Maine Beer Company (Black Barn Program)

No ×-pack format, no care.

 

I'm truly impressed that even in this climate a business like this can still be thriving. Shitting on the customer's wants and blindly pushing forward at astronomical per unit pricing is working.

Good for them .

 

TLDR: Still no cans so price point will continue to suck.

 

if this means Beer III (black IPA) returns I'd be stoked on that.

 

Way out

 

for all the shit MBC gets, and I've given them plenty, I'd certainly buy more of their stuff if it were at better price points... even with all that, I can say pretty confidently that I've gotten more satisfaction per dollar on MBC products than on quite a few hyped breweries. They make awesome, consistent stuff.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a reason why they don't can. Is it environmental, quality, what? I searched the forums and did a google search and couldn't find any information (granted its a tough thing to search on given generic search criteria).

Even if they did cans I don't think they'd lower their prices. Even in keg they are significantly higher than other breweries. A sixth barrel of their beer is around $145 I believe (give or take depending on the specific beer). I've known other breweries that when they only did bottles their kegs were still proportionally cheaper per oz. The thing with MBC is that its hard to fault them for their prices. Their ethos isn't "let's charge as much as we can because we can" its "let's charge as much as we need to so that we can be sustainable, donate to causes, pay our employees well, have the highest quality, etc.". So between their "good guy" persona and quality beer you can only knock them so much. I don't choose to buy their beer often because of the price but they are still good beers.

 

I look forward to trying this program. You'd think MBC is the evil empire based on some of the rhetoric in here.

 

I was told at the brewery something to the effect of they will never can because their beer is bottle conditioned. So stuff doesn't condition in a can? I have no idea what that means!

 

Allagash is releasing their White in cans and it will be can conditioned.

 

Speaking only for myself I don't hold anything against them, I'm just baffled that their business plan still works. As Sweatshirt mentioned above, good for them - there are lots of successful business models that don't happen to attract me as a customer.

As to the claim that their prices/packaging are necessary to do the charity/employee/sustainable things they want to do, I can't help but be curious how much more of that they do than the Alchemist who state similar goals with much lower prices.

 

When asked about why he still packages beer in the 500ml bottles in a beer podcast I listened to, Dan Kleban basically said his beer still sells so why fix something that isn’t broke.
I personally would buy way more of their beer if they canned, but hey what do I know.

 

Can't really argue with that.

 

I agree with that to an extent I guess. I've always supported them but rarely buy their bottles anymore. I can tell you their pales and IPA's would be in constant rotation in my fridge with a switch to cans. I can enjoy far more glasses of MO in a night than Fort Point or PseudoSue.

 

Is it the can or the price point? Part of the initial shelf-allure of MBC was the classy looking bottle, but now the shelf-allure de jour is the 16 oz can, but for whatever reason MBC doesn't seem to see the need to switch. I guess their sales are still such that it doesn't make sense to rebrand their entire portfolio?

At this point, though, how far off are their prices? I'm not in the area much anymore, but at $6 a 500ml bottle for an IPA, they are not far from the $22 4 pack that is becoming quite regular. They're still obviously much more expensive than other locals, Substance is still $13, right? The question becomes do you want the consistency of quality that is MBC enough that you are willing to pay a (somewhat shrinking) premium for it? That being said, their packaging strategy is not the same as the mass consumption strategies of other breweries, with 4packs and cases being the suggested purchase count.

I'm sure many of us would like a cheaper MO and in a format that easily comes in greater quantity, but that just doesn't seem to be the image MBC wants. Power to them, keeps them a bit different.

 

usually $8 when I see them, some places $7. plus, aside from Lunch, they end up sitting around for a while on warm shelves in Mass.

 

Yeah but your example cherry picks the lowest possible bottle price of MBC at the brewery and compares it to the most expensive IPAs on the market. I live in Portland and still rarely see MBC for less than $7-8 a bottle, and our local pale ales are generally around $15 (only $13 for subby), with DIPAs being around $18. I have literally never seen a four-pack here for more than $20, and those are TIPAs or DIPAs loaded up with fruit and lactose. $22 perhaps exists on the higher end at Trillium or Tired Hands, but I certainly wouldn't consider it the norm.

So to do a proper comparison, a bottle of MO, a 5.5% pale ale at $7/bottle is equivalent per ounce to a $26.50 four-pack. No one else is priced remotely that high, which is about a 77% increase over the typical $15 price.

For Lunch, a 7% standard IPA, let's be generous and compare it to the typical DIPA price of $18, which works out to a 47% higher cost for MBC.

For Dinner, MBC's true DIPA, that costs $9 at the brewery, which works out to a $34.08 four-pack. Even looking at an extremely expensive four-pack of $20 DIPA, which I can tell you is very rare in Portland, Dinner would still be 70% more expensive.

So MBC really is significantly more expensive than any other brewery on the market, and it's really not close. Whether or not it's worth it I suppose is in the eye of the beholder.

 

I can buy 4 times as much Heady Topper for less than twice the cost of a bottle of Lunch.

 

on one hand, sure, but on the other, a lot of businesses have gone belly up because they didn't fix what wasn't broken.