Limited Edition Beers

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Interesting article about expensive limited-edition beers.

Limited-edition beer: fool's gold?

I actually think the article is full of crap. I have seen a lot of this lately, that there is some conspiracy in the brewing scene to raise the price of beer across the board, spearheaded by beardy craft hipsters.

Craft beer is expensive because it is small production, and cannot get the discounts available at the economies of scale that larger breweries get. Therefore those discounts can't be passed on to the consumer.

If a brewery wants to launch a limited edition premium beer to a discerning audience, more power to them. They are not forcing you to drink it, or pay for it at the point of dispense. And there are loads of quality alternatives at various price points.

Like it or not, drinking beer that is either: good, and/or dispensed in a pub is already high up the chain in a segregated market. Also cask ale holds no secret lessons for delivering good beer at a great price; there is a glass ceiling on the price of a hand pulled pint. Its as simple as that - punters wont pay for it when the price goes skywards. Often the margin on cask ale in a pub is the smallest of all the products in the pub.

The kopparberg that the milk-teeth drinkers have is probably subsidising my pint of UBU Purity.

Of course not all of the super limited edition beers are worth it. Meantime beers are good, and a bit pricey even in a pub, but they are not £12-£14 good. The Fullers website has a lot of their beers looking very expensive by the bottle, but their are deals to be had, and the price by the case is pretty good. (And the Past Masters range is stunning - worth it at the web price).

[irish_goat]

Could argue that macro beer works out cheaper because they're a lot more likely to throw you free kegs every now and again.

[DEMPSEY]

€7.50 for Gueze Boon this evening. Worth it or not?

You always go for the expensive stuff you should stick to 21 year old whiskey better value :

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

At €19 a glass? You can buy a full bottle of regular whiskey for less than that. With the amount of water you cut that 21 year old with, it probably tastes the same 

[mr hoppy]

€7.50 for Gueze Boon this evening. Worth it or not?

A bottle of Drei Fonteinen Oude Gueuze cost me 4.50 at the brewer when I was there two years ago, and up to 14 euros in some off-licenses here. It's 6% so it's not a big beer, and to my mind it's probably worth it - as a very occasional treat but someone is taking a phenomenal mark-up on some of these beers.

Mind I picked up some limited editions, including a phenomenal ten year old lambic that cost 20 euros at the brewery.  I always wondered how much that would cost in an offie over here.

[DEMPSEY]

There are times I feel like an Arab who has just being sold sand to.

[mr hoppy]

I paid 6 yoyos for a bottle of Stone Ruination with less than 2 months to bbe date that I could have sworn was under $3 in NYC, so it's not just you Dempsey.

On the other hand I see that 8 degrees current run of black limited additions aren't stupid expensive.

[Hop Bomb]

90e for a case of stone wholesale. Hence the hefty price tag. Refrigerated shipping is the reason I hear. They wouldnt export unless it was shipped chilled. Fair enough. They have a reputation to uphold & Europe getting past its best beer wouldnt do their Euro brewery plans any good.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Craft beer is expensive because it is small production, and cannot get the discounts available at the economies of scale that larger breweries get.

And reduced rates of excise duty compensate.

Not that much. Its a 50% rebate on the duty, refunded at the end of the year. This rebate is to offset the costs of getting started, and not to provide some kind of artificial, government subsidy.

But rather than speculate, I think it's necessary to look at the wholesale prices. A keg of Irish micro brewed beer will cost the publican the same as a keg of a premium lager like Carlsberg. So the price on the bar should be the same. Some people will argue that even though the manufacturer doesn't charge any more that the consumer should still pay more to reflect that it's craft (which is boloney).

Agreed. If there is a premium to be made on the beer it should go to the manufacturers.

Across the water a cask of micro beer will cost you £50 but a cask of London Pride will cost £60.

To quote a brewer I know:
"I wouldn't get out of bed for £50 a cask"

He sells kegs/casks for around £80 or more. Higher gravity, higher hopped beers. He has a business to run, and making meagre margin per keg on a 10BBL micro wont do it. Thats the real reason your craft is pricier - they have to have higher margins per keg than a larger brewery, as their output is capped by FV capacity and brewhouse size. And warehousing capacity, to a certain degree.

Also, tied pubs can get totally screwed by their PubCo (their landlord, and also the company that they are required to buy their beer from). Prices of around £127 /keg to the pub are not unusual horror stories, with the brewery getting half.

What it comes down to is this: retailers will charge the price that the market will bear. It's why everything is more expensive here than it is in the US. Cos we'll pay more, so we get charged more. And we've proved it time and time again.

The crazy thing in Ireland is that we pay a lot of money for shit beer. In the UK there is a huge spread in prices. Its possible to get *good* cask ale in central london for £3-£3.20 a pint. Premium lagers (Pilsner Urquell, Peroni etc.) are around £4.50, and most of the rest of the price of a pint is in between. Craft micro beer, can go higher, especially if it is imported, kegged, high gravity and in a chain that has higher prices across the board. I have paid £9 a pint for a beer (but you would buy it by half usually).

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

90e for a case of stone wholesale. Hence the hefty price tag. Refrigerated shipping is the reason I hear. They wouldnt export unless it was shipped chilled. Fair enough. They have a reputation to uphold & Europe getting past its best beer wouldnt do their Euro brewery plans any good.

Big snafu with the Rogue keg imports here in London. All get routed through sweden for some dumb ass reason, and end sitting in containers for ages. Way past their best when they are served up.

OTOH if you can get it (Pelt Trader @ Cannon St. is your best bet) Lagunitas IPA is being imported in splendid condition.

[mr hoppy]

Stone: the ruination ipa I picked up last night was best before early Feb next year. Probably not fantastic for a hop bomb (talking about the beer not the poster).

[Hop Bomb]

That'd make it nearly a year old?  Their "enjoy by" beers have a 35 day window from the day they're bottled.

[mr hoppy]

Why am I not surprised.

[LordEoin]

I picked up a Stone IPA today and was a bit disappointed, although the aroma was fantastic (like sticking your face in a bag of fresh hops) the bittering overpowered it a bit.

[irish_goat]

I picked up a Stone IPA today and was a bit disappointed, although the aroma was fantastic (like sticking your face in a bag of fresh hops) the bittering overpowered it a bit.

I had two pints of their cask beer they did for Wetherspoons and thought the same, far too bitter and just seemed like it was bitter for the sake of being bitter.