some damn good IPA's out there

[Peruvian]

Smart move. That place is senselessly mobbed and their beer is illogically revered. It is not bad per se but I don’t get it. Menu very over priced too but they need to cover the cost of that place. That said, I hope you enjoy what you picked up. I think they may still be working the kinks out of new brewing system but I don’t have the patience for their batch inconsistencies esp at their retail pricing. Those inconsistencies have always existed imho. I’ve had Congress St that tastes like someone packed mint leaves into my beer whereas I’ve have batches I’ve loved. Don’t like the gamble.

$20.20/ 4 pack. Kinda stupid.

[Peruvian]

You should hit me up for a beer next time your in Portsmouth. Or not.

This beers availability seems to have a big footprint.

I know, I know. It was a drive through. I may be back next Friday.

[Doremite]

$20.20/ 4 pack. Kinda stupid.

Without a distributor and/or a retailer piling on

[Sluff]

No picture, but the fresh hopped ipa’s are out. Had a Castle Danger Mosaic fresh hopped ipa yesterday. Excellent. Love the fresh hopped beers while you can get them.

[dookeyXXX]

$20.20/ 4 pack. Kinda stupid.

Kinda confused by this as that equates to roughly $5 a beer. I know quite a few bars/restaurants that charge $5 for a PBR...

You can't get a good, real craft beer at a restaurant or bar where I live for less than $8, often times more like $12, not including a bill per beer for the bartender, so $20 a 4-pack is a bargain in my terms.

That said, my go-to local breweries (Moonraker and Revision) usually sell their 4-packs for between $16 at the low-end and $20 at the high-end depending on the release (i.e. DIPAs are usually more $$$). A few of my favorites in the Bay (Temescal and Ghost Town in Oakland) average $20 a 4-pack on all releases...

[Doremite]

Kinda confused by this as that equates to roughly $5 a beer. I know quite a few bars/restaurants that charge $5 for a PBR...

You can't get a good, real craft beer at a restaurant where I live for less than $8, often times more like $12, not including a bill per beer for the bartender, so $20 a 4-pack is a bargain in my terms.

That said, my go-to local breweries (Moonraker and Revision) usually sell their 4-packs for between $16 and $20 depending on the release and my favorites in the Bay (Temescal and Ghost Town in Oakland) average $20 a 4-pack...

Yeah. Not unheard of. Beer pricing is on the rise but I still find it a bit obnoxious and bordering arrogant given the competitive landscape in New England. Not to mention my prior batch variability comment.

[My Pet Powder Goat]

$20.20/ 4 pack. Kinda stupid.

Lot of Singlecuts stuff comes in at $22 a 4pack in VT after deposit and tax. It's insulting, but they do brew great beer, and cans fly off the shelf.

"$22 bucks?!?... I've gotta try these!"


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[t-the-east]

Lot of Singlecuts stuff comes in at $22 a 4pack in VT after deposit and tax. It's insulting, but they do brew great beer, and cans fly off the shelf.

"$22 bucks?!?... I've gotta try these!"


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Yup. A few NY beers are the same. Finback, Grimm both retail for the same. Amazing, delicious fresh beer canned weekly.

It sells out every week.

[shroom]

lovin’ it

[Doremite]

Yup. A few NY beers are the same. Finback, Grimm both retail for the same. Amazing, delicious fresh beer canned weekly.

It sells out every week.

I will throw Finback on my batch variability bitch list.

But not to be overly negative. I don’t have a problem w $20 4 packs but when it becomes a standard for anything hopped the f out of - just because the brewery uses a shit ton of hops ramping up production costs - but lacks balance and true quality (to my pallet) it annoys me. Now I need to drop $20 to explore beer and get more and more jaded as I am consistently unimpressed.

Sorry, back to celebrating why you’re enjoying.

[prsboogie]

I have to agree with Dave on this on, Trillium is good but when you take value vs quality I think they are overshooting. I think $12-20 is a good range for craft beers. I have but will not regularly buy 4packs that are over 20 buck as they usually do not deliver better beer than what I'm drinking for $15-16 bucks. Just my opinion though.

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[Peruvian]

I bought a $17.99 4-pack I’d Four Quarters a few weeks ago and felt ass raped so no way was I paying $20+.

[FussyDutchman]

Lot of Singlecuts stuff comes in at $22 a 4pack in VT after deposit and tax. It's insulting, but they do brew great beer, and cans fly off the shelf.

"$22 bucks?!?... I've gotta try these!"


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Interesting, I've talked to a couple of local shops and one large local market bev manager and they tell me sales are slow on singlecut other than 18 watt which has a lower price point. Most of the smaller bev shops locally end up breaking up the 4pks to singles after they sit for a week or two, which apparently has been an effective strategy.

I had a detailed social media conversation with their head of marketing several months ago and told him that as much as I enjoy their beers and appreciate the cost of ingredients/distro etc. at $22 a 4pk it is priced $4-$6+ over the top local brews which makes it very hard to justify for me and many other VT customers. Foam at $18 a 4pk is generally my limit but it's hard to gripe about them or HF ($18 6pks for 2x's, $16 for ipa's, wish more did 12oz 6'ers) since the vast majority of what they both brew are exceptional. Alchemist, Fiddlehead and Zero gravity among a few others have continued to keep price points very affordable keeping prices in the $13-$14 range.

[prsboogie]

Interesting, I've talked to a couple of local shops and one large local market bev manager and they tell me sales are slow on singlecut other than 18 watt which has a lower price point. Most of the smaller bev shops locally end up breaking up the 4pks to singles after they sit for a week or two, which apparently has been an effective strategy.

