Stone Brewing Company (Atlantic Importing)īear Republic Brewing Company (Atlantic Importing) The first column reflects prices (if available) in January 2007, the second January 2008, and the third March 2008.ĭogfish Head Craft Brewery (Atlantic Importing) Compare that to the $470 Buk’s takes in for a keg of Harpoon IPA, with a cost of $120, and you can begin to picture the guys in masks riding up to your stagecoach.įor the last few months, I’ve been keeping an eye on wholesale price increases in anticipation of the impending “crisis.” Let’s take a look at some of the prices that we have seen here in the Massachusetts market, from January 2007 to March 2008 (prices reflect 15.5 gallon “half-barrel” kegs unless otherwise noted). On a single keg of the tasty hefe-weizen, assuming a ten percent draft loss with overpours, Bukowski’s is taking in $700 for a single keg, with a cost of $145, a price to cost ratio of almost 5 to 1). Yet I am asked to pay nearly $8 for a beer that many local bars (Redbones in Somerville included), charge $4.50 for. In fact, I pay a little more for Brooklyn and get 2 ounces less of beer! And can someone explain why I should be paying an extra $1.05 per pint of Harpoon Brown, a beer which costs the same wholesale as the Harpoon IPA? Then we get to the Weihenstephaner…While the keg cost is a little higher and the pour slightly more generous (less than one ounce more than a pint), the keg cost is only $20 more than the similarly sized Harpoon IPA keg. By the numbers, I should be paying less for the Brooklyn Pils then I do for the Harpoon IPA, but this not the case. The Brooklyn beer sells for $125 for a 15.5 gallon keg, while Harpoon IPA sells for $120 for a 13.2 gallon keg. Putting aside the fact that Buk’s charges an extra buck per glass of Jah-va stout versus Backburner when both have the same keg price, you really have to wonder just how malicious a beer pricer can get when it comes to the Brooklyn Pils and the Harpoon IPA. It’s hard to quite know where to start here. Weihenstephaner Hefe 16.9 ounce pour for $7.75 Harviestoun Old Engine Oil 12 ounce pour for $7 Boulder Mojo Risin’ 12 ounce pour for $6.25 Dogfish Red & White 10 ounce pour for $10 Blanche de Bruxelles Wit 12 ounce pour for $6.25 Sixpoint Sweet Action 12 ounce pour for $6 Southern Tier Backburner 12 ounce pour for $7 Southern Tier Jah-va 12 ounce pour for $8 So on Todd’s recent visit, he encountered the following highway robbery prices: A few minutes later, I received a 12-ounce pour of the beer and a bill for $5.25! I eventually figured out that the bar was marking up the beer 500-percent over its wholesale cost. After pulling up to the bar, I ordered an Arrogant Bastard. In 2002, I visited the bar soon after the Stone Brewing Company entered the Massachusetts market. A longtime fixture on the Boston better beer scene, Bukowski’s (with locations in Boston and Cambridge) has a reputation for loud music, obstinate servers, and absolutely outrageous prices. Things recently hit a fever pitch for my friend Todd Alstrom, one half of the brother team, during a visit to Bukowski’s. In justifying the price increases, I’ve heard a few pub owners break out the old gem, “the beer is good, so you should be willing to pay more for it.�? That’s fine and all, but in this case the money is going directly into the publican’s pocket, not to the brewers. So to recap, price increases just went into effect, yet some bar owners have had their hands in the back pockets of their customers for a couple of extra months. And all of this happened long before the bar owners even received their updated price sheets and felt the pinch of an extra five or ten dollars per keg. In a few dastardly holes, extortionists raised prices even higher. In some places, beer went up 50 cents, in others a dollar. While many American craft brewers have already raised their prices, even if minimally so, there are still many breweries in New England and beyond that have yet to even raise their prices.ĭespite the delayed onset of the prices increases that we have been bracing against for months, drinkers in the Boston area began to see beer prices rise sharply as early as three months ago. Despite the fact that their suppliers continued to meet their contract requirements (and prices), we started to see wholesale prices creep up a little bit in February and then considerably higher in March. When predictions that the sky would start falling in the craft beer world over forecasted price increases a few months ago, I initially trained most of my focus on those breweries whose prices went up before their present contracts even came due (in many cases, the more established craft breweries have raw materials contracts going out a year or more).
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