Since I butchered the names in the other post and left one out:
3 Fonteinen Schaarbeekse Kriek
3 Fonteinen Doesjel
3 Fonteinen Hommage
Cantillon FouFoune
Cantillon Saint Lamvinus
Cantillon Cuvée des Champions
Cantillon Lou Pepe Framboise
Cantillon Lou Pepe Pure Kriek
Cantillon Lou Pepe Gueuze
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At the risk of sounding catty, I think the overwhelming conclusion you can draw from this thread, on a microeconomic scale, is that *LIVING IN CONNECTICUT* is "hurting the industry," if your hope is to buy great beers at a reasonable cost. Those taxes and distribution laws sound insane. I do not envy you.
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Seattle price points appear, typically, to mirror Connectivut’s price points.
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Doesjel is $8.99 / 375ml here
Basically, as long as the industry can keep up with what’s selling, it’ll be fine and can accomodate a few high priced specialties.
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The conclusion I got from reading this thread, is that people would rather argue and debate about semantics and exact price points than actually answer the core question posed.
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That’s unfortunately the norm around here lately. I considered whether or not to mention a price at all, but figured if I didn’t there would have been a 4 page debate on what expensive is. 
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I answered the core question. See my final paragraph on page 2. It’s not a definitive "answer," but (better yet) it was an attempt to further the discussion with a little dialogue. But to lend a little more lip service. . .
I don’t understand how higher-priced beers hurt the industry, specifically how the idea of them sitting on shelves and NOT selling discourages retailers from stocking other new beers (unless they’re very new to beer, and they sprung for these more expensive beers as their first foray into stocking craft beer).
I’d like to know more about what "hurting the industry" exactly means. . .. I suppose you could say that expensive beers sitting on shelves hurts the industry because when those beers are finally purchased, they are possibly past their prime and therefore of tarnished quality, and the people who splurge and spring for one of those beers expecting to be wowed are then left with a stigma on ALL expensive beers, like it’s impossible for a beer to be good enough to justify a $20-40 price. Then the REPUTATION of the beer industry is clearly hurt.
But is that what we’re talking about here? Or is this an economic concern, like in terms of market share? Are you guys suggesting that $20-40 bottles could somehow be undermining the craft beer industry’s momentum against the BMC-dominant sales market? I haven’t heard or seen anything to suggest that, but it’s an interesting idea. If anything, it seems like (from what little I see of the craft beer-buying world) the companies that are growing and expanding most aggressively (including Lost Abbey, Russian River, Surly, Three Floyds, among others) are among those who have the most expensive individual beers on the market.
I have no idea how the existence of these $20-40 bottles of beer affects their overall bottom line. . . But there are a lot of factors surely at play. For one thing, I’ve heard Vinnie and Tomme lament how the large amounts of space and time dedicated to their respective barrel programs could be put to far more lucrative, productive use if they instead installed a few extra fermenters for their "regular" beers like Pliny and Hop 15. But on the other hand, it’s pretty obvious that these brewers are gaining a lot of (sometimes-free) press, acclaim, and prestige because of the end products that come from this dedication to the barrel programs. So that’s certainly worth something.
I’m happy to talk/hear about how these and other factors might be affecting the industry, and even our tiny little parts in it as individual consumers. But it’s not really clear to me what the OP’s specific concerns were.
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Please. . .
Perhaps your name-calling could be seen as a discouragement of any continued discussion?
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Several things:
--Are the fact that craft beer prices in general are rising at a much faster rate than the rate of inflation going to result in another craft beer die off like we witnessed in the late 80s and early 90s? We’ve already seen it happen in other industries.
--With prices reaching the cost of a good bottle of wine, are craft breweries starting to price their core audience right out? I can’t speak for the entire world here, but I know that locally, a LOT of my felow beer geek friends have stopped buying new beer and reverted back to cheaper staple beers like Orval and Chimay.
--With beer that is intended to be consumed relatively fresh sitting on the shelves, and likely a shadow of what they tasted like fresh are people buying these for the first time being turned off to craft beer?
--Why is someone going to buy a $25 bottle of witbier when Hoegaarden is around, and you can buy 2-3 sixers for the same price?
--Is the price spike making it more difficult for smaller craft breweries to establish themselves? The amount of money anyone has to spend on beer is finite, whether we’re talking about the consumer, the retailer or the distributor. Are the distributors and retailers going to scrutinize new brewers unjustly, dooming them to close shop as breweries like Dogfish Head and Brewdog push the next overpriced beer onto the market?
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No more so than your prior condescending posts and irrelevant tangents, I presume.
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