Are you exhausted with the constant hype?

I hear this sentiment a lot around here, a relatively new brewery says they have to charge an exorbitant amount of money for a four pack of a fairly standard product in order to make “any profit”. I really wonder why this is. Too many new breweries drive up the cost of acquiring products needed to brew? Bad business models where people are overly investing In locations or manufacturing supplies? Certainly the less of something you produce the more you have to charge for it to make the same amount of money, but hell it wasn’t that long ago that even smaller craft breweries charged reasonable prices for their products And that could be said for both lager and ale styles.

 

I'd be throwing out guesses the same as you. A few other good guesses, or questions to answer: how does it impact brewery production to produce a lager vs. ale? How does ingredient cost compare between beer styles? How much does it cost to cool a lager fermentation tank vs. an ale fermentation tank? How much does a canning line cost, either permanent or mobile? Did this price go up during COVID?

Lots of factors. The local brewery I keep using as my example charges anywhere from $4 to $6 less for a pack of lagers compared to their NE IPAs / stouts. Is that $4 to $6 a reasonable drop in price compared to their other options? I think so, but as others have pointed out, ~$12 is too much for a craft lager 4x16oz pack (they did say that beer was mediocre though).

Re: brewers in the past were charging less for their beer - but was the format size comparable? Was this only on-site, or does this include to-go? To-go seems to be where the issues arise. People falter at paying $12 or $14 or $16 for a 4-pack of lagers, but don't bat an eye paying for a $6 pour plus a tip. Many times that pour includes a smaller serving than is available to-go.

Not saying you're wrong on the brewers of the past as I didn't pay much attention to local breweries 5 years ago (wasn't much to look at, and to-go options were near nill), but I thought most of today's to-go beer options were a response to COVID. Now I'd really like to see how much a local 16oz craft lager pour cost in 2011.

 

Each small brewery will have their own unique circumstances but unless the owners are independently wealthy the new breweries will likely have a large debt load which drives their financial operations and their decisions on how to price their products. It seems to me that the newer craft beer drinkers have conditioned themselves to pay $16+ a four-pack/16 ounce cans so this represents a 'model' for the craft breweries to price their product line. Maybe they will make a business decision to price their lagers 1-2 dollars less? But even at 14-15 dollars per four-pack these lagers are very expensive compared to the six-pack/12 ounce cans of lagers I can purchase locally from both established craft breweries (e.g., Sly Fox. Victory, Troegs,..) but also some of the newer craft breweries (e.g., Sterling Pig, etc.).

I personally refuse to support these inflated prices for lagers but that is a very easy choice for me since I can easily find high quality locally brewed lagers that are priced reasonably in the six-pack format.

Cheers!

 

Your family's Christmas sounds fun.

 

I've stopped caring about the latest and greatest. Most of the most hyped beers (hazy IPA, barrel-aged stouts, adjunct stouts/sours) taste very similar to one another IMO. I also have convenient access to affordable, local versions of each if I feel the odd craving for any of them. Having been to dozens of tastings going back more than a decade, the hype train beers rarely live up to their reputations. Even the ones that do usually have a cheap/common equivalent. When it's all said and done, I like chilling with a cold Dale's Pale Ale or something from Bierstadt, Epic, or Casey more than some $500 vanilla coffee stout from the middle of nowhere.

 

Exactly. I can get six packs of Von Trapp (among others) for $10 or I can pay $14 for a 4-pack of local lagers which do not taste as good to me...my decision requires very little thought.

 

I’d be in, I love their Pils.

 

Have you had the chance to try their Bavarian Pilsner yet? I highly recommend that beer; I discussed it in a side-by-side tasting in a fairly recent NBW thread:



https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-weekend-21.651977/#post-7116379

Cheers!

 

Yes, Pikeland Pils is indeed 'rock solid'.

I must confess that I have been drinking more of the local 'new school' Pilsners more lately (e.g., Sterling Pig, Mainstay, etc.) but once I get my Covid vaccine shot the folks at Sly Fox Brewpub will be getting tired of me being there so much (and drinking up the Pikeland Pils which is 'extra' tasty on draft at the brewpub).

Cheers!

 

Bearded Iris and Southern Grist specifically... they are good at what they do which are all the hazy/pastry/fruited beers...their efforts at quality lagers have fallen woefully short IMO. I know what that means to me but..

