Official Weldwerks Thread

For me, it's just not telling the whole truth in their reasoning. Which I'll start with this -- WeldWerks doesn't need to explain at all, it's just they attempted to. For the first release it was about extending the pick-up window 'for the locals' only when the reasoning didn't line up they backtracked and said it was to allow more people to enjoy it and that there would be 'other' releases for the locals. With this release it's the assumption that we should believe a 2x increase in cost (+$20, not including $10 donation) due to incredibly expensive vanilla beans. Which based on my search, means $500/lb of vanilla x 3lbs = $1500 for the batch, and assuming a low 300 bottle yield would STILL only equate to $5 total per bottle (*note even cheap vanilla would only be $3 per bottle). Lastly, another local brewery released a very similar beer (similar ABV%, BA Stout w/ cacao and madagascar vanilla beans, aged 17 months) and they sold it for $26 vs. $45 (based on oz/oz, no additional donations equivalent).

And I mentioned it before, I still would buy all WeldWerks beer and really wouldn't care if they just said $55 per bottle, Vanilla Medianoche, a portion of the proceeds goes to ____. Then let the beer stand on it's own, and the market decide if it sells.

Just call it what it is and don't try to pretend some Asian civet cat defecated some gourmet vanilla bean you had to import through Antarctica, or that your Bourbon barrels came from 60-year old bourbon aged in Harry Truman's cellar when he was president. This is all I'm going to say about this, they brew great beer, and I hope they just ignore the hoopla and focus on doing it right.

FWIW, it's about time breweries capitalized on their well-known, award-winning beers instead of selling them for minimal profit and letting the beer black market reap in the $hundreds per bottle. Hopefully the increased price also reduces the quantity the beer hoarders keep from the general public.

 

I'm not sure your math is right. I believe they said 3lbs of vanilla beans per barrel. We don't know how many barrels there are. But we do know there are between 300 and 500 bottles. A barrel is 31 gallons, bottles are 22 oz. So one barrel is good for ~180 bottles. But that's at 100% yield and assuming no loss- which is not accurate (you lose beer continuously, through evaporation, the longer you age it). So perhaps ~150 bottles. So it could be 3 barrels, which would be 9 lbs of vanilla. I'm not sure we can know for sure what the cost of the vanilla is.

ETA: I apologize if I got some of the numbers wrong, going by memory on a few of these things.

 

Fair assessment. At 9lbs of vanilla that's still in the $11-$15 per bottle range total. Still I'll go back to Vanilla Medianoche cost $22.50 equivalent last year, and even assuming that was half the vanilla or prices were less, I imagine the increase in cost this year was still in the $5-10 range making it a ~$30 beer not a $45. Then again, maybe they aged 5 barrels and lost 2 due to infection and are trying to recoup the cost... who knows, but I just don't see how you add $22.50 (+100%) to a beer, even if it's aged 5 months longer. Just playing devil's advocate.

 

Again, It's impossible to determine the cost based on last year's batch. It's entirely possible that the vanilla rate (3lbs/barrel) is higher than last year. Why? Because they believed it would make a better tasting beer.
Cost of vanilla:
2014: $54/lb
2015: $113/ lb
2016: $193 / lb
2017: ???
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vanilla-bean-shortage-madagascar-drives-up-us-prices/

Also this years Nilla Noche may have spent more time in barrels.

 

Here's the background on my math, maybe I did it wrong, but took all worst-case #'s into account:

I literally was only calculating cost of vanilla based on current figures. This is the best method as it takes into account it's at it's highest price. It's also easiest to compare considering Cerebral released a similar yield of 450 bottles at 17-months and they too used significant adjuncts. My numbers were based on current advertised prices for Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Beans, Grade A, and the range was $350 to $500. At the upper end of $500 per lb (which is what I would define as insane) you're looking at $4500 of vanilla for the batch. Then taking low end of yield at 300 bottles (again assuming worse case) you'd get at most $15 per bottle. This is assuming 100% cost of vanilla. So a beer without any vanilla would be $15 less. Clearly last year's batch had vanilla in it, so assuming a low ball of $4 of vanilla per bottle, it's with relative confidence you can say worse case increase would be in the $7-$11 range. The extra 5-months in barrels would need to end up costing $11.50 per bottle in overhead to store it, which wouldn't work since at the same rate, the overhead would be $39 per bottle in overhead for 17-months.

 

We are caught in a tunnel, trying to solve purely for vanilla.

 

The beer is top shelf without vanilla

 

Made mistake of cycle double barrel vanilla rare dos and was to much vanilla for me but I’m sure Neal is dialed it in.. Enjoy !

 

Because the rest is negligible.

 

What's he point of "solving" anything anyway? So what if someone is able to prove WW isn't being fully transparent (and I'm not suggesting that's the case)? Do you win a free beer from WW? Maybe they apologize to you? Come on. The beer was priced at $55... if that's not something you can afford or as seems to be the case in here, believe is excessive and don't want to pay, so be it. I'd prefer the breweries receive the money over the folks that sell on the secondary market (admittedly I've purchased a few bottles on the secondary market so I'm part of that problem).

 

It doesn't matter. Just bored at work and I'm on a beer forum where we talk about stuff. Some might think it's about integrity, but you know what... they've been super upfront about everything else, and I know Neil's a good guy. But it doesn't hurt anyone to try to figure out where your hard earned money is going.

I would do the same exact thing if the iPhone X doubled in price from the previous model and it had the same hardware but camera sensor price went up since last year.

 

I thought the hype around Weldwerks Medianoches was entertaining until I saw that people are trading 3F Zenne for it. Now I wish I had some Weldwerks so I could trade it.

Two years ago it was Casey and five years ago it was Crooked Stave.

The best one since the last one until the next one.

 

So who all is excited for the Vanilla release? I didn't luck out in the lottery but hoping to find a reasonable trade for one. The vanilla rye barrel was awesome and the first bottle of Medianoche 17 month was equally good. Having been one of the unlucky ones with BAMA, I've got to say WW has redeemed itself in my book. Fortunately for me, I've got a number of future work trips to SW NE (via Denver) so I'll be swinging by each trip.

 

Reasonable Trade?



Lol.

 

So I should expect an unreasonable/ unfair trade instead? That's what's wrong with half the traders out here. Reasonable is going to vary for every beer. In this case reasonable does NOT mean regular Abraxas 1:1 for Vanilla Medianoche.... but I wouldn't give up a Handjee either.

 

I think it's gonna be pretty damn costly from a trade perspective (I put up a Maman '17 for one and got crickets). And honestly, it should be pretty costly. $55 cost from the brewery, 4.8+ ratings on Untappd for other '17 Medianoche bottles (Reg and reserve), and only 400 bottles produced.

 

I would add that Limit 1 should make the trading market extremely thin. Not trading mine, for damn sure. Wish I could share the bottle with more Greeley natives, but my beer brethren would kill me for cracking it without them.

 

Yep. Fully understand all of that. Again, reasonable will vary bottle to bottle. Reasonable doesn't mean "not giving up a lot".

 

It'll take a big offer to pull in a nilla noche but i wonder how many people will be willing to do it. My guess is most people will just decide it's not worth the cost of admission and move on to other beers.

 

I'd think handjee would be the start of the convo....


It is also perfect for how silly beer trading is. Wanna trade my bourbon vanilla stout for yours?