The Price of Beer (Redux)

 I like to think that I have reached a point as a consumer of beer that I have a discerning enough palate and brand awareness to be making informed purchases.

I am a follower of what's new and returning, I subscribe to 100's of Brewery newsletters and keep myself always on the lookout for interesting things whenever I stop in at the LCBO.

However...

Someone asked about how I felt that the Dominion City Sunsplit IPA (delicious, by the way) cost $5.10 and it caught me off guard as I, honestly and without thought, didn't even look at the cost when I picked it up the other day.

It seems like a high price for a 6.8% IPA, albeit one of superior quality and consistency,  always a fine choice and I feel lucky that I can just get one whenever I want. It wasn't that long ago that the only way to get this legendary flagship beer was to have someone mule it back from Ottawa or when it became possible, to do an online delivery order and get it sent right to my front door. So I don't feel like I am doing a disservice to the quality when I wonder just what the high end is for really good beer that we buy? What is the price too far for us to pay?

Looking through the LCBO site, I count 19 IPAs (toss a few Double, Triple and Quadruple for good measure) that cross the $5 range, with Bellwoods Brewery Greenbelly Triple IPA (10% ABV) sitting on top at $5.75 for a tall boy. There are 70 or so between $4 and $5, with a lot of 6% IPAs rolling well past the $4.50 mark. Hell,  there's even a handful of Pale Ales priced at that halfway point. Is this just a continuation of paying more for better beer? Or is it a callous money grab by some places cash in on name recognition and reputation?

I get that ingredients and packaging cost more now than they used to and certainly there are breweries that pay better and have benefits and supports for employees, I don't think everyone is a greedy capitalist who has ulterior motives to trick consumers. Great beer, especially higher ABV ones, cost more to make and the return needs to reflect that. It is only a handful of pints that cross what once was viewed as a magical barrier to beer drinkers and as someone who's tried almost allof them, I can attest to that quality personally. This isn't even to get into those breweries that don't sell at the LCBO, lord knows I've spent a pretty penny on beers well over $6.

 I know I'm not alone when I buy without considering price sometimes. I'm not buying 24s of $6 beers, usually 1 or 2 cans of each, although it adds up let me tell you...but I also know I'm in the minority of the minority of beer drinkers, craft is but perhaps 15% of the market and despite years of growth, cracking 25% seems like a long shot at best. So how to make sure good beer gets made? Gotta pay those bills somehow, costs keep going up and there is only so much to be done at ground level to keep them down. The worry is that at some point you price yourself out of the 'curious' drinker market. The folks who like to try new stuff for fun, sprinkled in amongst their regular local or macro beers. At what point do the budget conscious, and honestly today that should be a whole lot more of us, look at the price of a beer and put it back on the shelf, a missed opportunity, but a sound financial one. 

I've been more aware of what I'm spending this year, everybody in the middle of the economy feels that pinch of higher prices for every little thing we need just to survive. I ponder what beer will look like in 5 years, who survives and what is the end game for some places that cannot keep up. There are some breweries that can scale up their production, keeping their costa lower and we see that in some fo the best IPAs available in the LCBO. Great Lakes' Haze Mama, Nickel Brook's Headstock, Sawdust City's Juicin' all retail for under $4, and I don't think anyone will question their quality or consistency. I understand that the smaller you are, the harder it is to account for such things, but I also know that there is coming a large inflection point in craft beer and who comes out the other side needs to widen their base ans bring even more folks into the fold. Quality matters, but for the vast majority of beer drinkers, price almost matters more...

I don't have the answers, but I'll be curious to watch it all play out in the coming months with the rollout to convenience stores looking like it's going to benefit the few large sized brewers over the little guys...but that's a whole other thing to write about.

Until next time...

Polk 

September 16th 2024