2016 BCBS Chicago Release (Black Friday & Beyond)

We wound up with minimal coffee variants around southern WI but quite a few unexpected regal cases at various bottle shops. Anyone in Chicago able to confirm rumors that GI had to trash 50% of their coffee barrels this year due to infection? Also heard they planned on maple variant that didn't work out either.

 

LP Binny's? I was right near a guy who got asked that.

 

Yesterday at Binnys LP some guy tried to cut the line between the last ticket holder (1100) and the non ticket holders. I don't know when he cut, but when he got inside Binnys and was next in line, people started yelling he cut and he got kicked by the Binny's employee for cutting.

Earlier that morning a guy was walking around and asking who was the first person without a ticket. He then proceeded to hand a guy he had never met his ticket for a full allotment. The guys face lit up like a Christmas tree.

You read so many stories of the bad shit, getting to see this really put a smile on my face yesterday.

Mad props to the beer community! (Pun intended)

 

Nope. Open Bottle in Tinley. We (the back of the line) quickly went back to teeth grinding and the mental math of figuring out what our odds at Prop or Coffee were.

 

I would definitely not pay $40 for this year's prop. What I had on tap yesterday was not even close to being worth $40.

Honestly, BCBS used to be priced perfectly, I remember paying like $20 for a 4 pack. Now, the price has increased by ~40%/ounce. It's not expensive but it's not a good deal anymore.

 

Yeah, it's hard to find good deals anymore, especially on ba shit. Not sure I'd pay $40 for a bottle of this or last year's Prop, but I get it if someone is desperate for one.

 

You're not entitled to this beer or any others at a "semi-reasonable amount". You don't get to define what is a good price. It's up to the reseller to decide how they want to price their merchandise. If it's too high it won't sell. But when it's too low it sells out immediately. It's very rare to not see the latter.

I wish Bourbon County was available year-round for no more than Bud Light. I also wish I could afford a Tesla. But I can't so I drive a Prius. If Tesla started selling the Model S for $28k they'd probably have people lined up and complaining on message boards that they can't find one anywhere!

 

Again, it's not just up to you. If it's not worth $40, don't buy it. But clearly, for some people it is. It is in the sellers interest to set the price to maximize their profit. I've walked away from plenty of Bourbon County that was priced more than I was willing to pay. It wasn't overpriced. It was just overpriced FOR ME.

 

Dang, someone took Econ 101!

 

There's some good value still out there. Dragon's milk is $15ish/4-pack and available year round at any decent shop around here. I think Central Waters barrel program is killing it. Their BA stout is getting a bit tougher to find, but when available their Scotch ale is awesome (on par with Backwoods for me) and I've been really impressed with the BA Quad they just released.

 

Ignore the haters here, I agree with what you're saying 100%. The beer is worth whatever price people are willing to pay for it to sell through. Econ 101. No one is entitled to a "good deal" on beer. We're just fortunate to get it sometimes (by trading another valuable commodity: time).

 

I never said anything about me or others being entitled to a reasonable price. I just said that I liked it.

How do you like it?

100% agree on every word of this. Couldn't have said it better actually.

 

Nobody is saying that it is unfair that prices of BCBS have increase by ~40% in just 2-3 years time. Only that it sucks that a beer we used to (or at least, long time fans used to) drink as much of they could of without worrying about cost. Seeing a beer we love sit on shelves because people are charging 3x MSRP and even a beer we have to limit buying at MSRP, it's just a reminder things have changed.

Great beer used to be that cheap alternative to great wine, those days are looking increasingly extinct. Again, it's not unfair, just unfortunate to us who have been drinking this beer for a decade plus.

 

Plenty of Central Waters BBS around here.

 

I'm not sure about coffee, but I know a significant amount of Maple was thrown to the wind because of some familiar issues.

As for the price debate, I think what the folks that are on the merchants' side to set the price how they see fit, that they are missing one important thing. GI or any other beer maker sets the MSRP. Because we are fairly smart as a group, because of the internet, and because of places like Binny's, it's not hard to figure out what the MSRP is on these products. When places are charging 150% or more of the MSRP, it's not very hard to figure out why some folks get upset. It's also fairly well known that GI frowns on this to a point. A few years ago there were rumors that quite a few liquor stores didn't get anything one year based on their conduct the previous year. If you think about it, GI does not want these beers sitting on the shelf. To put it in terms of what this group might understand, shelf turds don't garner much excitement and thus the value of GI's product would suffer. So all the sudden a merchant puts BCBS out for $25 per bottle, Rare for $125, and Prop for $75, and they don't sell. The next thing you hear is how these beers aren't hard to find and that they are sitting on the shelf at XYZ Liquor. That kind of situation ends up not being good for anyone except for the guy with more money than sense. I, like others passed on quite a bit yesterday. I just wasn't going to pay $14.99 for regular and $19.99 for BW. There's too much out there at the $9.99 price point for regular and I suspect this year will be like last year and that is you will be able to find this stuff for at least a couple of months.

Those of you that want to pay too much, send me a PM if you want a $129.99 Rare. This particular merchant has had two sitting there since last year.

 

The "S" stands for suggested. Because of the three-tier system, GI or AB can't set the actual price except for bottles that they sell directly. I'm actually mostly upset at them (Goose/AB) for setting the MSRP so low. Clearly they're producing as much as they can and it's not like they have a hard time selling this beer, why aren't they charging the distributors more?

 

To be honest, this is a less extreme version of what's happened to the bourbon market in the last 5 or 10 years. The big stuff (Pappy, BT Antique, all the other limiteds, etc) used to hang out on shelves for msrp, and now this stuff typically never makes it out of the storeroom, and if it does, has a 200-1000% markup on it.

It's a shame for sure, but we're also really lucky to live in a world where we can pass on an overpriced BCS variant because "x brewery" does something similar for way cheaper. The bourbon community has almost nothing comparable, due to the time/logistics of making bourbon.

We're spoiled for options, so while it sucks the lengths we have to go (and pay) for the big boys, it's also awesome what a huge and diverse community (brewing and drinking) we now have.

 

I'm quite aware of what it stands for, but what you seem to be missing is the invisible "S". MSSRP, Manufacturers Strongly Suggested Retail Price. The MSRP is there for a reason and I pretty much made that clear in my earlier post. Sure there's some leeway there, but not 150%.