Classic craft beer?

It’s weird how passionate people get about this. Have you ever tried pricing out what it costs to brew a premium beer? I’ve posted several examples of expenses associated with brewing certain styles. It is not hard to see how those prices get up there.

 

If brewers A through Y are selling tall-boy 4-packs @ $9.99, and brewer Z is selling the same style, same package for $17.99... what is that telling me ? I have to make a decision at the store, I don't have any other data than the label and the price sticker. Brewer Z does not have a rep at the store giving out samples, that day. And I already know that, for $9.99, I can take home a beer that I thoroughly enjoy. Beer Z stays on the shelf ...what's so weird about that ?

 

I just go into the beer store with no plan and try to force myself to try new things. Used to be easy, but I feel as if I'm narrowing my scope and getting more rigid these days. That, or I just haven't been impressed with almost any of Stone's new IPA's and it has made me bitter and revert to local stables. Almost like I'm in a beer rut.

 

I can see both yours and @honkey points on this. Brewing beer, even homebrew, isn't cheap. But if I go into a store and see 2 different NEIPA 4 packs that appear similar and one is $10 and the other is $15, I will go with the $10 4 pack 99.9% of the time.

 

Well, if only brewer Z (1 out of 26) is selling the package at a much higher price it tells you that there isn't a trend.

 

Size of brewery does play a role in the price. Brewer A is probably buying higher quantities of grains and malts through contract bringing the cost of ingredients to make a similar beer less.

 

I had my first chocolate stout yesterday, as in one actually brewed with chocolate. It was so sweet that at first it was unique enough that I thought it was cool. But about halfway through the novelty wore off and it got sickening real fast.

 

I am definitely moving back into the classic styles and breweries with my taste. Also becoming a lot more local. So many good options around home, don't need the fads or to try every brewery.

 

Good discussion, this. The fact of the matter is that Joe is right. There is a LOT of overpriced beer out there. Fuck the people that do that, because the market is not based solely upon the quality of the product being sold. It is based on perceived quality and how much people are willing to pay for it. Inflated pricing has the capacity to drive up pricing market-wide, and that is decidedly bad for the consumer. Not that craft beers don't deserve to be priced at a premium, but it is not my fault that economies of scale work in the favor of bigger breweries and I'm not paying more for essentially the same product just because it is manufactured on a smaller, less efficient, scale.

 

Agreed. SO many new breweries opening, unless their products show up at the pubs that I frequent, I couldn't care less. Beer only gets so good, and it's not like trying every beer at every brewery is going to increase my chance at finding something revelatory. Quite the opposite, actually.

 

I've found I buy a lot of IPAs, but the perennial one is the rotating hop selection series from Firestone Walker - Luponic Distortion. I also buy a loads of coffee beers, with an emphasis on dark beers.

My area really hasn't seen NEIPAs in vogue, although that trend is starting to really take off now. I buy them when I can, but seeing as they usually involve a release, or visiting a brewery, I tend to skip them in favor of buying distro'd local/regional beer.

 

I love rediscovering brands that I’ve loved and forgotten. A couple weeks ago it was North Coast. Hadn’t had a beer from them in years and caught attention to their lineup at the beer store: Scrimshaw, Old 38, Pranqster, Old Raspy...oh yeah, I’d forgotten that every single beer these guys make is phenomenal.

Walked away with a couple of sixers.

 

I'm the same. For me they tend to be imports, though.

Old Rasputin is rather ubiquitous around these parts. Not that that's a bad thing, but I'd certainly like to see more of the rest of their lineup, especially Old Stock.

 

Maybe you misused the word “insulted” then. To be insulted by a brewer pricing beer at a price point that they feel comfortable with is what’s particularly weird.

If I saw that exact situation, my thought would be that the $9.99 4-pack was brewed in a way that cut corners. In our self distribution state, I can get our NEIPA on a retailer’s shelf at $13 and in doing so we have taken a very small margin. To get it on the retail shelf at $10, we would have to sell at almost exactly our cost to produce it. If we had a distributor, we’d be selling the beer at a loss to the distributor to get it priced that way. Now people want to bring up economies of scale, but the truth is that is way over blown. We use premium ingredients (floor malted Maris Otter, select unblended lots of Amarillo, Citra, Mosaic etc.) that would still keep our costs high even if we were a regional brewery. It is more common that you see $9.99 pricing on that type of beer because the beer was brewed within the constraint of “Brew the style with a budget of _______ so we can make _______ selling it to a distributor for $20 a case.”

 

Obviously you feel that using these lower margin ingredients makes a positive difference in your end product. Do you feel that the increase in cost is justified in that it makes a commensurate difference in your beer as compared to beers of your competitors that don't use such ingredients? Does the use of said ingredients provide enough of a USP to increase your business and/or profits in the long run because of them? I'm not doubting you, I've just never had your beer, so I can't make a judgment for myself.

 

I think that to answer some of the questions you asked that I risk coming across as cocky, which is not a look I’m fond of on myself, but here is my attempt. As far as making a difference, I think it makes a huge difference, but the more important thing is what the consumers think. Right now we are the highest rated brewery in the state on Untappd (we’ve bounced in and out of the top 50 overall a few times. The only reason I reference that app rather than BA is because we don’t have nearly as many BA users in the area as Untappd) and when retailers get 60 cases of beer every two weeks (3 different beers, 20 cases of each) they are almost always sold out within 24 hours. In one instance, we had a well respected national brewery ask a retailer to do a tap takeover for them. They were told if they could convince us to send 2 kegs to the account to tap during their tap takeover, they would do it because that was the only way they could get enough people in the door to justify a tap takeover. So I think in that sense, it is very obvious that something we are doing makes a pretty big difference.

Taking smaller margins sucks for obvious reasons, but being priced reasonably ($10 a four pack at the brewery and $13 on most retail store shelves) and having the quality of our beer what it is helps us to build a base of loyal customers. Right now, we have a waiting list of retailers that want to sell our beer. If sales slow down unexpectedly with our main retailers now, we can spread out a little bit more. So long term, I think we have a security blanket which is invaluable in the current state of the industry.

Lastly, I couldn’t brew beer for a living, dealing with all the stress and pressure of being in charge of all the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment if I didn’t have immense job satisfaction from seeing my beer making people happy and being well received. I thrive off of the thought that I can always push our beer to another level. I would not be satisfied at all in trying to create a beer simply for profit. I’ve been in that situation before and I’m not going back.

 

I feel insulted if someone figures that I, by virtue of being a die-hard craft beer fan, am nothing more than a fish with a hook in my mouth who can be yanked in any direction they want to yank me. Or if they are assuming that I'd be willing to pay extra $$ for prestige or cachet, over quality and/or quantity.

And as I said elsewhere, I don't mind paying "bar" prices at the taproom... but not at the beverage center.

Ironically, beverage centers (in NYS, anyway), originally started out as 'discount centers'.

 

Who the fuck’s this guy?

No I think you put it well - not cocky

 

Thanks for the well-thought-out response, man. Your dedication to quality is appreciated, even though I can't get your beer where I live.

 

What do I care if a brewery "cut corners"? If the beer is good and cheap, I'm going to buy it plain and simple.

I can get 4 packs of a local brewery's NEIPA for $10 at the distributor. I can assure you that it is a good beer, whether or not quality ingredients were used.