Beer Money 2023 - A Deeper Dive

   

Well now, after a 3 year hiatus, I have returned to the scene of the crime and taken out my trusty spending spreadsheets to break down all our alcohol dollars, because who doesn't like a little self flagellation now and again.

  It's no secret that we spend most of our recreational money on old Mr. Booze, but this last year was a little more than even my predictions could have imagined and as our 2023 financial postmortem took shape, it certainly hopefully guide what the coming 12 months will bring...probably.

  Y'all know how much I like numbers, statistics, charts and breakdowns help me understand the world around me, even if I don't always put said info to good use. There is something clean and clear about raw data that can be processed and understood, but the truth don't lie and without any sugar coating, let's take a look at the State of Polk.

  We took far fewer trips out and about last year, only visiting or ordering from 35 different places, 36 if you include a plethora of LCBO stops and while that would seem to indicate a lower spending rate, it actually went up more than 28% from the last time I took this deep dive into the liquor money in 2020. A big part of that was my run of exploring bourbons and whiskeys the last two years, leading to a spike in LCBO visits, albeit it less than 3 years ago, but still spending increased to an average $51.33 a visit. That's a lot of wine, Irish cream, Amaretto and Rye. 

  Oddly enough, after I changed jobs and my overall life satisfaction increased, the stops for higher octane booze decreased and that dive has continued into the new year. It's amazing what not feeling completely defeated and beat down from work can do for someone's desire to get a little ripped every damn day. It never occurred to me that I didn't have to hate my job, I just thought that was what life was supposed to be like. but that's an entirely different post all on it's own.

  On just beer spending alone, we went to old reliable Nickel Brook the most, not a surprise again as they are close by both my old job and new one and make my go-to Headstock West Coast IPA. 30 trips to NB accounted for 19% of all beer purchased in 2023, only surpassed by the new kids on the block, Milton's Third Moon Brewing. Masters of the juicy, tropical haze bombs and adjunct barrel aged Imperial stouts, TM made the list second at 20 orders/visits but accounted for 22% of actual dollars spent because a man has got to treat himself once in awhile.

  Next on the list with 20 visits also is the closest brewery to us, Hamilton's Clifford Brewing. At 9% of all beer money, it may be less per visit but that's mostly because we would often just stop in for a pint and a 4 pack to take home, being close by meant we didn't have to load up to save on driving back. More visits in 2024 is likely, I wanna check out some of their events, comedy nights, live music and of course, Trivia.

  One brewery that has definitely taken a downward turn in turns of fridge space and purchases is the original Hometown Heroes Collective Arts Brewing. From a high of 30 plus visits/orders in 2020, this past year saw just 13 stops and 7% of all my beer money, of which the majority occurred before June when I was a member of their bi-monthly beer club. I found the value of my $89.95 membership was not there and after I cancelled it, we only went back 3 times in the last 6 months of 2023. In contrast to the two previous years when they had multiple new beers every week coming in from their Toronto operation, the shutting down of that production facility and a focus on more core offerings led to an overall decline in new stuff, the thing that had me stopping in weekly for years. The times, they are a changin'...

  Rounding out the top 5 are two more Hamilton legends, both with 8 direct visits in the last 12 months. Fairweather (3.5%) and Merit (3%) continue to deliver high quality, excellent beers and should hope to make it out to visit them far more often in 2024. The lack of stops does not indicate any kind of drop in offerings or quality, but more a malaise on my part in leaving the house or doing much else on the way home from work than just going straight from A to B. 

  I think one of the reasons I like to talk about and explore what we spend is that it is often times a quiet thing in craft beer that no one really wants to discuss. It costs more to drink "better" beer, whiskey or wine, no doubt, but it seems a taboo subject for most people. Perhaps a holdover of the "talking about money is in bad taste" notion we were taught as kids or more likely, the incredible privilege we have to be able to afford to spend more than average on a luxury product when the economy is leaving so many struggling with the most basic of necessities. It isn't cheap to keep up with new releases and travel to visit breweries. It isn't just a matter of pure dollars either, time and energy, being able to have that personal hours away from working to do these things is becoming increasingly difficult for a lot of people as more and more have to juggle multiple jobs to just stay afloat.

