What is the worst price gouging / profiteering you've seen?

Is it an "essential commodity" (oh good, I opened myself up to a troll to tell me it is to some people) under the law of your state? Then no, it's not price gouging. It's just a contractual offer you deem inequitable.

 

I have seen $16 for HT and $45 for Reuze this month

 

Any of the crappy Three Floyds BA variants for $45 not named "Dark Lord".

 

$28 for a 12oz bottle of Uncle Jacobs Stout.

 

I saw that bottle in downtown Philly too. The lady behind the counter explained to me that the reason the price was so high is because they didn't have a lot of it and wanted more people to get a chance to buy it. When I explained to her that's the rationale for limiting to one per customer and that what they were doing was price gouging, she gave me a vacant stare.

 

$300 for Utopias last year. That's about $100 over regular price.

 

$49.99 for one 22 oz. bottle of Enjoy By (saw a photo posted here). Unnamed liquor store in Central California.

Not quite as bad but another liquor store in Southern California was selling Parabola for $40 a bottle (saw this one in person).

 

$550...I win

 

For real though was Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale at $6.50 a bottle, yes a bottle. It was at a Clutch, The Sword and Crowbot concert I went to Thursday night. I was crazy enough to buy one too. Due to it being the only decent beer there.

 

I paid $32 for this years High West Rye Eclipse.

 

When I got into craft beer, part of the reason was my buddy telling me that he got into because he was big into wine but realized that he would never be able to afford the best wines in the world. The best wines are THOUSANDS of dollars. Beer, on the other hand, you can get the best beer in the world for under $100. That made a lot of sense to me.

Is $30 a lot for a bottle? Yeah, but it could be way worse… and I'm sure it will get there. The more breweries that open (MN alone has about 20 opening in 2014) the more demand there will be for the best hops, bourbon/rum/brandy/etc barrels. Breweries will have to pay more, therefore they will have to charge more. I personally don't think the prices are out of hand - yet.

 

Just today, I found some 4 packs of Double Jack at a store VERY close to my house...for $19.

It was twice as crushing considering it was the freshest I've ever seen this beer in the DMV area, and thrice as crushing considering this store usually has good prices.

 

I would slap the person behind the counter!!

 

I saw Velvet Merkin, Parabola, and Sucaba all priced at $29.99 at a local store. The worst part is that I live in Santa Barbara County where even grocery stores get limited release FW beers, and prices are all at $15-$16 (which is MSRP).

 

I agree...Almost all of their seasonals are overpriced/gouged. Darkness going for $24 - $30 after taxes and its not even barreled aged. Couldn't get my hands on Wet so I don't know what that was. Their anniversary beers are the same going for $20-$27. Abrasive is even over priced and its around for 3 months. $16-$17 plus tax is high for a 4 pack of tall boys.

I'm also like you and refused to overpay to a degree. Hopefully more people will stop paying up or with the new expansion they can produce enough to bring the price down. But with going to Chicago now doubt that will happen.

 

% wise I saw a year old bottle of Hopslam for $10.

 

Saw a bomber of Sculpin for $26 at a restaurant. Roughly $17 more than what I pay for a bomber normally.

 

Which one? Dee's or HO1KB??

 

That's nuts!

 

Thank you!! Not sure People are getting the "gouge" aspect. Eclipse isn't a gouge at $30 cause that is its retail price . (It may be overpriced but that's another story).

I've seen damnation priced at $20 at a bar at the same price as the RR sours

 

I'd probably charge $22 on $9, but that's no really that unreasonable. Bars and restaurants want to run at a 25% beer cost overall, large formats are marked up significantly less than small formats. Hell, I charge $8 for a single of Sculpin and I'm sold out currently.

 

I'm not trying to justify it, but it was a brewery-only release that cost $15/bottle straight from HoTD. After shipping it all the way across the country and then marking it up a bit to make a profit, I'm not surprised they were charging that much. Similarly, DC was $6/bottle unless you bought a full case, and then it was $5/bottle.

The crazier thing is that I've just been sending out bottles of Otto as extras when I could have been charging $30 for them...

 

We were in Chicago for black Friday some bar was charging 60 bucks for Bourbon County Cherry Rye and 50 for coffee.

 

Packs and Dogs on Mt. Washington. The House didn't get any, last I knew. Not sure about D's. I picked up two bottles at the Shaler GE for $6.50 per. They only got one case and it was gone in a few hours.

 

You still can't gouge beer.

 

They absolutely do! They sound just as good live as they do on their CD's. The Sword does as well. Both are in my top bands.

 

$25 for riserva, $32 for black ops and $15 for a 12 oz bottle of Tokyo.

 

.89 for a keystone light. Talk about rape

 

Most everything, and especially sours from the Bruery
Most everything Lost Abbey
Unproven, random new breweries popping up everywhere selling 22oz IPA Bombers $7.99+
$20 for less than 22oz Southern Charred, especially at that distribution.
Again, all Eclipse Variants.
6-packs of Sculpin and Ruination (now 4-packs and still overpriced)
Simtra

 

$85 Mamouch

 

can people please stop posting bar/restaurant/concert prices and calling it "gouging?" 200%+ markup is STANDARD

 

Haven't been there yet. Good selection? Dee's is my go to but I've never seen it there.

 

I have to admit I was tempted by both the Bois and the Eclipse. But that's what, a $90 6-pack? If I'm going to continue feeding this craft habit, I'm going to have to get out of teaching and find a real job.

 

At a bar, that's fair. I paid $64 for a case of Sculpin.

 

I don't get how people can say that there's no such thing as price gouging in beer.

Take an extremely limited beer.
Said beer happens to be distributed to only one location within reasonable distance of beer aficionado.
Beer retailer takes advantage of this by charging much more than MSRP.

To those who don't trade and have zero access to a beer that they'd love to try, but must pay a lot more than it was intended to be sold for, THIS IS PRICE GOUGING.

High markup is standard at bars/restaurants, but unethical at liquor stores and should be reported to the brewery.

 

Basically all Belgian Beer in America.

 

That's Philly for you...Price a sought after bottle reasonably and it sells quick, but mark it up at an ambiguous rate, and it'll still sell, but it'll take longer. That being said, I wonder how long they've been sitting on Otto or Doggie Claws, haven't seen new shipments of those pop up recently; or they happened behind closed doors.

Going to copy and paste this from my post in the bombers thread:
Sweet Repute $28
Firestone Walker XVII $37
Bruery Bois $40
Abyss +$30 in multiple spots
50/50 Eclipse Series $37

 

dosnt WWW normally go for $9.99 per bottle? In which case that would actually be a completely reasonable price, and at about 20% abv per bottle, thats really not that bad of a deal anyways (not that I was a huge fan of this beer, id much more likely pay the same for more 120 minute!!)

 

I think the delineation between some BAs on this issue is the strict definition of gouging in the legal sense. I may be wrong, but I think most in this crowd would prefer the term "profiteering". Either way, we're just speaking semantics.

 

I think the problem is people are mixing up a lot of different concepts: price gouging, over pricing, value, etc. If a brewery sets an MSRP of $30 for a bomber, and the store sells it for $30, the store isn't gouging anyone - it's selling the beer for what the brewer suggested it sell for. Now if the store sold that same bottle for $100, I think that's more in line with even the loose BA definition of "gouging." This shouldn't be a thread about beer people think is overpriced because the brewer set a high price.