Night Shift Brewing

8 bucks for a 12 ounce draft I think.

 

Side question here - any recs on where to park for the Owl's Nest? Ideally I'd take the T and combine a visit with some quality time along the Charles, but I was in the neighborhood recently in my car and realized I didn't have a clue how or whether parking was a feasible option so we went to the Hawthorne for cocktails instead.

 

Seems like an excessive charge for Heady then IMHO. I can certainly see charging a premium for it but to me $4 over your normal beer cost seems high. Especially given that the smoke shop was charging around $8-9. Granted if people bought it then I guess its priced at market value.

 

But Heady and Focal are in 16 oz. cans...

 

Trying to determine if there is sarcasm in that post or not...

 

On a strictly price-per-ounce basis, they would be $10.66. Seems fine to me, and I would have paid it. Last time I saw Alchemist outside of Vermont was at City Tap in Philadelphia, where Crusher cans were $14 or $15 each.

 

Hey all - Just a quick note on Alchemist beer. We are bringing them via our distro branch for a few spots. The price of cans for our Owl's nest was supposed to be $10 for 16oz cans. It was correct at our Herter Park location this past week but mis-typed for our Esplande one. Our mistake and fixed for future drops. Not related but it is the same price as SmokeShop $10 per 16oz can.

 

I was just pointing out it wasn't $4 more because the drafts are 12 oz, and the cans are 16 oz.

So it would scale up to ~$10.66 as @Justin42 mentioned below.

And it looks like it was in fact supposed to be $10 per can.

 

Thanks @robNSB, this was the first time I've ever purchased a Heady Topper legally in Boston. Really Awesome that Alchemist is working with you guys to bring some of their beer into the state through non-pirate means. The new spot was real nice too. Any chance they'll also hit retail anywhere? Between that and the pot shop in Brookline I might actually be a complete law abiding citizen soon.

 

That's really up to the the team at Alchemist. Cans are popping up at one other spot for on-premise consumption - that's the only accounts in MA. We would love to spread them around to more spots if/when they are ready to do so. We have been big fans of Alchemist for years so getting to work a tiny bit with them is super exciting for us!

FYI - Owl's Nest is currently sold out of Focal and Heady but more to come in the near future. Plenty of other Night Shift and fellow distro brewery partners that are kick ass too! Hopefully the weather is nice this week!

Cheers,
Rob

 

So we should expect your Pilsners to be priced much less than the hoppy beers going forward?

 

I’ve seen people pay the same for a Boom Sauce can and somehow not complain.

 

Some of the time Pilsners will be cheaper than hoppy beers. Raw ingredient materials only makes up a portion of the costs to produce beer. The majority of the costs is fixed - labor, utilities, insurance, tax, rent, etc. Thus they are closer in pricing than what might initial seem to make sense.

 

So why do many breweries (not yours, as I don't recall your pricing) have say a DDH New England IPA at $20-22 per 4 pack, and then a Pilsner at $13 per 4 pack.

For example, here's Trillium's pricing.

DDH Sleeper Street at 7.2% ABV (a DDH IPA at 7.2% ABV): $20/4 pack

Motueka Dry Hopped Fort Point at 6.6% ABV (a dry hopped NE pale ale at 5.0% ABV: $15.20/4 pack

Itty Bitty Goose (a NE pale ale at 5.0% ABV): $13.20/4 pack

Pilsner (a Pilsner at 4.7% ABV): $10.20/4 pack


At least in their case it certainly seems like ingredients can swing the price quite a bit. From $10 - 20 in this case.

Where the ABV, and also the amount of hops used, can greatly influence the price.

And then at the ultra high end if we're talking pastry stouts, with likely the most expensive process/ingredients (I'm assuming) and the highest ABV you have this price...

Coconut PM Dawn (a pastry stout brewed with coconut and cold brewed coffee at 9% ABV): $22.20/4 pack

 

Breweries charge what they think people will pay. I am guessing that the pilsner is close to the same cost of an IPA to most brewers due to the fact that it is tying up a tank longer, requires higher yeast pitch rates, also requires substantially more energy to keep cool for longer periods of time. Not to mention the fact that a high percentage of cost is fixed.no matter what the type of beer is. I do not work for a brewery, just homebrew and have thought about this topic.

 

Our thought process on pricing can be quirky. Hence the traditional $9.99 type pricing that occurs in retail. Its the same thing with playing with the number of ounces. An $8 12 oz beer seems ok but a $10 (or $10.66) 16 oz "normal" beer seems high. Likewise I don't feel a $10 Heady Topper can is excessive yet I feel a $12 Heady Topper can is.

The average person isn't going to break down the cost per ounce, they'll think its $1 per oz more for the $12 16 oz can. In fact at $10 for the Heady its a better deal since its 62.5 cents per oz vs the ~67 per oz for NS on draft.

Now truth be told $12 for a can of Heady outside of Vermont is pretty typical. Granted in most of the bars I've seen it at they are pouring $7-8 16 oz drafts for craft beer. Oddly enough if I wasn't from this area I'd be willing to pay $12 for a can of Heady. So all of this is to basically say that pricing discussions are never a simple thing and are never based on logic and reason. I think most people have a very complex set of logic in their brains that produces highly inconsistent and highly variable numbers for what is and what isn't a reasonable price.

 

I haven't home brewed in years, but strictly speaking about ingredients, how much would a Galaxy DDH New England IPA at 8% ABV cost as opposed to a German Pils at ~5% ABV?

The amount of hops in the IPA, and especially if they're more expensive new age hops, can really drive the price up. Higher yeast pitch rates probably pale in comparison. And sure, lagers tie up more tank time and require more energy, but I still doubt it equates to the cost of pounds and pounds of expensive hops.

The fact is, most breweries New England IPAs cost more than Pilsners. Whether that's due to ingredient cost or just a conscience decision based on what the market will bear.

I bought Fluffliest which was a $22/4 pack. I don't recall the exact price of Whirlpool or Pfaffenheck, but I imagine Fluffiest might be roughly double the price of either of them.

You're talking the wrong guy.

I have very simple logic. If I want it, I buy it.

 

I brew 10 gallon batches. Ingredient cost increases by 30% but ingredient cost is a small portion of the cost for a brewer. It costs me about. $.55 in ingredients for a 12 oz low abv low hoped beer. $.80 for a bigger iPa. I am guessing the difference in cost is smaller for the breweries because the buy in bulk. However let's say it is not and their ingredients are double. That is a difference of $.50. That is also forgetting the other higher costs associated with lagers. Yeast cost is probably more then most of us realize. However the cans are usually $1 or $2 more....

Also keep in mind for most breweries space is a key aspect. Space is money. Loggers require space for long periods of time. That cannot be underestimated. I am guessing the profit margin on hoppy beers is higher than most others

 

iirc the Night Shift beers were mostly $8. I don't know if those were 12 or 14 or 16 ounces.

it's not a straighforward comparison though. selling their own beers vs buying/selling someone elses. every beer they sell from the Alchemist is a beer of their own they don't sell. so presumably they want to keep their margins for both pretty close.

 

While true, many of these breweries are brewing multiple IPAs, and then you're lucky to see one or two lagers (this depends on the brewery obviously).

So most of their capacity would still be geared towards IPAs.

And as I said, neither of us own a brewery, and we can guess all day long. The bottom line is, New England IPAs cost far more than lagers at many breweries.