  I'm not saying we shouldn't enjoy our great beer, in fact, I wish more people could do the same. But I have come to recognize the luck I have in being able to do so and wish that could be part of the discussion. We see breweries closing and people losing their dreams and investments, more to come on that later this year as well, but we must also acknowledge that when so many people live less than paycheque to paycheque, beer is a luxury that may not be possible to indulge in. Affordable craft beer is something we will need to see more of, which may leave some smaller brewers in serious trouble unless we see more upturn in the coming months when it comes to real spending dollars in the pockets of consumers. 

  By diving deep into what we spent in the last year, it has given me a chance to reflect on the value of where we put our dollars. I am given pause to realize how fortunate I am to have the money to do what I do and understand that this isn't a guarantee, life is precarious and when I look around at the people who are not doing well, living so close to edge or even over it, it drives me to try and address my issues in a smarter way so I can be a better person and maybe try and help lift someone else up with me. It's okay to talk about the price of beer, it's okay to acknowledge what we spend and the sheer joy it brings us to have it in our glass. But it does also behoove us to look around at our communities and wonder if we truly understand just how lucky we are.

Polk

January 18th, 2024

Beer Money : What we spent in 2020

  I go to work to make money. 

  I use that money to pay for the things I need and the things I want, because a man cannot work just to survive alone, there must be some reward, no matter how small it may seem.

  Enter beer. Well, beer, wine, Irish cream and a little whiskey for good measure. We enjoy our spirits here at The Manor, a glass of Riesling while dinner is made or perhaps a dollop of Bailey's in our morning cuppa on our day off. A few pints after dinner and maybe a few more than that when there is no labour for the next day in our schedule, but all in all, the libations do flow with a little heavier pour in the last year or so and our wrap up of 2020 makes a stop at budget town to see where all that money went. 

  To start things off, we are pretty lucky to have been able to both continue working full time throughout the pandemic and that dual middle class income coupled with no children means we have both a bit more free time while doing the whole social distancing thing and a little more disposable income than we usually would if we did our normal routines. Perhaps we spend more than other folks when it comes to booze, but it is what it is when the truth in numbers hits the eyes. 

  I track all of our expenses and review them at the end of every year to see how close we stuck to our budget, the alcohol one is always the most fun and often the most frightening. But  I love numbers, statistics and diving deep into what they meant. Without sharing the real and whole numbers, I'll breaak down some highlights.

 So, let's dive right in...

  Where we spent our boozy dollars

  1. LCBO (52 visits)

  The product we sought had to come from somewhere and in 2020 we made a concerted effort to get most of our beer direct from the breweries, utilizing the local liquor monopoly only for wine or spirits. We did somehow manage to still visit the LCBO 52 times last year and factoring in a box of wine and a bottle of Irish cream a month, on average, we still managed to drop a decent amount of cash on craft beer despite our best intentions. All told we spent 21.22% of our alcohol budget here, far and away the largest expenditure in our book despite our expanded ability to get almost everything delivered right to our door as the year went on. We certainly saw a real decline in the amount of actual physical visits to the LCBO from previous years, as the pandemic made us think about every trip outside our home with a second glance.

  2. Nickel Brook Brewing (50 visits/orders)

  Not really a surprise per se, almost a weekly stop on the way home from work for whatever was new and a six pack of my 2020 Beer of the Year, Headstock, make Nickel Brook the far and away winner of my hard earned cash when it comes to beer last year. 13.2% of all the booze we bought last year was from this OG Ontario brewery in real dollars and accounted for 25.25% of all beer picked up or delivered for the year. A trend that will probably continue for the foreseeable future with the lockdowns continuing to tighten.

3. Collective Arts Brewing (31visits/orders)

  My Hometown Heroes are a quick jaunt down the Nikola Tesla speedway on my way home from work and given the sheer number of releases they pumped out last year, this seems like a reasonable number of stops down by the bay. Accounting for 10.5% of all our beer spending, the bulk most likely being the huge IPA releases that probably numbered more than a dozen. A few lagers of course and that wicked $40 for a 24 of IPA No 11 back in March was an easy buy. I've not missed a single CA release in 5 years and hope to keep that streak alive as long as possible, doubling up now with their newly opened Toronto microbrew pub. 

