Barrier Brewing Co. (2019)

Their pilsner goes for $10/4-pack, which is pretty damn good.

 

LOL what? What breweries in the Westchester/NYC/LI area are making $10 sixers?

Decadent? No.
District 96? No.
Sing Sing Kill? No.
Industrial Arts? No.
Gun Hill? No.
Threes? No.
Folksbier? No.
Other Half? No.
Transmitter? No.
Big Alice? No.
Alewife? No.
KCBC? No.
Fifth Hammer? No.
Interboro? No.
Grimm? No.
Finback? No.
Singlecut? No.
Mikkeller? No.
Evil Twin? No.
Root & Branch? No.
Sand City? No.

So that leaves... Captain Lawrence. And that's only on their grocery store beers (Hop Commander, Orbital Tilt, etc.) which you can usually find for $10-12. Their IPAs, stouts and sours are more expensive than Barrier per oz. Barrier's $14-16 IPAs/DIPAs, $10 pils, $12 common/kolsch are well below their peers' average.

But please, tell me more about my 'blinders' as you drinking your $10 sixer of Great South Bay pumpkin ale or whatever crap that is not remotely comparable to what we're talking about.

 

You seem to be doing just fine on your own.

(BTW, just to be clear, my tone here isn't a serious "you don't know what you're talking about," it's just teasing like I'd do to a friend.)

Some $10/sixer breweries off the top of my head:

Port Jeff
Great South Bay
Greenport
Oyster Bay
Captain Lawrence
Long Ireland
Flagship

And stretching things a bit with NY contract brewing:

Brooklyn
Bronx
Montauk


Now, I know you're thinking that you don't like those breweries, and that's fine, but to exclude them is silly. You said "Barrier has the most consumer-friendly pricing model." You should have said "Barrier has the most IGaveYouPower-friendly pricing model" instead. Excluding brewers you don't like shouldn't be a part of that thinking. They're all in the same race. It's like saying "Of the candidates I'd personally vote for, Bernie Sanders has the most pro-middle class policies," and then editing out the first part.

And as far as the "crap" I drink, I try beers from brewers mentioned in your post and my post, and attempt to make up my own mind based on how much I like the beer I'm drinking rather than the name on the bottle/can or the cost. Some brewers have more hits and some have more misses regardless of which of the above two lists I'm looking at.

 

Re: pricing -

I guess we could say best pricing in the area for 4pk cans? Can't beat that buy 5 get the 6th free deal though. We just need some more OG Barrier beers to return. Like the world needs another collab NEIPA.

 

It must be working for them though. Every time I see a new Barrier can, I twist it around to check if it's anything other than an IPA collaboration but I keep my expectations in check.

 

Yeah, no. They're not in the same race. At all.

I have genuinely, honest-to-god never seen anyone on this forum mention Port Jeff, Greenport, Long Ireland or Flagship. GSB gets mentioned only in the context of Root & Branch releases. Captain Lawrence, as I already mentioned, is more expensive than Barrier when talking about the beers that actually compete with each other for shelf space.

This is seriously like comparing Trillium, TH, Lamplighter, Vitamin Sea and Night Shift with Harpoon and Sam Adams. They don't exist in the same realm of craft beer. They are not competing against one another.

And that's not to say Harpoon, Sam, GSB, Port Jeff or whoever don't make good beer. That's not the argument. The argument is that it's incredibly disingenuous to argue what I said about Barrier by comparing a bunch of ancient breweries offering forgettable takes on 90s brewpub styles.

 

While I agree with 99% of this post, I have to take exception with Greenport. Ever since Pat took over (from Barrier, ironically), the beer has become exceptionally better. They have a whole sour program that is in the works (I’ve tried some from out of the barrels - unreal stuff) and their recent IPAs have been really good. Also their table saison, which won a medal at TAP NY, was stellar.

However, their IPAs in 4-pack format are usually between $16-$20, on par with the market average. So this comes back to Barrier’s pricing which is very consumer friendly.

 

You asked and I answered. If you think that's disingenuous then there's nothing I can do about it, but I'm certainly not attempting to be disingenuous. Try looking at it from outside of your POV... and next time I see someone ask about breweries I'll try to assume the only ones that count are the ones that get dedicated threads in the regional forums.

 

Sorry Chief! All this discussion requires is math. We were talking about how incredible the value is at Barrier compared to other breweries pushing out hype cans for $20+ a 4 pack and you said "whoa! whoa! I can get $10 sixers from all these breweries...." It's still not cheaper! The $10 sixers you're referring to are 12oz cans, if I bought a case of 12oz cans it would be $40 or 7.2 cents an oz. We.can go to Barrier and get a case of MONEY for $70 or 5.5 cents per oz. So, yeah, you can go to Port Jeff and get a sixer for $10 but you're still paying more and quite frankly I'd take a case of MONEY all day over any of the breweries you listed .

 

Nice, that's good to know and I'll be on the lookout. Love me a good table beer.

 

No problem Lieutenant, but your math seems way off, so that must mean...

Unless I'm doing the crunching wrong, your Port Jeff example is still cheaper than buying Money in bulk and you even need to be at Barrier for that discount. Forget the math, you are talking about a very specific scenario and I was only commenting on a very general statement.

I didn't react to anybody stating that Barrier is cheaper than Grimm (for example... or pick whichever brewer is putting out the "BS milk sugar nonsense" you referenced). I reacted to the idea that "Barrier has the most consumer-friendly pricing model in the entire Westchester/NYC/LI area." They don't.

Sorry to get literal. I like Barrier. I buy Barrier, not Port Jeff... but in my mind this has nothing to do with drinking preferences or beer-geek rating tiers. Unfortunately, I added a negative vibe here. There's just some bad communication happening between all of us.

 

Does anyone know if they still have the rauchbier in cans at the brewery? I have a friend stopping there later.

 

A little late, I know, but I just went to the brewery for the first time over the weekend and the rauchbier is still available in cans. Tasting great too, very clean with a strong smoke to it. Also picked up a 4-pack of Le Pete, a peat-smoked Belgian wheat beer, but haven't tried it yet.

 

They still have Le Pete cans? I avoided it when it was around years ago but it's one of my favorites from Barrier now.

 

Beverage Barn East Meadow still has four packs in the cooler too.

 

But I can't get 6 4packs for the price of 5 there!

 

Thank you. Do you know what it’s called? I forgot.

 

I like that Barrier is starting to play with their yeast, the London Ale III they used in Great Experiment 5 was a welcomed change.

Now we need London Ale III and galaxy hops to cure my Other Half envy.

 

Frau Blucher

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22928/79061/

 

Yeah, they had a huge selection of cans, around 15 different beers or so. Not sure if that's par for the course for them. It was kind of odd seeing more offerings in cans than on-tap at a brewery, but nice to have such a wide range to choose from to bring home.