Heady Topper in Boston

Some info here, but it's getting a little long in the tooth.

 

There was more on the way but then The Alchemist suddenly dropped Arborway as their distributor. I would assume (we all know what happens when I assume that they are working on getting another distributor.

 

And just when Arborway seemed to be on such a roll too. I'd say I wonder what happened, and I suppose I am a little curious, but really all I care about it the return of HT.

 

Not to start rumors, but pricing fight maybe? Perhaps the distributors saw bars getting rich on the crazy HT markup and wanted a piece of that for themselves?

 

Seriously? No bars were getting rich on Heady. Give me a break. Its not my place to tell you why they dropped Arborway but I can tell you that it was not about pricing or anything else that would concern anyone except Arborway and Alchemist.

 

You can email the managers of bars nearer to you to find out when they will serving
Heady Topper again. There should be more available in April. British Beer Company will be offering it.

 

You're right. Selling a beer that cost a bar $3 for $11 is perfectly reasonable markup. My mistake.

Some places were more reasonable than others, but to say there were no abusive markups on HT is simply wrong.

Regardless, I was just tossing it out there as an idea. Perhaps if people would actually talk about these things publicly then we wouldn't need to wildly speculate.

 

As I said in the last thread, I'm not going to talk about markups anymore. But one price that is really astonishing is the price of Heady at the brewery. They spare no expense on malt, hops or equipment. Their cooler looks like the Great Wall of Simcoe - not a cheap hop, not to mention the rest of the recipe. They could easily be charging 5 bucks a can without seeing much change in sales... I'm glad they don't for selfish reasons but no one would bat an eyelash if they were selling a beer this good for much more than they do.

 

Who was selling it for $11? Most of the ones I had were $7.50 (Lord Hobo) to $8.50 (Bukowski's). Highest I saw was $10 at Redbones.

 

IIRC the Independent (or neighboring Precinct) as well as British Beer Co charged at least $11

 

Wicked Pizza in Dedham was $11 + tax as well.

 

Yeah, it seemed like the true Tier 1 craft bars that stay on top of BA and saw all the bitching priced reasonably, whereas the semi-craft restaurants and Tier 2 bars were up in that $10-$11 range.

 

Amazing how testy they get when a consumer has a question about price. I don't think I've seen more bellyaching than I did in that thread on the old site about this.

 

I think Divebar was just commenting about bars not making a ton of money on HT (which is true because there simply wasn't enough in distribution to make a lot of money on), not the fact that mark ups were exorbitant.

 

My understanding is that you yourself charged one or two dollars more than the suggested retail price for Heady Topper. I'm not even saying it's wrong that you did that, but still you could dial back the righteous indignation.

 

Suggested retail? What a joke. As if the alchemist has any idea what it costs to run my business. My suggested retail for them at the brewery is $2/can

 

is there a particular BBC you have in mind?

 

What's with all the grousing about prices around here? If this stuff flies out of a bar at $7-11 per can, what's the motivation to go lower? If you want Heady Topper for $3, drag your ass up to Vermont. There's plenty of stuff on bar menus (mostly bottles) that are priced outside of what I'm willing to pay. Just find something reasonable and enjoy it rather than taking to the internet like a scorned lover.