 

I can answer these with certainty, combining answers to questions not in this particular post.

Covid elevated steel prices a bit, but partially offset by the large number of failed breweries and the glut of used equipment available...although stainless doesnt depreciate much.

There is a aluminum can shortage and you would be surprised how much the can itself adds to the costs.

The increased number or breweries in existence has put a strain on supply chains all of them vying for ingredients. Hop prices have escalated.
IPAs are expensive to make...ddh...more so which is becoming a standard customer demand.
Fruits are expensive. Try the grocery store for a grapefruit. Then think about if you needed 500lbs of grapefruit.
Stouts ingredients are hefty and any additives. Coconut. Vanilla bean is completely absurd. Barrels.are expensive, but also the time and storage space. A BA beer will occupy space for 1 or 2 years and not generate revenue.

What is cheap to produce? Lagers. Blonde ales. Dunkel. Dortmunder. Etc. Low abv. Low hops. A 4.5% blonde ale best seller would be about ideal. 2 weeks to produce. Low manufactueing costs.

Lagers can take a couple months...and thus time. You cant crank them out as fast...but they are mostly the same cost to produce. Your glycol unit will work harder keeping the lagering tank cooler for those two months. Negligible mostly.

A lager may cost 20c in raw materials to fill your glass, excluding 10 hours brew day labor and labor maintenancing until ready 2 months later. Just materials.
The sales price of $5 is a tremendous margin on raw materials. But you must absorb that the brewer received $4.80 net on the pour...beer is not a high ticket item. A brewery must sell a shit ton of $4.80s to cover rent, payroll, insurance, utilities, pay back their debtors...assume anywhere from 300k to the millions to create the facility. (Price a 30bbl fermenter...then multiply by 4 or 6 or 8. Add a few thousand to ship several tons...and you have but one part of what you need.
Then have.any hope to take home a reasonable wage for the 80-100 hour work weeks.

It can be done of course and is done. But most breweries are not gouging you. They are trying to keep the lights on. Charging more for beers expensive to make and less for those that are not.

Some do mark up even further, they typically also make a great product. And thus a beer's value is what someone is willing to pay for it. If the price.is too high and not worth it to you, there.are myriads.of alternatives out there.

 

If I’m not mistaken, I think Neshaminy dropped Trauger pils from the year round lineup.

 

Words of wisdom, but the truly tragic thing is that decades or centuries-old styles / breweries are cast aside by these butterfly-chasing puppet brats ... (quick quarterly stock market profit quest strikes again?)

 

A very very very very small % of breweries are publicly owned. Your macros like In-Bev, constellation brands CTZ...SAM is public.
Most are family owned independent companies. Quarterly stock market quests isnt a dominant component. The macros arent most commonly nimble enough to shift capacity to trends quickly.

 

Trauger Pils is listed as 365 days availability on their website:

https://neshaminycreekbrewing.com/recipes/trauger-pilsner/

Cheers!

 

There was a time I thought I'd spend my retirement owning, or collaborating in the ownership of, a craft brewery. Now that the time is at hand I can't imagine doing that. Life is way too short to have to put out hard seltzers and fruit slushies, let alone the Hazy Of The Week, just to keep the customers coming back. Thank Providence I can still home-brew. And that I live within 3 miles of both Comrade Brewing (WC IPA and NON-pastry imperial stout) and Bierstadt Lagerhaus (lagers, lagers, lagers!)...

 

this is both accurate, and fair. Nevertheless--sometimes it is pleasurable to "blow off some steam."

 

This is where I have a problem, similar to Jackhorzempa's response. When I go beer shopping, I feel like the shelves are drowning in Sours, Pastry stouts and NEIPAs from all of the Johnny come lately breweries and there are fewer and fewer "traditional" beer styles to be had and I am getting more and more discouraged by this trend.

 

That’s good news even if I haven’t seen it lately. Could of swore I saw their release calendar this year and Trauger was missing. Not the last time I’ll be wrong.

 

That isn’t the same thing. If your beer (pizza) store stopped selling beer (pizza) and decided to stock grape soda and sports drinks (tacos), that is one thing. You can always choose a different store with less selection and variety.