Does price matter?

Obviously it matters. If I can't afford it, I can't buy it.

 

Price, in terms of several factors including money, time, difficulty, etc... is always a factor no matter the item in question. There is always a certain limit to how much you are going to enjoy something, and how you value that enjoyment. It really doesn't matter if it is beer or a trip to the amusement park.

There is always a slope to this. Obviously if it is a cheap beer for $1 that you absolutely love, you will ALWAYS buy it over a $5 beer you just merely like. Same thing in the opposite direction, if a beer isn't that good, it is going to have to be really cheap for you to buy it.

Factor in time that it takes to obtain the beer, and the slope moves to a bit of a curve. If you have invested a lot of time into finding something, you may be willing to move the maximum price point up, because you have already invested a lot into it. If you have to invest very little time to obtain, the higher prices may make it so that you don't want to get something you have not invested in, but at the same time, you may decide to pay just a small amount extra, due to the convenience and the saving of your time.

 

I actually found your options in the survey a bit hard to answer - mostly because of the word "Favorite"

For example, I love Zombie Dust and that would need to be a ridiculous price before I wouldn't buy it. Frankly, I would prefer it to be $25 or $30 a 6 pack because then I could get it whenever I wanted. Right now at $15 a 6'er it is hard to find and sells out immediately.
Permanent Funeral is the same way - at $12 a bomber it flies off shelves - if it was $30 I would be able to get it whenever I wanted.

The flip side is that I am pretty sensitive to price when trying new breweries & new beers. I walk past a lot of the Pipeworks and other small Chicago breweries because the price is stupidly high for the risk I am taking with the beer. Recently a small brewer near me released their first barrel aged imperial coffee stout - $20 a bomber... I laughed and walked on by.

 

For beers that I pickup on a regular basis, weekly say, I dont like to go over the $10 a bomber price point. There are the times though that splurging is needed, usually based on a recommendation.

 

I kinda agree with this, apart from certain limited editions that are going for ridiculous prices. /cough Braukunstkeller's barrel aged stuff /cough (I mean come on, for that price I can get at least 3-5 good imported beers)
But generally speaking, 'good beer' (or 'craft' or however you want to dub it) is still a lot cheaper than good liquor. I mean, Bourbon is comparatively cheap but once you go looking for good rum, single malt or even gin and you'll be off the deep end.

Obviously I'll try to be economic and get the good domestic stuff and other good European brews that don't go for Scandinavian prices. I will get certain imported stuff even if the markup is higher if I can't really find a solid equivalent/it's been recommended enough that I trust it will be really good. (like the LHMS for a case of the latter and NC's Old Rasputin for a case of the former)

 

Absolutely. Driving by Whole Foods Plymouth Mtg yesterday, stopped in grabbed 4 pak Wake n Bake. Got to the counter, dude says $15.99 I said, no, I don't think so. Not when it's $12 elsewhere. Walked right out. BTW, what the hell's happened to WF, gone way downhill since Billy left (all Phila suburban BA's will know what I mean) ...

 

Well the other day i was at The Beer Trappe, an they had Black Damnation (3 and 12) and i was extremely stoked "Holy shit im gonna get me some black damnation." Then i saw the price was $38 and i put that shit right back on the shelf. So yes, price does matter.

 

Evil Twin holds up pretty well for me, I can't tell you the last time I bought, or even had a desire to buy Mikkellers beer. But what i'm getting at here is you shouldn't lump them together just because they're owned by brothers, they are two completely different companies.

I can think of atleast 15 EXTREMELY good Evil twin beers off the top of my head. I can think of like 3 from Mikkeller.

 

Agreed... and on the other end of the curve, it doesn't matter how cheap something gets if it's not good. If I can't enjoy drinking it, it doesn't matter how little it costs - I'm still not drinking it.

 

Thats like asking if size matters...

 

As long as the price is reasonable I'll purchase.

 

Depends on how much $ you have.

 

Depends on how much money I've already blown on stupid crap that week.

 

Price matters a great deal, but I don't really buy "regular" brews. It's always one-offs, bombers of seasonals, etc... I have a hard and fast limit of a dollar an ounce. I don't go over that any more. Just not worth it, no matter how good the beer is.

 

Yes, somewhat. I tend to buy a fair amount of 12 packs and cases. A few 22's as well.

 

One dollar per ounce is where I have to start thinking about pulling the trigger.

 

Quantity of beer you consume / disposable income = what type of beer and how much the price of beer matters

I know a person who drinks about 4-5 beers on average every day (yes they have a problem) and barely makes $30K annually with a family to support. This person LOVEs craft beers particularly pale ales and IPAs, but has to go probably 50% of their purchases with BMC product due to budget and alcoholism reasons.

If you can restrain from drinking most of the week and yet love sours, a vast majority of people could probably afford to buy a $40 bottle of Cantillon once ever week or 2 if they didn't buy any other beers.

 

This is good. Got a formula for that? Let's see... price per bottle / (num oz X ABV) = price per oz alcohol?

Heady Topper = 3.75 / (16 * .08) = ~ 3.07
Mcallan 12 = 50 / (25.36 * .4) = 4.92

I like the Vickie Mendoza scale too. Just got to stay above the line

 

If I go to Vermont for a bucket list beercation, I'd probably take $100-$200 to HF and get what I can. If I don't have at least $50-$75 to spend on beer, I'm not going to bother driving up to HF.

 

Generally speaking, I'll go for the cheaper of two options if they're pretty much equal. But if they're reasonably different and the more expensive one is really appealing to me, what the hell? As long as the bills are still getting paid.

That said, I used to almost never pay more than $11 for six-packs and $8 for bombers (unless it was for a special occasion), just because I often felt like that was around the upper limit of what beer "should" cost. Fortunately, a lot of beer still fell into this range, but I've gotten pretty into wine over the last couple of months, where dropping $20+ on a bottle is not too uncommon. So although none have come along to tempt me yet, I can see myself being more open to trying some of those real luxury beers at least once.