4. Clifford Brewing (19 visits/orders)

  This number is much lower than 2019 for one reason only, the pandemic. We didn't stop in for a beer at all, even when we were allowed to do so, preferring to imbibe at home and honestly, we used to Uber over so we could both have a couple of pints, but that was not happening in 2020. Still a monthly or so stop to pick up the classics like Clifford Porter and Pinball with newer releases like Marigold and Artificial Paradise getting a generous percentage of our 12 packs. Clifford still accounted for almost 10% of all our beer orders in 2020 and that will likely rise later this year when, hopefully, we can get back in the taproom for a night of music and beer.

5. Merit Brewing (17 visits/orders )

  My favourite (non west coast) IPA is Merit's Young Rival and with their plethora of lagers and wine/beer hybrids, I make at least one stop a month on James Street to talk to Tej and Spinney and enjoy their company. One of the few patio pints we had in 2020 was at Merit and while we miss their taproom like crazy, being able to get their food delivered is a decided positive amongst a negative year in 2020. Big bottles of intriguing ideas appear like a star in the night and I find my cellar always has something lurking that Merit has created. Accounting for almost 6.5% of all alcohol bought in 2020, I am sure if the taproom was open, we'd spend more money there on food as well and be better off for it. Best fries in Hamilton.

The Curve did not Flatten

  One thing I really caught onto as the year went on was the not so gradual rise in spending when it came to booze. Even as we settled into to the Quarantine Routine, we seemed to acquire more beer to do it with. Early in 2020, we spent an average amount per week, roughly what we did in the previous 2 years based on my numbers. But once March hit, we saw an increase in pure dollars of 25%, most of which came from ordering directly from the breweries. With shipping charges and minimum orders hovering around $50 a pop, we gave in and did our part to support our favourite places. The onset of summer saw yet another jump of around 25% and our beer fridge outside was never left wanting for space. A few orders of well over $90 drove August to be our highest spending month of the year, not coincidentally that was also the month we both took our summer week off and just hung out at home in The Grotto enjoying a solitary life. 

  The rest of the year played out much the same, although it centered mostly on the 6 local Craft breweries in Hamilton and Burlington, they all piled on the releases and we happily bought them up. The final month of the year saw a doubling in what we bought compared to January of 2020 and even December of 2019. Leaning hard into those numbers once again saw a plethora of local orders, indeed more than 46% of all our spending was done at just those 6 local breweries closest to us. We have still quite a bit of beer lingering from the last months of the year as January heads towards its midpoint and have seen a significant slowdown in purchases so far in the new year, mindful of what we spent last year at the very forefront of our minds.

What Does it all Mean?

  The hard part about being honest with yourself is that you can't lie or spin the numbers in any way. The truth is the truth and while I know the pandemic certainly played a role in our purchases this year, the thing is that we just enjoy a few pints or a glass of wine each day and that's on us. Our orders tended to be smaller this year as we tried to support more Ontario breweries (40 in all that we ordered from) and to highlight the growing number of them offering home delivery. Sometimes it would be a particular returning beer that would catch our eye and lead to an order or perhaps a mini road trip if they were close enough. Ordering beer for two people with very different tastes also made for some interesting choices and also kept me from putting other orders in where there was nothing for Kat to enjoy. I'll admit the shipping charges ate up a slight portion of our expenses and there were some breweries we didn't order from simply because we couldn't justify the charge to get it delivered. Most of our orders were for between 8 to 12 beers, often getting a few doubles of certain beers to share out with folks we know who haven't been so fortunate as us when it comes to working and others for friends whom we give beer back and forth with. 

  I know just how privileged we are to have this kind of money to be able to spend on something so unnecessary for our survival. I cannot fathom how hard some people have it right now and am mindful of just how lucky we have been in the last few years as I dragged myself out of the financial and mental disaster of 2012 when I almost lost everything I had. I know the very bottom and working to get back to level has not been something I've taken for granted. So I do look at this dissection of how we spent our money with an eye to why and what we can do to improve going forward. It used to be that we would buy every beer a brewery had in the fridge when we stopped in, even if the styles weren't something we desired. That stopped a few years back when I first did this deep dive into our beer budget and I think with this revisit 2 years later, I can see a change coming again in relation to what we buy and how much we spend per order. Do I need 4 of that new IPA every time? Well, need is not the word I'd use and I hope I can change a little for the better as we move into a still very bizarre year in 2021 to come. 

  I like to buy beer, but I like to drink it too and both should be done with a touch more moderation than 2020 showed. Awareness and sticking to the monthly budget will be a good starting point and in 12 months we shall return to this subject again and see just how well I managed to do.

Stay safe out there!

Polk