Justifying Pricing of Beer by Tomme Arthur

Originally posted by dirty_martini
the thing about price is people have no problem paying 100s of dollars for a 750 of wine...but cant imagine paying $15-30 for the same sized bottle of beer. why is that?? especially when considering some of these beers are taking anywhere from a year on to make.

the only difference between wine and beer in my eyes is that wine has a little more lasting power...meaning you can open a bottle, recork it, drink more later...whereas beer is an immediate thing. must be consumed all at once.

what i have more of an issue with is the overpricing of your everyday kinda beers. i hear about the price of three floyds beers all the time...i realize they use a lot of hops, but there is no reason a bottle of dreadnaught should retail for the same price as an lost abbey angels share, cuvee de tomme or any of the russian river barrel aged beers

Originally posted by JK
I had no idea a corked 750 raised the price of beer so much. Brewers should stop using them and do the Jolly Pumpkin style 750 with a cap.

Originally posted by dirty_martini

Originally posted by CaptainCougar
Then again, it’s a lot cheaper for a brewer to live in Jackson, MI than San Diego.

thats a factor most people dont think about. you arent just paying for the beer, the packaging, and the shipping...you are paying for the rent or the mortgage on the brewery, the payroll of the employees, etc.

Originally posted by CaptainCougar
Why do brewers keep using 750ml bottles? They’re expensive, usually contain more beer than one person would want by themselves, and are only meant for enjoying at one sitting. At least the 375ml bottles are a better size, but does a cork and cage actually help the beer, and are they better than an oxygen-barrier crown cap? And do they really age better? If not, why make the consumer pay more for a useless item? I could care less what the packaging looks like. Most beer people I’ve met aren’t pretentious enough to care what the label looks like on a beer, and especially with a lot of these the availability is so scarce that the beer doesn’t need to be bought by people who don’t already know of its reputation.

I guess we as craft beer consumers are in a bit of a tough spot right now in that good barrel-aged funky brews are hard to come by these days. There really isn’t much competition for Russian River and Lost Abbey yet, but as more brewers start doing these styles, eventually the prices will fall as they have to compete with each other. Unfortunately for me, I love these breweries, but I just don’t make enough money to be able to drink as much of their beer as I’d like.

Jolly Pumpkin is a good example of a brewery doing some crazy funky barrel-aged beers on a relatively small scale and their 750s sell for between $7-9 and six packs of Bam Biere and Calabaza Blanca are around $12. And their Grand Reserve special releases which are long-term barrel-aged go for $5/12oz. So it is possible for beers like this to be reasonably priced. Then again, it’s a lot cheaper for a brewer to live in Jackson, MI than San Diego.

I think it would be cool to package each 750ml bottle in a little wooden box like a miniature crate. You open the crate and there is your 750ml bottle cushioned on a bed of straw. That would be an excellent product presentation. So what if it costs the consumer an extra $10? It would be cool.

There is no such thing as an "overpriced beer". A beer is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it. If you aren’t willing to pay for it, don’t buy it. If nobody is willing to pay that much, the brewer will go out of business.

There are two basic issues I see involving the price of beer. On one hand many brewers struggle, sacrificing large pay checks to do what they love. It is easy to argue that many brewers are hard working and deserve better pay. On the other hand beer’s accessibility has most likely played a large role in alot of our introduction to craft beer. I would have probably not have had been able to explore as much beer as I have in the past if the price tag was 15-30 dollars a bottle. I enjoy wine but hate the snobbish attitude that often is connected with the enjoyment of wine. (although that is up to the individual’s attitude ofcourse). Beer is every persons drink, the drink of the people. That idea helped attract me to beer. I think that we just need to find a balance between the two issues. There will always be rare beer that will bring a larger price tag and smaller batches too, but as a community we should always try our best no to exclude your average consumer. That and the continual brewing of exciting and flavorful beers will allow the industry to continue to grow.

Originally posted by Matthew
There are two basic issues I see involving the price of beer. On one hand many brewers struggle, sacrificing large pay checks to do what they love. It is easy to argue that many brewers are hard working and deserve better pay. On the other hand beer’s accessibility has most likely played a large role in alot of our introduction to craft beer. I would have probably not have had been able to explore as much beer as I have in the past if the price tag was 15-30 dollars a bottle. I enjoy wine but hate the snobbish attitude that often is connected with the enjoyment of wine. (although that is up to the individual’s attitude ofcourse). Beer is every persons drink, the drink of the people. That idea helped attract me to beer. I think that we just need to find a balance between the two issues. There will always be rare beer that will bring a larger price tag and smaller batches too, but as a community we should always try our best no to exclude your average consumer. That and the continual brewing of exciting and flavorful beers will allow the industry to continue to grow.

Originally posted by erway

Originally posted by CaptainCougar
JP is not going through the same aging that RR and LA beers are. They are a great product and cheers to Ron for getting his process down so well, but he can produce a lot more of the vaste majority of his beer than Tomme or Vinnie can of theirs.

Don’t get me wrong, Erway, I ALWAYS appreciate your insider comments on here and I think you are right 99% of the time.

First off, everything of Ron’s is in barrels or spends time in larger wooden vessels, not just several critter beers. Second, Ron has had significant increases in the number of barrels (relatively unnoticed by the cognoscenti here compared to the talk of Vinnie’s and Tomme’s increase in barrels), so Ron has a significant outlay in dollars upfront right there. Third, Ron has serious long term projects - his reserve releases spend anywhere from 12-20 months in barrels, yet cost maybe 4.50 per 12 oz. That is half the cost of RR beers. Dexter is near Ann Arbor so the rents are high, but clearly not as high as California.

I don’t know the exact production figures for Ron’s reserve beers vs. RR Supplication, Depuration and Temptation, but I’ll bet dollars to donuts RR is producing more...

Originally posted by jerc

Originally posted by dirty_martini

Originally posted by CaptainCougar
Then again, it’s a lot cheaper for a brewer to live in Jackson, MI than San Diego.

thats a factor most people dont think about. you arent just paying for the beer, the packaging, and the shipping...you are paying for the rent or the mortgage on the brewery, the payroll of the employees, etc.

But the location is a choice that the brewer can control.