Where is Avery Uncle Jacob Batch #2?

10.99 on craftshack??? What the?!?!?!?

http://craftshack.myshopify.com/products/avery-uncle-jacobs-stout

 

Distribution hands + retail hands = cheaper cost to the buyer than brewery direct? I'm no master of logic, but that seems not to make a pantload of sense. I'll just keep those pant-filled legs crossed in hopes the price is similar on local shelves/back stockrooms/retailer jockstraps.

 

It's usually the same price or more expensive to buy it on site. You don't or maybe can't undercut your distributor.

 

Unless it's self-distributed...

 

Even Great Divide stuff is more expensive at the brewery. The BA Hibernation and BA Old Ruffian were $2 more @ the brewery than in stores. I'm guessing that's the deal, they can't undercut the distributors.

 

Does this usually not account for any retail mark-up? I guess my generally 3-tiered ignorance leaves me wondering where the profit margin lies for Ricky the Retailer (or Swayze the Salesman...you know what I'm sayin').

If the answer is "bulk", then it kind of makes sense. And trust that I won't complain about seeing it locally for less than $12.

 

Every other special release beer from Avery is cheaper at the release then it is in the store. Last year UJ was $10 at the brewery and $11-12 in the stores.

 

which leads me to believe Avery has its own thing going on. As mentioned self-distribution allows them to set their own rules.
Like others, I'm still unhappy folks in CA get to buy UJ for $10 while we're standing in the brewery paying $12. And if history holds, CO stores will be selling it for $13 or $14. Uncool.

 

Same was true with Momi Hiwa. Just feels like us locals are getting screwed here. Every other place gets it first on the shelves, it's cheaper in CA than it was at the brewery (people reported it was $10 in CA), etc. Perhaps there's something I'm not factoring in but what gives?

I realize that $2 isn't all that big of a deal but when you buy a full case it adds up.

 

I don't think we should have had to pay more, but the other side of the coin is, if you weren't at the release paying $12 a bottle, you are most likely subjected to a 1 bottle limit. I have little issue paying the additional $12 to get 6 of them.

 

Maybe Andy could hit up some of his distro guys and ask that question? Maybe there's a good reason? I'd be curious to know.

 

A year or two ago I was about to buy some bottles at New Belgium and they suggested I go to Wilbur's instead.
They told me that they keep bottles on-hand for people who aren't interested in driving all over town, but that stores would always be cheaper because they don't want to screw over their retail distribution. I've noticed that seems to be standard.
Makes sense to me.

 

It makes sense but what I've been pointing out is that's not the case for specialty beers from Avery. Not blaming Avery for pricing because stores seem to very a lot around town but they certainly aren't cheaper at the stores then at the release. They are $1-2 more. And to see that places in CA are selling Uncle Jacobs for $1-2 LESS then we paid at the release is nuts.

 

I was kind of curious about this "self-distribution" thing, too, as it'd be the first I've heard of it. So I chatted with our sales gurus. We are not self-distributing anything. Every single case, even if hand-delivered by one of our few sales folk, has been paid for by our distributor and the store is buying it from them. The sales folk are hand-delivering most of them because they want to be able to go into those stores that are getting those beers and say hello. We're actually spending far more money and time to hand deliver the cases than sending them through the distributor. Mainly as a "thank you" to cool places that have supported us for years.

And as for why only certain stores are getting some of the barrel-aged releases... with such limited amounts of beer, it's a struggle to come up with the best way to put them out there. If, for example, we give 100 cases of Momi Hiwa to our distributor and they put it on an ordering list for the 2000+ stores we work with, it can get ugly. Then hundreds of stores order the beer, it is spread incredibly thin, and then *everyone* is unhappy. That's what would have happened if we'd released the 30-40 cases we had left of Ross's's' Melange... there was so little that we would have made more stores/people angry than happy. So instead of making money on that beer, we're holding it to use for special events. Rather than making a release like UJ a free-for-all, we feel that the most fair way to get the beer out there is to get it to places that support us. This isn't some giant bullying scheme, it's simply the most logical method we could figure out to get this tiny little sliver of our overall production out there. There might be a better way to get this sort of thing done, and I'm sure the sales folk are open to different ideas, but we're doing the best we can and feel that allocating the beer ourselves makes more sense than a big feeding frenzy.

I also asked them about the CA price thing. That cost on the shelf is up to the distributor and store to determine... we can recommend a price to the distributor, but there's no way we can tell hundreds of stores what price to sell at. We didn't sell UJ to our CA distributor at a lower price than our CO distributor, so they and/or the store are choosing to sell at a lower margin. It's also notable that the price increase we saw at the Tap Room also meant a price increase for our local distributor. I can't tell you what the prices will be in stores because we don't determine that.

As for how it gets to CA before CO... I can't say I know too much about that one, but I can say that it's not an easy feat to distribute in multiple states and make sure everything gets a certain place at a certain time. I would guess that we had a truck going to CA on the day we were bottling UJ, so it might have gone out earlier. For CO, I'd imagine that we were waiting to put UJ in the market until after the release party, so it might not have gone out on a truck to CO until a few days after CA. Once again, this might not be perfect, but we don't have thousands of sales reps... we have a handful, and they're spending a lot of time out in the field. It doesn't make sense for them to spend a lot of their time on the logistics of making sure that UJ bottles hit the shelves here a few days before CA.

And keep in mind that I am not in sales 'n' marketing, so I'm just writing down what's happening as I understand it through our sales gurus... if there's a misunderstanding on something, feel free to ask questions or contact me/the brewery directly for good ol' fashioned factual answers. Though I might not be around a computer for the rest of the day. Too much computer time and no beer makes Andy something something...

Rock on.

Andy Parker
Barrel Herder, Avery Brewing Company

 

Victory does the same thing. They refuse to compete with local beer stores so anything at the Brewery is at or higher than regular cost. This has become painfully obvious with all their barrel aged beers released in the last two years.

 

Andy,

Appreciate every time you take the time to chime in.

Thanks

 

Great to see a beer rep take the time explain things they know about the company from the inside. Look forward to your posts all the time Andy!

 

So it's Friday and still not here...

 

Yesterday, Mr B's said Tuesday it should be in.

 

Mr B got one case today