I’ve been considering North Carolina and Virginia for a while now. I love both states in the cooler months. My only issue there is that I get migraine headaches when the humidity is too high to the point where I can’t function. Honestly, minus beekeeping and gardening, give me snow and frozen tundra. I can breathe, feel good, and am much more active. I basically live in AC during the day in the warmer months. I’m also strongly considering moving to Vermont or Maine.
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And just to clarify, I know Atlanta is in Georgia. Georgia is too warm for me, though I enjoy both Atlanta and Savannah in the cooler months. 
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Dude, I’m the same way! I love cold weather. Utah has 2-3 months of very hot weather, but no humidity. Also, I can drive about 20 minutes up to 9000 feet and enjoy the 70s during the Summer. When I lived in the north of Ireland I was so happy to have cool weather all the time.
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I’m Florida born and raised so I have a warped view of humid, but yeah NC in the summer is not low on the sweltering scale.
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Depends how much brewers, et al, are sinking into bottles on the shelf. That’s the only bottom line that really make a difference.
For Drie Fonteinen, Cantillon, and a few others, this is an utter non-issue.
I have suspicions it could hurt Lost Abbey, based on the number of previously invisible beers that are now hanging around store shelves for months.
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yup i was at 3 beer spots in l.a. this past weekend (including valencia)and they all had 2008 angels share (and lots of it)
and the answer to the main question is.....YES.
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Sounds like Conn retailers or distributors (or both) are working on higher margins than most of the country, could be a number of reasons, but that’s not really the point here. Sounds like the $30 price point in Conn is equal to the $20 price point at my store in Orlando.
I tend to agree with j12601 that more choice is a good thing. Here, pretty much anything over $20/750 has practically stopped selling altogether (over the past 12-18 months), but I don’t think that’s hurting the industry. If the the high $ beers aren’t selling the industry should respond by producing less of them. I doubt we will see fewer special release American brews, but I would bet on the high dollar import scene being reduced for awhile, perhaps even including lambics at retailers that can’t/won’t hold on to them for some time. High $ beers that can’t handle age or even too high production of high $ beers that can handle age are bad for the industry, because they will eventually either cost the retailer money or provide a less than desirable drinking experience to the customer.
My perspective on the American stuff could be a bit skewed though. The only sought after brewery here in FL is producing beer tailored to beer geeks so there is plenty of demand for their beers. And on top of that, my beer drinking buddies here are all pretty into the craft beer scene, so there’s always at least one of us going after the newest, high (perceived) quality special release to share regardless of price.
I recently put a lot of beers on clearance. Many are imports in the $13 - $20 range. The only beer we have over $20 that might not handle a year or two on the shelf too well is Bogedal, need to mark that one down, also.
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I agree with SoLan and the xmarcnolanx sentiment that these reports of $30-40 bottles of beer seem greatly exaggerated, from my experience.
Seriously, I’d love to hear some specifics.
Name me. . .
5 Drie Fonteinen bottles
and
6 Cantillon bottles
that are $30 or more and are available where you live.
If these beers are seriously $30 or more, then I think it’s your local distributors and retailers that are "hurting the industry" by marking those beers up exorbitantly, not the beers themselves for existing. There are not 11 different Drie Fonteinen and Cantillon bottles that cost $30+ where I live.
But I can understand the basic concern, that there are a lot of beers (and seemingly more and more every month) that are on the very upper crust of cost (and are sometimes 10x as expensive as other beers in their same style, on a price-per-ounce basis), which are nowhere near the upper crust of quality to match. I think the Bogedal beers are all (from what I’ve had) way too expensive for me to spend my money on, and I agree that most of the Italian stuff is ridiculously expensive too (although I quite like a few of them, I still won’t spend $25+ on a bottle very often, if ever). And that BrewDog IPA sounds just silly.
But I think it’s worth splitting hairs over one "small" point here-- most of these beers I’ve seen in the $20-$28 range, with prices usually topping out at about $25. There’s a big difference between $25 and $40, or even between $25 and $30, for a bottle.
I still think it’s an interesting concern that even the increasing frequency of $25 bottles of beer may be "hurting" the beer industry, but I think the OP’s suggestion that these beers’ sitting on the shelf and tying up inventory dollars and shelf space (and worse yet-- going bad before being sold) will discourage retailers from carrying ANY new beers is kind of silly. If their customers want to try new beers (but the $25 bottles are too expensive), their customers will buy the CHEAPER new beers. And then the retailer (if they’re paying attention) will follow suit with stocking more, CHEAPER new beers. And the brewers, in turn, will start to produce more, CHEAPER new beers. Many breweries are already following suit with producing more lower-gravity (like medium-to-low) or sessionable beers, and even CHEAPER beers, so that they can continue to sell new stuff alongside the really expensive stuff.
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$30-40 dollar bottles ARE hurting the industry, but not the way fast food hamburgers are hurting the Brazilian rain forest.
Much more seriously!
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The highest Cantillon here is the Lamvinus at 28.
Bogedal is 26 and I won’t buy it.
Nothing is 30 here except for the Bush Nuits and the Baladin stuff.
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