Ad Idem

Does anyone know a bottle count on this? Seems like they made a ton if it is 3 different beers blended.

 

I wouldn't say V16 was a flop at all. It's a pretty damn good beer, but my god the $40 dollar price tag is rough.

DDG at 50-60 dollars a bottle seems likely this go around.

 

Ad Idem was available on draft at the previous Woodshop and was briefly on draft at Hermosillo. Great beer with a nice body but I did feel it was lacking in fruit comparing it to previous Veritas releases. That combined with the price tag and schlepping down to pick it up are the reasons I'm not buying bottles. However, in the past two years the amount of options for fruited sours available in California has increased significantly.

 

There is something to consider though. Why do lambic blenders and Brewers charge only $5-$10 for bottles at their locations, while American's making (arguably) inferior AWA's charge 5-10x what the Belgians charge?

 

Capitalism...

 

Haha yes but the Belgians are capitalists too. You know, the centralized power of the E.U. and everything

 

Because they can. Not a hard concept to grasp. If nobody buys them, they'll either decrease the price or stop making it if it doesn't make sense financially or for other non financial reasons (brand, etc.).

 

Yup... It makes me feel good that it still hasn't sold out, but there just may be a ton of bottles, all the more reason to hate on it. I think it's arrogant and crappy to assume we'll suck it right up, no matter what.

If cantillon (and everyone else that's been mentioned) can sit on bottles for a year and not charge $40 a pop, why can't lost abbey?

 

1) Different costs involved
2) Different business models and philosophies
3) Different market conditions
4) Different company structures/trajectories (e.g., most US craft breweries are servicing debt of some sort, be it bank loans or investors)

Whether or not you think the costs of AWAs are worth the beer in the bottle, comparing them to Belgian lambics in a direct fashion is pretty pointless.

 

Has anyone ever volunteered to accept less pay from their employer just to be nice?

 

I remember thinking that Cascade was charging an arm and a leg... but they don't even take it this far...

 

Yeah Cascade is expensive in liquor stores but reasonable from the brewery.

Crazy that $45 is the price direct from Lost Abbey

 

Good points, but:

2) Different business models and philosophies = more condoning of wallet **** and exploiting market conditions in which a select few people will buy up everything regardless of price while others stand by in awe
3) Different market conditions = hype train riders in the US are more susceptible to wallet **** than european lambic drinkers

Hence, boycott.

 

Different business models is actually far more of an issue than you're considering in your answer, largely because the majority of AWA producers are clean breweries first and wild ale producers second. This causes a whole new set of problems and requirements from equipment to process to ingredients.

You're not exactly seeing the point, especially considering Belgium and Europe have their own set of hype train riders that throw money at American whales, not to mention the fact that some of the European tickers make their American counterparts look like amateurs.

Not telling you to boycott or not, there are a whole host of valid reasons to not purchase Ad Idem or any given AWA. However, I don't think "Cantillon is 4x cheaper at the brewery" is a valid one.

 

The reason Lost Abbey charges $40 for their wild ales is the same reason Apple charges $800 for a phone.

 

All your points are reasonable and make sense as to why American Brewers would charge more. But it's not pointless to make the comparison of lambic to AWA. I consider the quality to cost ratio when buying beer, so when a more complex and well balanced lambic is cheaper than then AWA, that is a comparison that helps me to decide what I'm going to buy.

 

It's comparing the cost of lambic at the brewery to beer you're purchasing locally. Please (no really, pretty please) show me where I can get lambic in California for $10/bottle. Hell, tell me where I can buy it for under $45/bottle right now and then it becomes a valid comparison.

This is coming from someone who's not interested in buying the Ad Idem, even though I'll very likely be in the neighborhood that weekend anyway (and not the normal excuse that it'd be an extra plane ticket down there to get it). It's more expensive than what I want to pay. But it's not 4x more expensive than world class comparisons.

 

Some of you guys are a lot more patient than me.

From a consumer standpoint - its a bad comparison because I can't easily pick up Cantillon for under $40
From a production standpoint - its a bad comparison because as @Xul already pointed out, its apples and oranges. (Debt structure, clean and wild production, overhead, economies of scale, etc etc etc)

It's a pricey bottle for sure. No need to make bad arguments to back up that assertion.

If the pick up window was more than 24 hours I'd give one a shot.

 

It's pretty easy to get boon and cuvée Rene for around $10. I just grabbed 2 tilquins for $15 each at bottlecraft north park.

Sorry I really don't mean to detract from the lost abbey talk. I'll just go back to lambic discussion boards on the other site.

 

Can I vehemently disagree with *both* sides of this argument? Even if only on principle?

Beer nerds are so fucken annoying sometimes.

Looking forward to trying this beer. And wading through this whole ridiculous spiel again with the upcoming Veritas release....