Trade-Off $ for Quality

I would vote mostly for a combo of 1 and 3. Although for 2 I guess it depends on what your definition of "ok beer" is, sometimes something cheap, easy drinking, and non thought provoking is just the ticket!

 

Agreed !!!!!!

 

Cut spending somewhere else and buy the beer you want.

 

$8.49 a 6'r. $15.99 per 12. Often on sale for $14.99 and on rare occasion $13.99 (or as we call it Stock up time).

Always have SN of one type or another in as backup.... as the cheaper alternative.... for the BMC drinker who stopped in.

Either way I don't consider it a trade off but SN usually is a less expensive alternative.

 

Outside of ridiculous sours/lambics and some barrel aged stuff, beer is still one of the most inexpensive luxury items on the planet. Even the most sought after IPAs first price are a bargain.

Even 2$ a bottle for great beer is a steal to me.

 

Numero uno for me 95% of the time. A lot of the "non-craft" beers fall under the great category for me as well as the lower priced "craft" options.

 

Lucky for me I don't mind a cold Miller Lite, takes care of the cheap, and then I mix in what I really want to drink regardless of the price.

 

I can find SN or Deschutes for 7 bucks a six pack and I can live with those beers for a long time.

 

I'm kind of cash poor (though rich in sentiment) so I don't sample the really high-end stuff or pursue the hard-to-get brews, but good beer remains one of the few areas in which I spend way more than I'd think was reasonable if I were rational or a robot. You like what you like and you'll figure out how to accommodate it to the scale of your life.

 

#3. Switch the word less with more. ;-)

 

Growler fills can be a good thing if you go to the right places and you do the math. Most of my fills are from Whole Foods which tends to have a pretty good selection. I only get growlers on things I can't get cheaper in a bottle. Hop Stoopid runs about $4.30 a bottle here and they had the growlers for $11, so 3 x 4.30 = $13, so it was a no brainer, saved $2 (FN Yeah). Best deals are on things like Yellow Rose where they run it for like $13 and I believe the 26 oz bottle runs $8+, so always do the math. Of course most of my fills are from local breweries that are either not canning/bottling yet or their one off's that just can't be gotten in a different format.

 

That's how I look at it too .. But I really fear some of the key craft beer distributors like Sierra Nevada And Linganitas are starting see how much they can charge for their beers and not about just providing great beer at a fair price . ,Middle man is getting greedy..

 

Home-brewing is not nearly as inexpensive as it used to be.

 

It's still cheaper than anything you can buy in a store. At least it is for me. So that still makes it a valid option for inexpensive beer drinking (for me)

 

Almost anything Lagunitas is a perfect balance of quality/quantity. I bought a 6er of Brown Shugga for $8.99 at a Target.

 

All of the above.

For #1, I have go-to brews I drink that are not expensive (SN, Lagunitas). These are easy choices when I look to lower my total dollars spent. I just shift more of my purchasing to lower cost options in my list of great brews.

For #2, there are plenty of decent local beers that are not top tier but are cheap, fresh, and drinkable. I might not opt for them if they cost more, but as a balance of cost and quality, they fit the bill. Note that this does not mean I drink something I don't fully enjoy. Rather, it is the difference between buying a Reese's cup and Godiva. I love both, but Reese's is never going to be mistaken for high quality. And Godiva will never be the budget option.

For #3, the key here is buying one bottle when you want 3, or skipping a bottle you liked a lot last year, but you don't need. I often elect to get some, but not all, of the beer I want to stock because I have limited space, but it works just as well if you have limited money.

 

3 pretty much all the way with the occasional 2

 

While this is fun and rewarding, it’s not a great way to drink good beer on the cheap. Ounce vs. ounce of final product, the ingredients themselves usually cost more than a SN 6-pack, not to mention the time it takes to brew a batch or the # of tries it takes most people to get good at brewing something awesome.

 

I actually did, and that’s one of my favorite things about craft beer...you could easily get good stuff for cheap.

When I was a poor student, when going out the only type of booze I could justify spending money on was $2-$3 happy hour pints of beer. $5 for a drink would have been too much no matter how good it was. Most of the stuff that was offered at most happy hours was BMC. But after awhile I realized that some of these $3 pints actually tasted very good; ones that come to mind were Speakeasy Payback Porter, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Lagunitas IPA, Alaskan Amber, Devil’s Canyon Full Boar Scotch Ale -- these were my “gateway craft beers” (and I remember being distraught when the bar took Payback Porter off tap, LOL. I sought some of these out at the grocery store and was thrilled to find out that this stuff was so affordable that I could treat myself to a six-pack or two per month. Hence, my love for craft beer began.

Fast forward to now: I’m working and can justify spending money on regular drinks now. But, just because I can doesn’t mean I always do. I splurge on bad value bombers and growlers on occasion, but there are still plenty of tasty and very cost-effective six-packs (SN, Alaskan, Deschutes). But unfortunately, it’s not so easy to find a good deal at bars anymore. The days of the $3 happy hour for craft beer are coming to an end. More people have caught on. It’s hard to find a place that even sells good $5 pints anymore (at least around here.) Some of the same beers that I used to have no trouble finding $3 for a pint are now like $7 for a snifter.

 

Those are great prices on fills! Unfortunately these "right places" don't seem to exist in CA. We don't have growler stations (only breweries can fill), and breweries have enough people willing to pay $20+ for fills that they can get away with charging that much.