Spaten prices are going crazy. Why?

I have noticed many of the same kinds of changes in my local grocery. There are big palletes of beer I am not interested in, and less shelf space. The imports section got a few new things but they failed to keep up with the seasonals. I had no oktoberfests from hofbrau, ayinger, weihenstephaner etc . . . from the grocery and the old stale lagers are still sitting there wanting to "go out with me" but they are "not dated." Puns intended. The bombers form weihenstphaner did go up in price a bit and so did bittburger sixers. They had a chance to rake it in with okocim and bittburger pint cans for $5 but instead they decided to feature empire brewing, and empire brewing the same and some more empire brewing.

 

I'm really not sure, but it seems that most of the issues you have described may have something to do with a distributor change. AB has been gently nudging it's wholesaler partners to try and pick up as many brands from the portfolio as possible.

I have heard of issues with customs before, but not in my two years of dealing with AB. I'm not saying it's not possible that a shipment was held up, but it seems unlikely. It certainly wouldn't have been such an issue that the beer would have gone bad. It has a year shelf-life after all.

As far as the pricing, this is not also not likely to be an AB issue. There was the annual price change in September, but the increases are always very small, usually $0.50 or less on most packages. I'm not sure what the laws are in Illinois, but the prices are pretty much set by AB. I suppose a wholesale doesn't need to abide by these guidelines, but it is certainly recommended. It is also possible that if there was a distributor change, they were selling below their margin, or there was some sort of deal worked out with the retailers you frequented.

Overall, I can assure you that the issues you are seeing are not due to something AB has done. It may be worth trying to reach out to them and notify them of the changes in your market. They may want to investigate what the distributor is doing.

On the bottle sizes; 11.2 oz bottles are standard in Europe. You will find some 12 oz bottles and even other more odd sizes, but 11.2 is definitely the norm.

 

Even though there's 12 bottles, it's really an "11.2 pack"

 

11.2 fl oz is 330 mL, one of the standards in Europe.

 

Bought a fresh 12-pack of Spaten Premium for $13.50 at Woodman's in Kenosha last Saturday. They still had six-packs of the Oktoberfest for $8, and Franziskaner 12-packs (though far from fresh -- my personal query) were also $13.50.

Sorry, didn't check the Optimator sixers, but Hacker Pschorr Munich Gold and Hefeweizen were $9 a sixer.

Woodman's seems to be keeping prices in check pretty well.

 

A german beer thread, quite refreshing

 

@notabeersissy For what this is worth to you (location being the key, of course); Antioch Liquors has 12 packs of Spaten Premium and Franziskaner Hefeweizen for $15 (yeah, price is going up, but not $18) well within the sell-by date of one year. They also had half liters of Franziskaner, but I didn't check the dates.

 

You think with the drop in value of the Euro vs. the U.S. Dollar, the beers would be getting cheaper... I'm going beer shopping on Thursday and will be on the lookout for prices.