Vintage Beer Prices

No idea about Old Ruffian, But I can quote some vintage prices from the Davis Beer Shoppe from the other day:

2012 FW Parabola ($23.99) ($16.99 for 2013 elsewhere)
FW XVI ($23.99) ($24 brewery)
Black Butte XXIV ($18.99) ($12.99 for XXV elsewhere)
2011 Port Older Viscosity ($18.99 iirc) ($15 for 2013 elsewhere)

So basically the mark-up is variable, but in the neighborhood of a few dollars. FWIW I tried to pick up the Parabola but they did not have any; iirc this is lower than the FW taproom price for that vintage and it is for on-site consumption only there.

 

2010 is not Vintage, anything from 21st Century is not Vintage.

 

It shouldn't be but some bars will push their luck.

Personally calling a beer 'Vintage' depends on what the beer is style-wise and the brewery a 3/4 year Orval could be considered a vintage as most are drunk fresh whereas lambics tend to need more than 10 years to really be considered vintage and are more often than not hoarded.

Just keeping a beer for a couple of years does not earn the Vintage or higher value tag imo.

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vintage

 

Don't know if I would call it pushing their luck. They buy the beers and store them for years for the patrons to enjoy. Surley it's worth something? If not, no worries; just stick to the fresh beers on tap

Lots of the best bars will offer vintage lists, e.g.:
http://www.hairofthedog.com/vintage.asp
http://www.akkurat.se/?section=cuvee&p=showpage&s=cuvee&pt=beer

 

Here's the bar/restaurant I went to last night.

http://www.rusticorestaurant.com/menus/documents/BtlMenu12-10-12.pdf

Some of the prices are absolutely bonkers, some are a bit more reasonable.
$35 for a 2012 §ucaba isn't too unreasonable... Though $60 for a Bolt Cutter is F-ing stupid. Same with $60 for a Fruet.

Washington DC restaurant/bar prices are typically double the retail price... which is irritating to say the least.

The flip side to that though, is that at least the beers are available? Maybe? I don't know... It's a weak argument for some absurd prices on vintage beers... but this I've comes to terms with it (and typically drink at home)

 

With gueuzes it's perfectly normal to ask more for an old, well-cellared bottle, then a fresh one.

By example, I just got back from the 3 Fonteinen open brewery days.
2013 Gueuze 5.1 euro
2008 Gueuze (Vintage) 12 euro
2005 Gueuze Vintage 19 euro

Seen the fact the brewer has to stock everything, the fact that as the years pass by, you have less bottles from each vintage year, it seems normal to add a little extra to the price. In this case, you get a lot of extra flavour as well

 

While I believe that the correct price for an object is the price that another is willing to pay, $40.00 for a current year White Oak seems crazy.

Very nice well put together menu though.

 

There is no year listed. It might not be this year's. There was no year listed on the §ucaba, and that turned out to be '12.

 

East End Brewing Company has a pretty profound markup on vintages of Gratitude. I know this is a limited beer, but seesh....


http://www.eastendbrewing.com/2013gratitude

 

$45 for Brux? Ambitious.

 

I lol'd at paying 50 dollars for a bottle of Goudenband. I paid 50 bucks for a Fou Foune at Max's in Baltimore.

 

Yes, and what the market will bear.

 

Generally I find that bombers and 750s are marked up more than 12 oz vintage bottles. Which does make sense I suppose. We have to remember that these are businesses which need to follow accounting rules and the inventory/carry charge on these big bottles can add up, especially at a place with a large cellar stock.

 

I as a customer I would love that markup

 

Craft beer isn't established in the same way that wine is... so (to my knowledge) there is no price guide for vintages of beer. You're going to have to do your best guesstimate of the cost per bottle, desirability, scarcity, and the cost to maintain the bottle in a controlled environment over a period of time.

Let's say your establishment buys a case of bottles of Beer X for for $54, (so $4.50 / bottle). When the beer is new, you mark the bottles up $2.25 (let's say for example) to $6.75 to make a profit. Over the course of a year, you have to pay to keep the room the beer is stored in at a constant temperature. You also have to factor the cost of not having that room be used for something else. By the time you work out everything (let's say for example) it comes out to another $3 to keep that bottle in a state where it won't spoil. That's now $9.75. Well, it turns out that everyone and their mother *really* wants Beer X. You now have to decide if you want to raise the price a little bit more so that the beer is still obtainable for the beer geeks who will want to buy it, but not so low that it sells out and you've defeated the purpose of having this cellar. Also, you will have to decide if your plan is to sell it right then and there, or if it's part of a larger plan to buy beer to keep so you have multiple vintages - so you'll have to factor in another year of keeping the beer on hand.

You'll also need to figure out what the peak age is for the beer, so you know how long you want to keep it in on hand before getting rid of it, because you don't want the quality to fall off.

Ideally though, you want to sell the beer when it's near or at peak desirability and before it costs too much to keep it on hand. Unless it's barleywines, you're probably going to want to unload all of your stock of something at a max of two years.

There is probably some software out there for keeping track of this, if not just using Excel or Access.

It's tricky. You're going to have to walk a line of *not* running a beer museum, but also having enough vintage product on hand to satisfy your potential craft beer audience.

From a consumer's perspective, that $5 number is fairly decent, but it should be based in reality.

You'll also need to figure out how much more traffic you're driving based on your craft beer cellar, and then adjust the prices again.

 

In general, bars badly overcharge for previous years' beers, and to me, the "cost of space" argument is a non-starter. I have yet to go to a bar that has an extensive enough selection of cellared beers for me to believe that they are dropping coin on space and climate control for cellaring those beers, beyond whatever storage capacity their establishment has for beer. Don't get me wrong, I know these places exist, but they are very few and far between, and I'm very skeptical that there are bar owners taking up storage space that is otherwise needed for the odd case of older stuff that is just sitting around. What is more likely is that the older stuff is sitting around because the owner is cellaring a stash for himself and wants to sell some of his stash to offset the cost of buying the beer.

 

I went to a bar in Philly last weekend. The bartender says that he literally goes through a pallet of PBR every week.

A pallet.

And he was sold out, when I talked to him.

If I were a bar manager, moving at least a pallet of beer every week on top of what I typically sell, there is a cost associated with taking up the space with craft beer that you're not immediately selling vs. what you would be selling if that floor space were open for another pallet of beer that you would be selling.

You do also realistically have to factor in your overhead when you're keeping something for any length of time.