'd be buying it regularly - the same way I've been buying 3F Kriek and Boon MP Kriek over the past year or so. I can't imagine it'd be hard to do a traditional version of some more of the fruit lambics they currently produce. Maybe they don't want to confuse the US market that currently buys the non traditional stuff?

 

the only explanation i can come up with is that the people making the business decisions at lindemans don't have their ear to the ground re: america. even if cuvee rene geuze doesn't sell as much as they wish it did, i think there's more than enough signs that they could sell a lot of the kriek + "seasonals." someone along the chain must not be passing or receiving some crucial information--or they're just not interested in expansion (but they make so much beer!).

the "don't confuse the market" thing sounds possible, but you could easily handle that at the distributor level; grocery stores and giant liquor depots with 10~ craft beers don't get the specialties.

it's a big undertaking to flippantly criticize i guess, but i can't see why they don't go for it. like you said, they could easily sell cuvee rene kriek for the price of the geuze or a bit more, and they could double it for weird fruit lambics (peach, *blueberry*, raspberry, etc).

 

I think you're right here. I looked at their website - their capacity is over 83,500 Hl. That's a whole lot of lambic. Even if they were able to sell 100,000 bottles of traditional fruit lambic per year, it'd be under 1% of sales (I think I did the math right).

 

If that true I would love to set up a trade for some Golden Blend. If anybody has a few they want to let go, I can make it work for you.

 

the thing is, even if it isn't a giant % of sales, a few small batch (but larger batch than what we get of cantillon) traditional lambics and their profile jumps up enough to sell all the cuvee rene they send over. (edit: my assumption was that a) there's a decent amount of cuvee rene made in the first place, and b) it doesn't sell out in america or europe. edit2: and the specialty lambic would of course be profitable on its own if they made enough of it)

maybe they already sell out of it though. if that's the case, and they sell a lot of the candy swill, maybe cornering the specialty lambic market in the USA isn't particularly in their interests.

 

I would guess that the Cuvee Rene products are a very small percentage of their sales. I could be wrong, though.

 

i'm sure you're right. i still suspect they could make a pretty decent profit by selling out (and probably increasing production) of the cuvee rene line + adding some seasonals. i wouldn't be at all surprised if they've considered it and realized that even if they "win" it's not worth the effort, but i'd be equally unsurprised if they're just not aware of how hard they could tap the market in the USA.

i mean, if cantillon quadrupled* the number of bottles they sent over to the US, they'd sell out in a week @ $30, but they don't have the capacity. i can't imagine that wouldn't be good money... and lindemans could probably get it if they played their cards right.


* they could go way more than quadruple and the results would be the same... compared to demand, the supply of cantillon is miniscule.

 

FT: Kriek Cuvée René, ISO: Your whales because this will never see your store

 

Lindemans's Kriek is more profitable than Framboise? Thats crazy to me as Framboise is on tap around here so many places and Ive never seen the Kriek on tap. I see it in bottles with the other Lindemans but thats about it. I dont know if this area is the exception rather than the rule, but the Framboise is huge around here.

 

The Heorot used to have the Kriek on tap regularly, along with the Peche, but it's been a few years. You're definitely right though, you can't walk in to a "good" beer bar around these parts without stumbling over someone's wife or girlfriend drinking the Framboise.

 

That is such a shame. The Cuvee Rene Kriek is a pretty solid lambic. I'd buy that over CR gueuze any day.

 

Interestingly enough, my local Total Wine had a shelf tag for the Cuvee Rene Kriek recently and I got excited. They have the Cuvee Rene Gueuze there instead.

 

Read the first like eight posts and got upset. Someone said They are not a fan of employees buying rares or limited releases. Whats the problem there? My town only has two beer shoppes worth visiting and if I worked at either one I GUARANTEE Ide be a top customer until I was fired for it. Nowhere else to find these rare beers I would not hesitate to buy them at my work. That statement held no validity in my mind. Cheers!

PS I will probly not reply to this thread later, Just felt the need to express my opinion.