Finding a Happy Medium

Admittedly I don't know how the craft beer scene in Louisiana rocks, but here in Pittsburgh, you'd have to be at least mildly ******ed to be unable to find not only great local craft beer, but great versions of the mid-tier offerings that you mentioned. Not that I'll ever turn up my nose at a PBR or, especially, the Champagne of Beers if I'm out at the bar or at someone's house, but you'll never find me buying them to take home. Too much other, great stuff available at a higher cost to enjoyment ratio.

 

Similar kinds of brews? Haven't look at prices from those recently. Details please.

 

I lean towards high ABV and BA porters and stouts. I will pay extra for a great beer but I had to put down a 12 ounce bottle of Beer for Breakfast last week because it was north of $10 per 12 ounce bottle. I am reading about $20 4 packs being high. Am I the only one seeing $32 - $40 4 packs on the shelf now. Prairie Bomb, Higher Math, and many others are regularly $9.99 per 12 ounce bottle. I guess I am paying way too much already.

 

Picked up a 4-pack of Half Acre Tuna (session IPA/pale ale) at Gordon's in DTX last night for $10.99. Modern Times had IPA 4-packs for $11-12. Revolution 6-packs are usually like $10-12 I think. I realize these are larger breweries than what we have locally (although Lord Hobo might be approaching the same size), but it still impresses me that I can buy these beers at discounts to local stuff.

 

I think for the way the craft market is trending it seems like a wise business strategy for the big craft brewers to create 12/15/24 pack package deals for their high production line of beers (thinking SNPA, Boston Lager, Fat Tire etc). They already have thei beer manufacturing and distribution systems in place to pump out the volume, but most recent reports are showing declines in sales volume of these old standby/decent quality craft beers. So to try best to not cut back production and such, they are moving towards the "best value/bulk sales" approach. Is it working? Not sure but it makes sense to me to try anyway. Or find a less saturated and untapped beer market outside the US to try and maintain the sales volume (see Stone, Flying Dog and others)

As far as the $15-$20+ 4packs I have a few opinions on this.
Of the 4000+ breweries in the US, there are probably around 50+ breweries truly pumping out amazing beers that are a tier well above anything else you can get from the numerous average locals and wider distribution brewers. These are the line standing brewers that are worth it. Yes, there are some falsely hyped "fruad" brewers out there pulling the same stunts to create "release days" and getting their goon squad of friends to create marketing buzz on social media, but BS will only give them success for the short term and beer advocates realize after a few samplings that they are phoney, just average and all hype machine.

So back to the top 50+ brewers, if I were to guess, most of the crowd that is line staying and buying these beers are probably 50% interested in drinking the beers they stand in line to buy and 50% planned to be traded via BA trades, Facebook trade groups etc to obtain other world class beers from those other 50+ brewers or hard to get international brewers like 3F and Cantillon, Westy's etc. Its a small niche group of BAs however.

 

As someone who started drinking beer on mostly imports in the 1970s, I've been waiting for something like this to happen. Craft brewing needs to step back away from expensive to make, extreme styles and learn to produce table beers that are consistent, clear, clean, crisp, and drinkable. And it needs to find a price point that is somewhere between the mass market brews and the mass market imports to sell these everyday beers as.

 

Indeed, I tend to alternate between their 15 packs and what I consider established breweries here in central Ohio like Columbus Brewing Company which make solid beers that cost around $9.99 a 4/6 pack.

 

I feel like the apples to apples comparison for those breweries though are places like Otter Creek, Jack's Abby, Wachusett, Ipswich etc which have similar (largely better) pricing rather than the $15 and up four pack kind of ultra local places though.

Revolution is a great brewery and I look forward to drinking them when I'm in Chicago, but when it comes to buying them here they seem redundant with our regionals and larger locals.

 

Do you not think that there is room for improvement on both ends of the spectrum?

 

You'd be surprised at how long the "hype-machine" and the "drink local movement" can keep fair to middling breweries open and, in many cases, very profitable.

 

Enter Jacks Abby, MA brewers. Mostly lagers. The bigger seasonal brews are $ 10 for a six of 16 ozers. And 12 pack, 12 oz cans that are maybe $ 13,14.00? Notch brewing too.

 

The price creep started when the ABV was much higher, albeit that was the point of the 4 pack.Also certain breweries hyped their brew to the point of a joke, such as KBS. That beer was OK but people were willing to pay big$ to get it. They hyped and and held it back. I OD on KBS,sort of. The only beer I ralphed from in 20 years.

 

Alot of breweries around here get hooked up with smaller distributors and rely on mobile canning for there products (or manually bottle bombers, etc). That seems like a recipe for higher prices. For that reason I'd rather go to the brewery and have growler fill if possible.

Also see some well-known breweries (Alchemist and H Farmstead) doing distribution on a one-time or limited-time basis so they can bump up the price.

That being said there are more choices than ever for craft beer drinkers, and larger breweries like Sierra Nevada are still putting out great product so I can't complain. Not sure if this boom is sustainable but I'll enjoy while it lasts.

 

Exactly.

 

Well, did you drink the whole 4 pack? Inquiring minds would like to know.

 

As a consumer, this entire phenomenon reminds me of paying for high-end audio equipment. When you hit a certain level of quality, the incremental improvement as you proceed upward is dwarfed by the gargantuan leap in price.

 

I agree that a local scene and beercationers/day trippers can continuously fill up a taproom every weekend for several years, but the beer crowd that is really after the best beers in the world, standing in line for 2hrs etc. will quickly wain if a few special releases result in just decent tasting beers and not great beers comparable to the other best ones. Cream rises to the top and BS doesn't stay at the top for long.

 

I would love to see prices kept as reasonable for the consumer as possible.

 

Nice post, smart purchasing strategy

 

Aside from Celebration, Sierra Nevada does not bottle condition their IPAs. From a recent thread: