The Bruery pricing

If I'm choosing between the Bruery beers you mentioned (White Oak, Mischief, Sour in the Rye) and any Cantillon, I'm going Cantillon...Sour in the Rye is good, but not $30 good and not Cantillon good.

 

Its fine with me if you don't want to give their actually good stuff a chance, but its not fair to say they are garbage if you haven't chief.

 

If they were truly overcharging, the beer wouldn't sell. The beer sells. Plenty of people like their beer and pay the price to drink it. If their $20 beers cost $10-$15, I doubt I would buy them more often. I buy maybe 3-5 bottles from them a year. If their $20 beers cost $40, I'd probably try them once and never again. Sure, I wish they cost less, but I could say that about every beer.

 

Sour in the Rye is $20 here. Californians get hosed because there are a ton of people there who are very wealthy and don't think twice about dropping $30 on a beer.

Cantillon is great, but too difficult to buy.

 

Cantillon is underpriced.

 

I don't buy their beer because it is criminally overpriced.

it's a crime.

I'm callin' the cops.

 

I am a RS member and am willing to drop $30 on plenty of beers, including a number of Bruery beers besides the ones mentioned. Not entirely clear on what your post means.

 

People want to make The Bruery out to be bad guys, I just payed 50 Doll hairs for a Cantillon brew... it was delicious, but if you tight asses are complaining about The Bruery, have at it. yes I do live in Hawaii, I digress, don't be hypocrites.

 

It's pretty simple. When one brewery's beers are priced significantly higher than other beers with similar ingredients and the same style, that is overpriced. I have a difficult time believing that Cantillon and Westmalle and the like use lower quality ingredients or bottles than the Bruery even though they're priced similarly after being shipped halfway across the world (and are significantly cheaper in their native country).

They're welcome to price their beers however they want. Obviously some people are willing to pay the premiums. It is very obviously a premium, though, and more related to the name on the label than the contents of the bottle.

 

Westmalle Tripel $13.99
Bruery Tradewinds Tripel $8.99

Bruery Sours ~$20 in stores
Cantillon Sours (not available to actually purchase), ~$20-35 if they were actually available.

So actually Bruery is cheaper than the examples you just attempted to use.

 

I agree
I bought a $20 bottle of Sour in the Rye not too long ago and I cant say it was any better than a $10 bottle of Duchesse De Bourgogne or Rodenbach Grand Cru (and those required importation). I have not had any of their other ales but I cant see why I would want to drop $30-40 when the shelves are lined up with world class sours, stouts, etc that cost less than $20 for a 750
But I always figured people in Orange County had money to give

 

The only thing I've had from them is Tart of Darkness for around $20. It was worth it once, not sure if I'd buy it again though.

 

It has nothing to do with quantity. I don't drink a whole lot either. It's about comparative quality vs. a non-comparative price. Why would I bother with one of the (admittedly tasty) Bruery sours when I can have a legit Belgian sour like Goudenband at half the price? Not that I can get it, but Rodenbach GC goes for half the price of the Bruery's sours as well. I would honestly like to know the Bruery's justification for why they sell Oude Tart for twice the price of one of the most well renowned (true Belgian) sours on the planet other than "because people will pay it." I'm never gonna dump my entire beer budget for the week into one bottle. It just won't happen.

 

Respectfully, I'm sure that the steel, plastic, carbon fiber etc. etc. in a Volkswagen is no more expensive than that used in a Mercedes. I'm just not seeing a rationale basis. You don't like the beer or you just don't want to spend the money. That's it. It's not worth it to you. And that's fine. But, it's relative to YOUR subjective evaluation.

I can promise you that we could find a person living in any number of places in the world who if you presented them with a 1.99 bottle of Coor Light (or whatever it costs - I have no idea) he would say that no way on earth would he pay such a high price when he can take natural yeasts from the air and ferment the water and mashed grain that he grew for nothing! It's all relative.

By the way, I respect your feelings! Don't get me wrong. There are lots of things that I think are "overpriced" but I'm perfectly willing to say that these things are "overpriced" for me because I won't or can't spend the money asked! I don't make my feelings of "overpriced" a general statement that's applicable to the item across the board.

The newly disclosed LaFerrari which has a price tag of over $875,000 I believe is waaaayyy overpriced.....for me. For at least 200 people, if not more, it's a deal. (They're sold out!)

I hope I made my point. I believe that you made yours. I think we can now agree we disagree. By the way, let me know if you want to try any Bruery beers. I have lots and if you pay for shipping, I'll send you some for free. I mean it. Respectfully, it's not overpriced for me but I absolutely understand and appreciate it is for others. (Just like the 1978 Giacosa Reserva that I love at about $1,500 a bottle IS OVERPRICED FOR ME. I can't/won't spend that much. That doesn't mean that it's overderpriced for likely hundreds (if not thousands) of people.

I guess I'm beating a dead horse at this point. Sorry.

 

The Bruery is a small craft brewery in Orange County, California aging Oude Tart in oak barrels for about 18 months. Their fixed cost is going to be much higher than a large brewery aging a similar beer in oak vats and then selling a product that is blended with young ale.

 

I don't mind paying $ for quality beer, particularly for ones that are creative and/or barrel-aged. It does pain me when many pricey Bruery beers are offered all at once like this month's RS offerings. One must make tough decisions.

 

Maybe in CA, but I've never seen Trade Winds cheaper than $11-13 east of the Mississippi, which is as much or more than Westmalle and Tripel Karmeliet which run 12 at most. And Cantillon was $20 at most when the supply was higher, which is a little cheaper than the Bruery sours that show up. There are still Belgian lambics, gueuzes, and Flanders that are significantly cheaper without Cantillon.

 

You could also add BT at $30 for 750 ml versus Eclipse at $30 for 22 oz or Mother of all Storms which I've seen at $35-40. We could go on and on. I wish they were cheaper so I could buy more, but these aren't exactly overpriced above market value.

 

This raises an interesting point. Maybe the pricepoint difference you see has a lot more to do with distributors and retailers than the brewery? A price difference of a few dollars may be a big deal to you, but to most of the marketplace it doesn't appear to matter much.

 

Call me crazy, but isn't $11-13 versus $12 basically the same thing?