Fremont Barrel-Aged Bottle Price Hike

Yikes. I love Fremont’s barrel aged beers, and they are among the best, but at those prices I’ll probably be sticking with cheaper options. Lots of barrel aged beers in distro that are 95% as good and less than 2/3 the price per oz (e.g., Parabola)

 

BA Dark Star was $25 at Fremont in 2020. The online purveyors who's prices you quoted always have inflated prices. As Fremont said in the post below, their costs are rising. I'll keep buying anything barrel-aged from Fremont that Tavour offers.

 

Weren't they currently ~$32 in the Seattle area (on retail shelves) this past year anyway?

I visited earlier this year and wanted to bring some home, but when I saw that price around town, decided I would haul home other beers.

 

These aren’t every day beers for me. They’re also not on my radar most of the time because unless I can trade for them, I have no access. With that being said, if I can still obtain 1-2 of their Barrel Aged series beers per year and enjoy them, I have no problem trading $4$ for them even at that price point. I think they’re worth it. However, my opinion on that is obviously skewed because I have no regular access. I can see how someone like yourself would pass on them due to the fact they sit on shelves regularly in your area anyhow. Cheers.

 

Seattle is stupid expensive though. Couple that with being "the local hype" and it makes sense. Unfortunately, I do not have photos of the Total Wine I visited, but do recall my coworker on site complaining about the cost change this past year (he previously bought several bottles, but only bought one this past year), coupled with an explicit leaving my lips when I saw the price myself.

 

My thoughts are as follows. I feel badly for business owners who have to make the hard decision to pass their rising costs onto their customers. I feel badly for consumers who cannot pay the increased cost. I feel lucky that I am able to continue pursuing my love for barrel-aged craft beer. Fremont is still worth it to me, not even a difficult decision.

 

To each his own. I'm the opposite in that I have always though the Bruery was over priced, and for me, Fremont is one of the top beers that I purchase each year. Usually, I pay in the $20-25 range and get 4-6 bottles which will last me for the year. However, I will probably cut back to only a couple of bottles at the $30 range.

That being said, I just bought about $200 of Firestone Walker (Stickee Monkey, 25 Anniversary, Parabola variant, and Velvet Merkin). All bottles were priced in the same price range of $10-12 bottles.

 

Yep, noticed this too, and this was for a 2019 BA Dark Star. Priced at over $30 and California being California, the sales tax makes it all the more difficult to justify.

 

This is likely going to come across a little snarky even though that is not the intention.

With how many breweries are out there and how many great beers (especially BA beers) are out there, the only thing we can do is buy which ones we feel are “worth it”. This topic comes up just about any time any beer gets talked about- hell, it just was in the CBS thread, and is in every news thread about a beer. That said, tastes don’t overlap perfectly, so what is worth it for you isn’t for me, and vise versa.

Now, if the question is “what are you willing to pay,” that obviously becomes complicated. Not just for me, but everyone. Suddenly you get into level gradation. For example, I don’t drink every night, but I do have something several times a week. Prices of most “high end” craft beer have increased so much that I now consider a $4-5 16oz IPA can “normal”. A good (maybe even great) but not top end stout/BA stout I am expecting to be $5-10 for 12-16oz. Then one level up is going to be $20ish for 12-16.9oz. Then, at the top you’re looking at $30-100 for 12-25oz. Obviously prices vary by style, but this is where I sit now. Do I spend this much on every beer? Not at all. But in average I probably spend $20-30/week.

Again, these aren’t for everyone, but this is sort of where I see prices now adays. The problem is prices do keep going up, which is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. Some of that is inflationary, but not all of it.

 

Are the FW bottles 12oz now?

Enjoy

 

Yes, since 2017 I believe.

 

I do a little, but not so much for non-stouts. For example, I have a tough time swallowing the idea of a $40 Saison, but not a $40 BA stout. I understand that making a saison that can sell for that is arguably at least if not more difficult than making a BA stout that sells for that. Nonetheless, it makes me a bit squeamish to think about spending $40 on what might equate to, you know, 2 blue moons, vs a 15% stout.

And this is coming from someone who has posted in the “would you drink beer if it didn’t have alcohol in it” thread as “yes, because I like the flavor, and ABV gets in the way of enjoyment sometimes.” But it just feels difficult. Feels like a hard pill to swallow. Like I’m getting screwed even if I am not. (For example, consider that my current house I feel like I paid $5-10k too much for, despite knowing that at the time I bought it, had I not, it would have sold for the exact same amount. I didn’t get screwed, but feels like I did. Know what I mean?)