How do breweries that know they have a highly sought after beer (e.g. Darkness, Abyss, Hunahpu, Dark Lord) decide how much of their whale to make each year? Is the decision more formal or more gut-feeling? I was thinking about this after talking to a buddy of mine who does marketing for Coke. Coke (obviously, I guess) has a plan, complete with marketing campaign, for every age, race, religion to buy coke products from cradle to grave. They have armies of consultants and accountants giving them information about exactly how much to market, and to who. Do those kind of numbers exists for breweries? Or any but the largest breweries? Breweries always say that they make the most money off their flagship, but that seems like a circular argument since that's what they make the most of. Is the main problem quality control? Or difficulties securing hard to find items (particular ingredients, proper whisky barrels, etc.)? If I just need to be an economics textbook, let me know. All other thoughts appreciated.
From what i understand, all these sought after beer require lots of time and ingredients to make. All craft breweries are limited on space and need to keep pumping out beer all year around. Conversely flagships generally require less time and money to make, therefore have a higher turnaround and spend less time in fermentation... Most breweries also have multiple one-time-a-year releases... so once a year is probably the best they can do. I'm sure they also want to keep a "mystique" around the beer. I could be wrong but that is my take on it
It depends on the brewery. I honestly think some brewer's/breweries live for the hype and release beer in small batches for no other reason than to build up hype for there product brand. I also think that some breweries could care less about the hype or openly hate it. The have to do special releases cause of various factors that can limit production. It's basically a different way to market your brand. You can be a carnival barker or you can let the product speak for itself.
There is a heck of a lot of truth in this statement. Let's take FFF for example. It takes a LOT less time to produce a batch of Gumballhead than it does Dark Lord. You could almost make 2 or 3 batches of Gumballhead in the time it takes to make one batch of Dark Lord. If something goes wrong with your Dark Lord, then you have to either start again, or take up MORE space cutting down your other flagships even further. There is a lot more risk involved with these special releases than with an easy flagship beer.
Not as much of a circular argument as you would think. Most flagship beers are smaller than their limited counterparts and take a significantly less time to produce. A bigger beer requires a greater time commitment, meaning you are limiting your turnover time. Even if you increase your profit margin on these bigger beers with greater time commitments a brewery is still better off brewing beers they can turnover more quickly. The size of a limited beer run is almost always based on time and resources available.
Don't ask me dude, I missed Black Tuesday by a minute!! I am as lucky with landing Whales as a Lord of the Rings fan is with picking up chicks!! I can't even find a single damn bottle of Narwhal in California!!
Part of the appeal of special releases is the special part which means low quantity. Used bourbon barrels are far more expensive than new barrels and unless you are buying ridiculous bulk there aren't much cost breaks with increasing supply. Additionally it ties up capacity and space for more margin rich products. Special releases are a great selling tool for accounts that carry day to day products and for building brand equity. BCBS is a phenomenal beer but I imagine hype will die down if they were to triple distribution over 2012. This year's batch while much bigger than pasts has been much easier to find and in turn traded for less. Sure we all love it the same and agree the quality is still there but deep down some might say the people has diminished a few basis points.
I would much rather have copious amounts of BCBS available than less. Last time I checked it’s for drinking, and the more who can enjoy it if the quality stays the same, the better.
I think this has more to do with the business model than anything else. Some breweries are set up (equipment, facility, labor force, etc.) for high(er) volume, low(er) time and labor intensive beer. These breweries are set up to put out a lot of volume at modest profit margins. These breweries probably make very little on limited production beers. Other breweries (think Bruery, Cantillon, FiftyFifty) are set up for low volume, high time and labor intensive beers. These breweries are able to get high profit margin, high price tag, low volume beers out there while they are still able to turn out a profit. They don't have to worry as much about beer taking up tanks, barrels taking up production room, etc. I know this is simplifying it terribly, but the idea holds true.
