Is barrel aged beer overpriced?

Curious. A question,what is your comparison point for over priced? I.e., compared to what?

I never have quite figured out how to know enough about production costs of barrel aging to be sure whether the brewers profit was unreasonable given costs of production. Especially if the beer went through an importer/distributor and then to a retailer since each of them gets a profit as well. Thanks in advance.

 

Honestly don’t know. It seems to depend. I suspect some get reasonably priced to give the brewer a reasonable profit and that for others the profit margins for brewer and/or distributor and/or retailer may be unreasonable. Not sure how to figure out their costs before I buy.

 

In conversations of this kind in the past there has never been a consensus about whether the cost of barreling justifies the high price tags some of them have. Some points in the past have been:

-Barrel aging beer in used barrels is risky, and the costs involved with discarding bad product are high
-The cost to a brewery of dedicating space to store barreled beers for extended periods of time is high
-Breweries need to be able to absorb not being able to recoup costs of a barreled beer quickly

and the other side

-There are barreled beers that are reasonably priced, so those that aren't reasonably priced are just priced to what the market will bear, not to reflect costs of production

 

Some brewers combine fancier packaging and higher pricing with naturally or artificially limited production to create cult status and hype. Human psychology leads us to crave what is difficult to obtain due to price and availability and seems fancy or high quality. A beer loses cult status by overproduction or lower demand. This seems to have happened to KBS by Founders quickly increasing production, though their sales and profit may well be up even if the cult status is tarnished.

 

Founders quickly...??? Not until after they sold 30% of themselves to a major infusion of money for updating/upgrading their operations, equipment, capacity, etc.etc. Only gradual increase before that.

 

Well summarized. Thanks!

 

What I meant was that in one year we went from standing in line for a bottle or two, to stacks of it sitting in stores for months. I saw that a store here yesterday still has eight cases, and it doesn't seem to be selling at all.

 

Thanks. Seems reasonable , pretty much what I used to do. Then I got to visit, say, Cantillon in Brussels and go through a self guided tour that lets you take your time looking, etc.. (and included a free glass of Gueuze). also looking at the prices at the brewery, comparing them to what I’d pay here in the states, assuming I could find one....

 

Understood. That was rapid there indeed. We’ve had Founders around here for many years we so only saw a definite increase but not so dramatic as “rapid.”

 

BCBS is expensive but, having tried to clone it a couple times, I think the significant additional work required to make it sort of justifies the cost. It takes a lot of grain and then a ~4 hr hr boil to get to the massive target OG (30 brix). Managing the fermentation on a big beer like this isn’t easy and then the barrel aging is a very challenging and expensive process that can go sideways on you as we saw a few years ago.

Hype is certainly baked into the price but I think there are many worse offenders in American Craft beer today ($20 4 pack can release beers for example)

 

Just realized I didn't respond to the real question you were asking.

I've been through a wine phase and a Whisky phase and am now into a beer phase.

Left the wine behind since the wife doesn't like wine and I reached the point where I began to be aware of the very subtle changes in flavors of wine from the re-corked bottle of wine that I didn't want to finish until the next day.

Was in the whisky stage (single malts) for some years and got fairly passionate about learning the ropes, etc. After a while though I got tired of the price incrases as it took on a new popularity. Also I found that I wanted more variety and didn't like leaving a re-corked whisky for weeks as I rotated through others.

Found flavorful beer and have been here ever since. Lots of variety, easy to find locally and some expense doesn't bother me because I can more easily justify $60 a case for a beer I like than $150 for a Single Malt I'd like to have.

So to get specific about high priced barrel aged stuff. As a once in a while threat I'm fine with the prices of most but only follow up if it's really good. Too many quality alternatives even in "regular" stouts.

 

For those that aren't in the 1% income level, BA beers should be a decadant treat on occassion but the good news is that at $40 or less for most all of the 750mlss or 4 packs, they can be had be even those on this planet with the most modest of incomes, unlike many of the best wine bottles that could go for $500-$5,000 and few of us on this planet ever get to experience. Prices per oz. are quite variable for BA stouts/sours but world class options can be had and lots of prices per oz. Everyone can enjoy, its just a matter of frequency!

 

Yes. I went to my local bottle shop yesterday. They had just gotten Pirate Bomb and Pirate Noir. $11.50/12 oz bottle. It was an easy pass for me. I’m sure it’s great and I’ve never had either one but I’d thought I’d leave it for someone else.

Plus Underground Mountain Brown is reaping this weeks. Great beer and more reasonably priced.

Edit: Two years ago I would have bought my limit on the Prarie stuff.

 

They charge what the market will pay, it appears that the current cost is not out of line with the market at the moment.
Being overpriced is subjective, to each their own I guess.

Cheers

 

If you don't think the beer is a good value, such that you aren't willing to pay the listed price for it, it's overpriced for you. If others are willing to pay that price, such that the beer moves briskly in the market, it's not overpriced in general. For products among which consumers differentiate and don't consider fungible, price should not be expected to correlate closely to cost of production, so I hesitate even to discuss the costs of production in this instance, although I think you're vastly underestimating (or not even considering) the economies of scale advantage of liquor producers.

As to whether whiskey is a better value, first I'll point out that many 12-18 years-aged whiskeys cost way more than $30-$40 a bottle. Second, given that most consumers don't seem to view barrel-aged beers as fungible among each other (as they'll often pass over cheap examples in favor of more expensive ones), I certainly don't think most consumers view barrel-aged beers and whiskeys as substitutes.

I've never gotten the impression that barrel-aged beer fans particularly tend to enjoy whiskey or vice versa. I'm a whiskey fan, and I think most bourbon-barrel-aged beers taste worse than the unaged version of the same beer. That's partially because most breweries just stick a solid base beer in a barrel rather than tailoring the recipe for barrel-aging, and partially because most beer tastes better fresh, but I also think that, fundamentally, beer and whiskey flavors don't mesh together particularly well. On the flip side, I know some people who go gaga over such beers who know very little about whiskey and hardly ever drink it. In fact, I suspect that the cachet of bourbon and rye barrel aging in beer, which I believe drives the interest in the likes of Bourbon County Stout and its imitators more than the taste of the liquid, accrues mainly among people who view liquor as challenging and mysterious rather than people who are quite familiar with the stuff.

I will confess to enjoying many a barrel-aged sour (which rarely use whiskey barrels), but clearly those taste very little like whiskey. I truly don't think these products are much in competition, so their relative prices aren't highly relevant to most consumers.

 

Sour beers aged in barrels are probably properly priced because of the cost of the barrels and the extra time and space that storage demands, but I think rarity and supply/demand affect the price of some breweries' sour beers (think Cascade beers that sit on the shelf).

Beers aged in bourbon (or other spirits) barrels have the extra cost of the barrels and storage time and space and justify higher prices, but there has to be an element of supply and demand in the pricing too since the highly-popular beers typically cost more. And then I'm guessing that bourbon barrels that were used for aging/flavoring maple syrup cost more than a plain ol' bourbon barrel even after a second use, so you have that add-on too.

 

Some good examples to create context. Plus the investment in those beers can be "spread out" over time. I've still got two 12oz bottles in the basement of the DFH Oak-aged Vanilla WWS which was a 2017 release at about $40 per six pack IIRC. WWS may change a bit over time but it shouldn't be any less enjoyable than the first when I open each in the future.