Why is this beer so expensive?

There are multiple reasons, namely:

1. The brewery has to acquire (i.e. purchase) the barrels from the distillery
2. The brewery has to age the beer in the barrels for a length of time, during which the barrels need to be monitored, kept reasonably temperature-controlled, tasted, blended, and generally are taking up floor space in the brewery that cannot be used for other things, all of which costs money.

There are economical and market-sensitive reasons as well, but those are two of the big "practical" reasons.

 

3. People will pay it.

 

Aging in barrels requires extra time and space, both things that cost a business a considerable amount of money.

 

Quality and number of uses on the barrel are factors. The space that barrel aging massive amounts of beer is another.

 

Everything that has been said already.
That base beer only ties up vessel space for 2 maybe 3 weeks tops. Its barrel aged brother has to occupy floor space for another 6 mos to a year. Not too mention you have to handle the logistics of their delivery and what is going into them so that the two sync up, and then it's also another entire day or two of someone's schedule to handle the logistics of just prepping for racking. If you are tight for space, and have one open aisle which many breweries typically do. That row or two of empty barrels is going to generally be right in the way of what someone else might need access to, and if a delivery comes in that delivery will then sit in someone else's way for the duration of racking.
So... one bad decision in placing a barrel rack or two with full barrels will turn out to be a terrible one three hours down the line when you have 6 or 7 more also riffing on that one bad decision, which in turn means, several more hours of work undoing that bad decision. i.e. you have to have some serious forklifting skills working with full barrel racks and a master understanding of tetris. From first hand experience. It can be a huge pain in the ass.

 

This one is a bit egregious, but nowhere near as bad as Barrel Aged Rasputin. How does barrel aging turn a beer that sells for $2.49 per 12oz bottle into something that costs $20-22 for a 500ml?

 

Don't even really need 1 or 2.

 

I'm not saying that this is the situation here, but sometimes a brewer will brew a stronger version of a beer before barrel aging it so that the beer will stand up better against the bourbon flavor and barrel aging. The label says 'Double Bastard' but it could be a stronger version of the same recipe, thus the base beer cost is a bit higher too.

 

Gargoyles don't work cheap bro.

 

I was talking to a brewer tonight and the going rate now is 200 for a used barrel. That is probably only slightly less than the ingredients for the beer at their discounts.

 

I have no problem with that. The market will dictate if the price is too high for a beer that is not rare enough. We are talking about a semi-luxury item here.

 

Did you buy it?

Cheers!

 

Free market economy-it's a bitch

 

It was worth the money then (just not all the time). And it makes for good conversation over the holidays.