Spiteful Brewing: A Goddamn Delightful Day

You shouldn't be paying any price for a "guarantee" when you're forced to purchase 2 bottles of a different beer. That right there is the price of the "guarantee".

 

Does anyone know what barrels have previously been used by Spiteful? From the events page:
Barrel Aged God Damn Pigeon Porter was aged in five Heaven Hill Barrels for 10 months.
Barrel Aged Malevolence Chocolate Caliente was aged in two High West Double Rye barrels for 10 months.

 

Last year's BA Caliente was Buffalo Trace.

 

I think people need to get used to pricing like this. With craft beer at its peak and so many small breweries popping up, how can you blame them for capitalizing when they can, especially when there's hype around it (BA Choco Caliente). Most breweries brew for the passion of it, sure, but certainly they have bills to pay and aspirations of getting bigger. I would be willing to bet, despite the $110 price tag, they are probably barely covering cost. The reality is they are adding on tons of overhead costs in the prep and organization of an event like this. Prob would make more profit selling the bottles off the shelf.

Bottom line, you simply cannot compare the bottle costs + pour + glasses to the true value of an event.

 

Honestly, I don't think it's so much the cost. I mean, if BA Caliente was $35 or $40, I may still buy one. It's more or less that we are being forced to purchase all this other stuff to get BA Caliente. The other stuff is not even unique. 2 mediocre BA porters that we used to be able to get off the shelf, no variants? The glass is kind of cool but why do I need 2? Like SeanBond said, if this was a la carte with slightly inflated prices it wouldn't be such a big deal.

 

I can understand your point there. They probably just wanted to make it all inclusive to not have to deal with collecting cash, change etc.

 

Their overhead can't be more than 1 or 2 dollars a ticket...They have to bring the kegs of Caliente and the bottles over and have someone cross off a name when handing out tickets. That is about the extent of the event overhead. The bar is probably providing all the labor for checking tickets and maybe even handing out bottles for free, in return they get a full bar of people day drinking on a Saturday...

 

I was going to respond but you nailed it. What overhead does Spiteful have here?

 

If you think planning an event like this is as simple and cheap as you make it sound, it's almost not even worth explaining. The short version:

There are plenty of hours logged by Spiteful employees just conceptualizing and then fine tuning the details of any event, that indeed cost money that no one thinks about. Their time is not, and should not, be free. That's only the start, doesn't include the additional promotion efforts, beer, and event hours of Spiteful employees.

Also, if you think the venue isn't charging them to close their place for 5 hours on a Saturday, for what amounts to a private party. In addition to also providing staff to assist at no charge, that would be naive also.

 

yeah... i'd rather spend $110 on Pipeworks.... or even a bunch of Fifty Fifty. Hell, even Boulevard.

 

Promotion efforts? They posted this to social media and updated their website. The beer was going to be brewed regardless, so there's no extra time there. They actually SAVE money and time driving around the city delivering their beer to all of their accounts.

What details did they fine tune? Whether they were going to force people to buy 1 or 2 glasses?

I'm wondering if you understand what this "event" even is. Like I said, Half Acre's Big Hugs release had FREE guest pours (Abraxas, BA Abominable, etc.), FREE variants, and the option to buy as much or as little as you liked.

I am planning on showing up, grabbing my beer, glasses, and pour, and then leaving. I'm not going to pay for a pour of BA Pigeon Porter when I will be the proud owner of two bottles of my own.

Lastly, there are STILL tickets available. With how fast beer goes, especially in Chicago, to have tickets still available for a beer that it basically took truck chasing to get last time, is a sign that they mis-priced the event.

I realize I bought the ticket, but my fiance loved the beer at FOBAB and we're looking for beers to crack on our wedding weekend. $110 is at least what I'd have to pay on the secondary market, so this is easier.

 

You're talking out of your arse mate.

 

The market will ultimately set the price. In many ways, if a ticket sells out immediately one could argue it was underpriced. If the event sells out prior to the event, they maximized their revenue and can take the feedback into consideration for their next event. If it did not sell out, they can look at that along with the feedback and adjust.

In full disclosure, I am going to the event and agree that it is a bit overpriced but it wasn't enough to stop me from going.

 

Despite whatever effort you perceive Spiteful has put into this, it cost them more money than just doing their day to day jobs. You can think it 'shouldn't' cost them more due to how simplified they made and it should SAVE them money because a guy doesn't have to drive them around town, only to one place on a Saturday. But he still has to go around town with his freshies on Monday anyway? So it doesn't save him a trip. It in fact adds an extra on a weekend day and dilutes the cost of the normal haul in general. Just a small part of the big picture, but small parts add up to bigger costs.

Sure they only had to update he social media site, but they are still paying marketing to make a flyer and do the work, which wouldn't normally be done if they weren't doin a release. Yes, it is the cost of doing business, but a cost nonetheless created by the event.

My main point would be that everyone doesn't understand the true cost of even a simple event like this and small companies such as Spiteful and others can't bare to do this without making a profit. They can't care what the 'market will bear', because then they'll be losing money.

And maybe the $110 is still too much for this event, but I can see why they would charge what they need to make this worth their efforts.

 

No offense, but your post makes no sense. They already have a social media presence. They didn't create one specifically for this event. This is already part of their day-to-day job. It's not an extra cost. They have a marketing department too, I'm sure. There is no extra cost to making a flyer.

I'm also pretty sure that when they delivered BAMCC last time, that was the only beer they delivered, so it does in fact save them a trip around town.

The cost for this event is minimal and charging $30-$40 per bottle for beers that cost $20 or less normally is not justified by any extra cost of this event.

 

This is pretty much how I feel. I would've been much happier if it was $20 cheaper or you could choose what you wanted. So far, tickets are still available, so hopefully they'll reconsider a la carte pricing or lowering the overall cost for future releases. I do think that ticketed releases are way better than truck chasing and I hope Spiteful can put together some cool events in the future. Happy I get to try both of these beers for the first time.

 

I won't be purchasing this, as its way too expensive, which is a bummer.

On the other hand, this ends the douchebags who truck chase and drive all over the city cleaning out stores.

This is now the price if you don't want to deal with any bullshit.

 

This is basically the beer store that "let's" you purchase bourbon county if you buy 2 six packs of 312. I'm glad to see these have not sold quickly.