I had a detailed social media conversation with their head of marketing several months ago and told him that as much as I enjoy their beers and appreciate the cost of ingredients/distro etc. at $22 a 4pk it is priced $4-$6+ over the top local brews which makes it very hard to justify for me and many other VT customers. Foam at $18 a 4pk is generally my limit but it's hard to gripe about them or HF ($18 6pks for 2x's, $16 for ipa's, wish more did 12oz 6'ers) since the vast majority of what they both brew are exceptional. Alchemist, Fiddlehead and Zero gravity among a few others have continued to keep price points very affordable keeping prices in the $13-$14 range.

This^

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[jackstraw]

So overhead in beantown is through the roof when compared to northern anywhere of there and don't forget the tariffs on aluminum.

But yeah, they're making money but not all these guys will survive the next downturn.

[Name Redacted]

So you are basically paying bar prices for takeout beer. If people will pay it, then go for it. But I'd say that $22 4 packs is a sure sigh that the stock market is about to tank.

[prsboogie]

Been looking forward to this place opening for a looooong time. Soft opening/Crowler Release will report on further later this morning.

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[Doremite]

Be sweet for you if it turns out to be a viable option

Relatedly my buddy talked about opening a brewery in FR with that exact name over 15 years ago. Wonder if he somehow had influence on the naming decision. Or maybe it wasn’t that original (aware of the historical link).

[HankScorpio]

$20.20/ 4 pack. Kinda stupid.

There are several things I truly do not miss about living in Boston and paying this amount for beer is one.

I’ll never forget when Sip of Sunshine first was distributed to Boston sometime in 2016. I asked the guy at my local liquor store how much he was getting and he said to come in on a certain day and he would sell me a 4 pack.

I come in that day, grab a 4 pack of Sip and he charged almost $30. He then added that they were priced at $7 per can with a 4 can limit. I said no thanks and left.

There were also beer stores Boston that would re-sell Headies for $30-40/4 pack. Fuck that.


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[EWG]

You would be even more disgusted if you new how much it actually costs to produce these beers. The markup is commodity based - it has nothing to do with cost of ingredients, etc, no matter what a particular brewer may say. As long as the market pays $5 can, then that's the cost.

Not sure if it will collapse or not. I think the $10-12 standard for a quality 6 pack is here to stay for a while, but the $18-22/4 pack is more interesting. If we run out of unique styles to brew, and you can pick up mass produced 6 packs that equate in quality, it may submarine the pricing for most of the micro 4 pack makers. The issue there is that if those smaller brewers are basing their business model on the huge margins they are getting many may go out of business when the margins get more realistic.

Colorado is interesting in that regard. There are so many good, mid scale brewers brewing similar style beers (on the bigger scale, Avery Chowder, Great Divide Hazy; smaller scale Odd 13 Superfan) that it has really suppressed the market for NE IPAs in 4 packs. That may be coming for the NE at some point.

[prsboogie]

Be sweet for you if it turns out to be a viable option

Relatedly my buddy talked about opening a brewery in FR with that exact name over 15 years ago. Wonder if he somehow had influence on the naming decision. Or maybe it wasn’t that original (aware of the historical link).

Is his name Keith? Got two crowlers for home consumption. They can't open until the bricks on the exterior building are repointed so we could only gaze through the windows. Very nice from what could be seen.

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[Doremite]

^No not Keith but checked out the site to see if my buddy Justin was somehow involved. He has also been a homebrewer for years so they may know each other.

Yes, margins are nuts and hopefully from a consumer’s perspective can’t hold.

[Peruvian]

You would be even more disgusted if you new how much it actually costs to produce these beers. The markup is commodity based - it has nothing to do with cost of ingredients, etc, no matter what a particular brewer may say. As long as the market pays $5 can, then that's the cost.

Not sure if it will collapse or not. I think the $10-12 standard for a quality 6 pack is here to stay for a while, but the $18-22/4 pack is more interesting. If we run out of unique styles to brew, and you can pick up mass produced 6 packs that equate in quality, it may submarine the pricing for most of the micro 4 pack makers. The issue there is that if those smaller brewers are basing their business model on the huge margins they are getting many may go out of business when the margins get more realistic.

Colorado is interesting in that regard. There are so many good, mid scale brewers brewing similar style beers (on the bigger scale, Avery Chowder, Great Divide Hazy; smaller scale Odd 13 Superfan) that it has really suppressed the market for NE IPAs in 4 packs. That may be coming for the NE at some point.

Tell me more about the cost to produce.

So far few of the regional brewers (nevertheless the real big boys) have been able to match the taste and quality of the best micro and nano producers so comparing oranges to tang isn’t a fair.

[Doremite]

Without being able to speak to a specific brewery I’ve heard rumors of EBITA in the 50-60% range. This could be total bs as it sounds extremely high to me.

I do realize capital investments are large and often need to be financed.

[Name Redacted]

You would be even more disgusted if you new how much it actually costs to produce these beers. The markup is commodity based - it has nothing to do with cost of ingredients, etc, no matter what a particular brewer may say. As long as the market pays $5 can, then that's the cost.

Actually, it has a lot to do with cost of ingredients. With some of these hops costing in excess $15 per lb, and the smaller batch sizes, costs can be quite high. There is a margin to maintain, and honestly, a lot of these breweries are not making their margins on the 13 lb per barrel beers, but make it back up on their other beers.

BTW, people pay $5+ for pints at the bar all day long. Packaging costs money too. Especially creating and printing all these fancy new labels all the time. Buying and running a good canning line ain't cheap either.