Is barrel aged beer overpriced?

See post #53.

I have also heard of entire batches being dumped.

 

Thanks.

@jasonmason

 

Yes.

 

Whether or not barrel aged beers are worth it depends on whether or not we are willing to buy it. From a brewer's perspective the beer costs a lot more to produce. You need a higher quality beer with higher quality ingredients. Most barrel aged beers are higher gravity beers (more alcohol and body) and the mashing process is less efficient so this requires costs money. Barrels are expensive and are a pain in the ass. They require a lot of work to monitor while they are conditioning beer and then they require a lot of work cleaning and restoring after they are used. They also tie up a lot of space within the brewery and the space usually has to be kept at a certain temperature and it costs money to keep the space at the proper temperature. Barrels are quirky and sometimes can do strange things to beer, ruining your product and thus the risk is greater. The people who control the money will also expect a return on investment for the space while the barrels are siting there aging the beer. Bottom line, the barrel aged beers cost more than we as consumers expect. They are only worth it if we are willing to buy them.

 

Wow!! Wasn’t expecting that high a number, I suppose $23 a 4 pk isn’t so unreasonable after all. So I take it each and every barrel in tested before it’s blended or you end up with a nightmare like GI had to deal with. Is there no way to kill the buggies in the positive tested barrels and make the beer good again? It could test positive and the beers taste to that point might be ok, depends on the level perhaps. Probably a dumb question or the brewers would recoup the 1/3 loss, or sell it to China to make up for putting formaldehyde in the toothpaste to make it taste good.

 

This is kind of a loaded question. I say that because not every ba beer is the same price. You can grab a 4pk of central Waters ba offerings for around $15 where as toppling Goliath charges upwards of $50 for a 22oz bottle. Then you look at mikerphone who has an almost base line of $40-60 for a 4pk. The prices are all over the board when it comes to these offerings because of a lot of factors. Ingredients, overhead, time in the barrel, cost of the barrels, distribution & so on.

The cost of beer being too high is subjective just like the flavor of beer. Some might say that $60 for a 4pk makes sense when considering the $-oz ratio while others might say it's too high considering what beer used to sell for 3, 4, or even 5 years ago. Just because we can't all afford a lamborghini doesn't mean they're too expensive. It just means we don't make enough money to afford one.

 

That is consistent with my understanding. Those barrels that 'do not meet spec' are dumped.

Just 'thinking out loud' the beer from those barrels that have "buggies" could be pasteurized to kill the microorganisms but if those "buggies" already created off-flavors during the barrel aging phase there really is no way to eliminate those off-flavors (that I know of). Also, most craft breweries are not set up to pasteurize so there is that factor as well.

If the barrel tastes "ok" and the brewery has the equipment/capability to pasteurize then maybe this barrel could be 'saved'?

I would expect that if there was an 'easy answer' (read: cheap solution) the breweries would prefer to 'save' the bad barrel beers vs. dump? Of course there may be some risks associated with 'saving' those beers which may not be deemed an acceptable risk?

I am generally not a fan of craft breweries pasteurizing their products since this process 'cooks' the beer and could thereby have negative flavor impacts. Having stated that I think that Goose Island made the proper business decision to pasteurize their Barrel Aged beers prior to bottling. These beers have high economic value to Goose Island and they just do not want to risk an occurrence like they had with their 2015 batches.

Cheers!

 

there is some anger but there also is a lot of false characterization as "anger" mostly by folks that in my estimation don't really care why or what. at least i feel that way as i bet i'm considered in the "anger" contingency. it's to the point where you realize people that don't get it, aren't likely to be able to pull the pieces together.

imagine saying GI would falter (in advance of it actually happening), spelling out exactly why they would falter (in advance), then watching them actually do it just as predicted. to then talk about it later like "shit happens" as if "shit" was unavoidable, or at least couldn't have been significantly limited is is a badly distorted conclusion. mho

the short version discussed here can't fully take into the account or explain the intelligence failure that 2015 exposed. but another interesting thing comes to mind. when this pending failure was being pointed out 7 or 8 years ago, many BA members then wrongly characterized that as "anger" or resentment about the buyout. the truth is it was a warning. the warning was ignored.

 

Do you have any idea how much barrel aged beer in a major production usually ends up down the drain?

 

@sharpski - curious did you confuse 2 things here? asking because it sounds like you might be talking about natural evaporation whereas i believe @jasonmason is referring to what volume is physically tossed (by brewers) due to off flavor / non-usable.

the few individuals involved with legit operations i could get info out of before 2015 & directly after indicated less than 30% tossed was considered with-in expectation. 30% was actually the highest figure given. the others i spoke to indicated around 20%, 25%. in their estimation when more than those percentages of barrels were having to be tossed, it was an indication of potential bigger problems.

if accurate the above is a key point & piece of logic that for some reason doesn't factor into the "anger" discussion. if ballpark numbers floated were correct, what a very reputable brewer, with one of the best programs, tossed before Black Friday far exceeded norms -- thus the bigger problem alarm should have been ringing then. & in choosing to go forward with the release, it's tough to imagine framing it as : they discarded a normal/ acceptable amount then moved forward with the release unknowing they might have a bigger problem.

 

I don’t have first hand knowledge, but my understanding is that evaporation/angels’ share is more like 3% per year. The 30% figure I used above was what those Brewers used to conservatively estimate yield and budget.

Whether they also use that to gauge if larger problems exist, or if they consistently saw actual yields with more like 20-25%, I don’t know. It sounded more like their rule of thumb for thinking about barrel projects before seeing actual yield.

 

It's not over priced until people stop paying for it. Market dictates that.

 

Like rumors of 60% dumped in 2016 since pasteurization doesn't fix infected beer taste? If so, then kudos to them for dumping before distribution, and suffering the resulting shortage.

 

Simply by using the model embraced by Behavioral Economics rather than that embedded in Classical Economics.

 

If you use 30% as an estimate, say for the reasons such as those you gave, you should also know there can be variability which may average out to 30% across many cases but that can sometimes be noticably higher or lower.. Thus you would have no cause to be alarmed at dumping, say, 40%. Prior experience has shown on multiple occasions across several breweries that such releases have seldom if ever been a warning of need to have a future recall of the reases. To date, no one has demonstrated that % dumped is a successful predictor of the future. (Just as Pro football games in Pre-season notoriously do not predict Team success of the regular season.)

 

thanks! my misunderstanding. when you used the term "angel's share" i thought you were talking about loss to evap.

30% was the high on what i heard although i would not be surprised if that figure has crept slightly higher since then. i have a feeling if barrel supplies in general get more dicey, the yard markers for 'tolerance' might get moved.

 

the reality is we are saying kudos in hindsight of the 2015 debacle. what you are giving kudos to was actually SOP for the "best programs" out there.

remember their 2012 wheat whiskey variant? the one that was aging in Rebel Yell barrels? yeah that one. the one that was never released & ironically was failing right under our noses as we were arguing whether GI was going to be relegated to poorer barrel selection? the poorer selection pool was already transpiring then & ultimately the conclusion was an entire variant was discarded. that was the responsible thing to do.

 

Oh, we're talking GI then?

 

lmao. oh. my bad. when you said pasteurize & 2016 & 60% loses, i should have understood you were talking about the Illinois dairy farming community.

 

In short- yes, it's overpriced. But people continue to pay it, so it justifies the prices, in a roundabout way. Supply and demand, and all that jazz.