Ridiculous Prices...

Maybe @Jeffo would provide a 'baseline' here?

Jeffo, what would be the typical price for a 6-pack of St. Bernardus in Belgium?

Cheers!

 

That is an incredible markup. It was $10 at Pizza Boy. It's a great dry hopped sour but nowhere near $32 good.

 

First sentence is maybe a little broad. There's plenty of good beer bars in NYC that are (relatively) reasonable with their pricing, and not out to screw anyone.

As to the specific example - agreed - but it's f**king Torst. That place is out of control with their pricing. I.e. right now they're charging $11 for a 5oz pour of this:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/23251/73244/

Place is ridiculous.

 

You have to rememebr thouhgh that in this case making a sour beer like that they offten has the same time commitment of makeing wine. The beer has to be brewed, soured, put into barrels, may have expensive additives like fruit. I have always looked at high end sours and ba beers like I look at expensive wine. It is for a special occasion so I dont mind spending a little more on it. I would also hazard a guess that the land in napa is owned and has been for some time by the same families so other than taxes and the cost of harvest I dont buy the land cost.

 

As someone who worked in a "craft beer" bar and currently works in a market I can tell you bar prices are ABSURD. The profit margin on tap beer is well over double the cost. In the grocery store however, the standard markup is 33% for craft beer. Liquor stores, particularly big ones operate around 22% margin on craft beer. Meanwhile "fizz" beers are marked at considerably lower margins, because people shop those based on price. The thing you have to watch out for though is the fact that not every store purchases the beers at the same price. Big stores get big discounts because they can buy bigger. For instance when you buy 65 cases of dogfish head the price drops like $6 a case.

Don't get me wrong, some stores are trying to take advantage of you, but if it's a small store understand they could just be too small to buy into those high quantities and have to charge more to make their 33%.

 

My retailer around the corner from me says "The markup on beer at the retail level is miniscule compared to wine and liquor." She said she'd "assume not have the beer at all because it's nearly a break even deal, but it helps get people in the door." She loves beer, so I have no reason not to believe her. Maybe she just doesn't get a very good deal from distributors because of lower volume? She probably gets more business than the other stores in town. Anyone know about retail markup on beer?

 

Wine is definitely at higher margin, but liquor is kinda a totally different beast. If you aren't buying high volumes of that it can get expensive as well.

 

Paid $19 for one 12 oz bottle of Russian River Supplication in Philly last year. And didn't even like it.

 

Here in Mexico we have a very violent tax policy for craft beer that inflate retail prices. Tax is 26.5% + 16% of the final cost. So a nice 12 oz imported is around 10 to 15 dollars and a bomber goes up to 22-25 dollars or more. That´s for the single bottle.

 

Miller Light 6 pack is around $8. $1.33 a bottle buying on your own. at a bar its $5. or a 3.75x mark up. (or even 3x on a $4 bottle)
Speedway bomber is around $12. at that bar $33. or a 2.75x mark up.
You've also got to consider ABV and amount you get.
A bottle of miller light for example at $5 is 12oz. If you were to get 22oz (a bombers worth) at a bar you would be paying over $9 the same amount of liquid. Now the ABV is 3x less (roughly) than the Speedway so lets compensate for that.. you would be at $27 to get as much alcohol as the Speedway.

So for the same amount of alcohol you could drink $27 of miller light or your choice of bottom shelf beers, and feel full and gross or $33 for a Speedway craft stout.

Something to think about.

 

Let’s consider the case of @PorterPro125 paying 25 bucks for a 6-pack of St. Bernardus. Does that mean your market would have paid $18.80 for that 6-pack?

Cheers!

 

Comparing prices between NYC and suburban Harrisburg?? Seems like a reasonable mark-up.

 

I wasn't really thinking about that when fuming over the price, the place I usually shop is a small "Mom & Pop" store. They don't have have a huge quantity but it's a healthy one, with nice variety and most are mid shelf stuff and up, including imports. They also make a surprisingly good effort to protect the beer they have sitting out, store temp, lighting etc.

I just can't find anything like that without making an arduous trek upstate, there may be other stores nearby but they must be secret undergrounds.

 

So NYC is 3.5x the price of suburban Harrisburg? BCBS was $28 a bottle? Sixers of Sculpin $57? I get that NYC is more expensive but there no way a $10 bomber should be 3.5x the price.

 

Firstly, there's a difference between bars and mom and pop shops and large grocery stores. The grocery stores are operating a margin business; they move a lot of product and get minimal compensation per unit. The mom and pop shops are moving much less product, so they need to make more per unit. Bars need to charge a lot more because they have more overhead costs, such as security, licenses, etc. I guess you're also paying for the bar experience and ambience. Meanwhile, a place like Beer Table To Go in Grand Central Terminal (a place I love, btw, but I almost exclusively get growler/pint fills) charges bar prices even though they're a bottle shop. I get that the rent at the terminal is colossal, but still. When ADwTD was available a few weeks ago, if you could find it at a store it went for about $33. Beer Table was, and still is charging $68. Beer Table, turning walez into shelf turds since 20xx. Oh, and in case anyone was curious, as of yesterday they were selling bottles of PnB for $45.

Ginger Man is the best. Everything on tap is available for flights (unlike at Rattle 'n Hum), and besides for the rare exception, they have bottles to go for good prices. For instance, Allagash Nancy went for about $16-$18 at bottle shops, but it was $15 at Ginger Man. Ditto for Avery Tweak. Ginger Man had them for $15 and a 15% discount for taking to go. $12.75 for Tweak was a terrific deal.

 

hahaha Too ur-lay

 

Ive see it go for as high as $12.00 but I can't justify that for something that is fairly easy to come by even at 18% ABV.

 

Shhhhhhh

 

Ever try to park in NYC? Pretty sure it's free in Enola....