Other Half Brewing Thread (May 2016)

To be fair, there are plenty of great 12-oz options.

 

Not on BA, no, but OH seems to have more pull in other trading mediums. Just look at what some people offer up on Instagram comments. This is subjective through, as I haven't been impressed with most OH stuff lately, at least since Second Anniversary. Others have a much higher opinion of the beer so they might not see those offers as trading up.

 

All craft beer in NYC is out of control in terms of price. The comment about $4/can being outrageous doesn't apply only to Other Half. Grimm is much more (also much better), but there's at least a reason for that because it's made at another facility and has to be shipped up to NYC and goes through two extra levels of sale. Singlecut is even more outrageous than Other Half in terms of pricing.

 

Fixed


Can you imagine the lines if OH was selling at the $2.1 per can that Grimm sells to distributors?

 

Good point. And yea, I was thinking about that Grimm price specifically when thinking about price. Obviously they brew outside NYC, but they use a contract brewery which must be pricy, and northern Virginia is still a pretty expensive area. And yet they still sell to wholesalers at $2.10 a can. I don't begrudge Other Half for selling at those prices, since they sell out, I just personally wouldn't spend that kind of money on a pilsner.

 

But knowing how OH and others around here treat non traditionally (american) hoppy styles its going to be dry hopped beyond recognition. Which gets the hop heads all worked up it seems.

 

I think the idea is that buying a brewery and all of the equipment is a massive initial capital outlay. So some people gypsy brew because they don't have the initial capital, or financial backers, to open a brewery. But long-run I assume the per-beer cost is likely cheaper to own your own brewery, because contract brewing facilities have to cover the same capital expenses plus charge a margin to make some kind of profit, which is a cost you wouldn't have to bear at your own brewery.

Obviously the NYC market is unique though, in that leases are incredibly expensive, so it could actually be cheaper to use a contract brewery. That being said, between paying two additional levels of distributors and paying a margin to the contract brewery, I'm assuming the long-run per-beer margin is MUCH lower for Grimm.

 

I believe in the Grimm post, they said they were planning on selling cans at sub $4. Of course, things change, but it would be awesome if they can deliver at that price.

 

Problem is people falling all over themselves to get Grimm cans are giving retailers all the leverage as they push the absolute upper limits of pricing.

While I am here, had ADE yesterday on tap at brewey, really liked it, so smooth. I didn't get any dankness at all, but two of my favorite breweries collaborating resulted in an excellent beer.

 

Sorry, to be clear, I meant when they open their space.

 

This is very well said. The upfront capex on a physical brewery in New York City, as I'm sure everyone here recognizes, is extraordinary. While we would've certainly loved to have been able to launch with a space of our own, we didn't have that capital outlay upfront, and so starting out on the gypsy route enabled the three of us to maintain sole ownership and complete independence. We actually have zero private investors, which we've found is something our peers in the industry tend to find shocking. And yes, our ultimate goal is to be able to fund a physical space of our own. While we don't have to bear the expenses of running/maintaining a physical brewery that @Kanger mentioned, there are a variety of fees involved when renting time on brewing equipment, especially when you're asking your host to tie their tanks up longer than they'd ideally like because we won't compromise on dry-hopping.

Not only that, but it can be easy to lose sight of how expensive it is to brew a lot of the amazing ultra hop-forward beers NYC has been awash in (those in this thread are clearly aware of the cost, but I think it's worth repeating that brewing IPAs with massive late hop, whirlpool and dry-hop additions using the most sought-after hops in the world can be pricey). I can assure you that Bodega is not a cheap beer to make, and that's only a 5.5% APA. When you start looking at all of the massively hopped and dry-hopped DIPAs and IPAs hitting the market, $4/can is actually a pretty good deal (and that's not even taking into account the additional canning cost for gypsies that also require a third-party canner, plus the cost of freighting the cans to NYC). We always wanted to can from the get-go, but the economics of packaging a beer like Bodega in cans where the margins are razor-thin was (and to an extent still is) a hurdle. $4/can is basically the bare minimum a retailer can charge for that beer without us losing money on it. Basically the TL;DR version of all of the above is that while it's more expensive upfront to have your own space, it's probably cheaper to can in-house (even with a mobile canner), and it's almost certainly way more profitable to skip retail and be able to sell direct to the public.

 

Just had ADE. It was a very good beer but there was nothing "dank" about it IMO. Also, it tasted like probably half a dozen OH DIPAs I've had.

 

New low: OH 4packs from MONTHS ago being sold (hopefully not bought) for $40+ a 4pack on MBC

 

Against their rules (needs to be over a year old). If not already removed, somebody will report it and it will be soon.

 

Maybe they should start tasting the beer before naming it and printing labels.

 

Cellarmaker is well known for naming a lot of their beers with "dank" in it, hence the name.

 

So I should hold on to it for a year first? I can up the price then too!?

 

Funny that a place that allows people to illegally sell beer has rules !

 

Stopped by the brewery yesterday. The 007 and Telectroscopic were both tasting delicious. Not too crowded. A perfect way to bring the long weekend to a close.