New in the Area Part II

Reads 5625 • Replies 61 • Started Saturday, December 10, 2011 1:48:35 PM CT

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Message phaleslu P admin beers 16553 º places 794 º 12:32 Mon 1/9/2012 Originally posted by gregwilsonstl This is great conversation, but I’m confused by one thing. Why is Perennial pricing things based off of what their expenses are? Shouldn’t prices be based off of what customers are willing to spend? Further re: expenses. Variable costs are one thing. I get that ingredients can be expensive (especially if you get the right ones)....but are their fixed costs reasonable? Are they heavily leveraged? Is their owner paying himself like they are already established, and not a start up? I don’t expect anyone to have these answers...but all I know is I want to try their beer...who knows, maybe it’s really relatively expensive and I still feel like I get my money’s worth. Cory’s post above probably explains most of this better than I could. I would say that no, pricing should be based on what the brewer needs to charge rather than what consumers will pay. I have no idea what Perennial’s fixed costs might be, nor how leveraged the company is, but these are likely a much higher piece of the pie than for a well-established brewer like Schlafly (and like Cory said, they’ll be a smaller piece of the pie down the road). However, the pricing structure indicates there are some significant variable costs; vanilla, cinnamon, and a lot of the other ingredients they’re using are very expensive. Phil and Cory aren’t lining their pockets. It takes time to hit the sweet spot in the market; if they priced too low to start, they’d never recoup their initial costs and it wouldn’t make sense to even sell bottles. If they priced too high, they’ll collect dust. My guess is that these bottles are priced exactly where they need to be to get off the ground financially, and sales seem to be doing okay from what I can tell. If the owner were pricing his beer like they were already well-established, if anything that would mean prices would be a little lower because they’d be benefitting from scale, more production efficiencies, more market knowledge, and so forth.
Message seymour beers 2594 º places 50 º 12:36 Mon 1/9/2012 No, I think Greg is going the other way with it. Charge 12 or 15 or 30 or whatever the market will bear because super-premium beer is a luxury, just like super-premium ice-cream, wine, cars, etc. I assumed Perennial bottles are expensive because they’re really good. Leave it at that, and don’t muddy the waters with emotional pleading. I haven’t actually ponied up the money for their expensive 750s yet, but I’ve heard they’re worth it, so someday I will. I’ve heard the brewpub sampler flight is like $15 too, which is why I haven’t tried them that way either. But again, someday when I’ve got a little extra money and I’m feeling fancy-pants...
Message phaleslu P admin beers 16553 º places 794 º 12:42 Mon 1/9/2012 I bought a case of the Abraxas at the release. Expensive? Yes. But I’ve been able to send out about 10 of them in a bunch of trades I was wrapping up, and some guys have already rated it- as you can see it’s doing very well here. Plus, I have a few to cellar for myself. I also have been sure to send out Peace Offering as a trade bonus because that beer is awesome and I’d like to see it get more attention. St. Louis doesn’t have the equivalent of a Cigar City or Bruery at this point, but we might very well be seeing the beginning of one- there’s no need for locals to dismiss it. Also, the very well established, efficient Deschutes hit the market today with $3 bombers of Mirror Pond and Black Butte. I’ve actually not had either of these but will definitely give them a shot at that price. They’re on shelves in the county; anyone know if they’re out in the City yet? Schlafly’s Vanilla Milk Stout collaboration with The Royale returns tomorrow at 7 at The Royale. They sold the shit out of this last year - about twice as fast as anticipated - so get there in the next week or two if you want to try it.

Message jckp64 beers 356 º places 7 º 12:47 Mon 1/9/2012 Hitting the shelves today and tomorrow. I believe Randall’s has gotten both in today.
Message gregwilsonstl beers 2979 º places 37 º 13:04 Mon 1/9/2012 Seymour that is exactly what I am saying. There is nothing wrong with a $12 price point, nor a $3,000 price point...if people will pay it AND you have favorable inventory turnover. It is very foolish to price something based off of expenses, unless you are selling a commodity. It’s also foolish to lower your prices (and thus profit margin) just because you realize economies of scale, unless you are selling a commodity. Anyway, to be clear, I am not attacking Perennial, nor their founders. I was just taken back when I read Cory’s post mentioning that their beer is expensive because (amongst other reasons) they have 4 employees. Does that mean if they hired 4 more, they would raise the price of the beer even higher? Consumers care about consumers’ expenses, consumers do not care about producers expenses. Otherwise we would only buy things at cost.
Message phaleslu P admin beers 16553 º places 794 º 13:45 Mon 1/9/2012 A third Schlafly collaboration with Culinaria is coming out: Weizenbock. There is an old entry in the Schlafly database for Weizenbock- almost 10 years old. That one has minimal info and only 2 ratings- does anyone see any harm in just updating that one for the new entry?
Message vyvvy P beers 7776 º places 26 º 14:18 Mon 1/9/2012 Originally posted by phaleslu A third Schlafly collaboration with Culinaria is coming out: Weizenbock. There is an old entry in the Schlafly database for Weizenbock- almost 10 years old. That one has minimal info and only 2 ratings- does anyone see any harm in just updating that one for the new entry? Those people might come on here after their four and six year absences and be pissed that their unique experience has been merged with the new beer. Nope - do see an issue at all as long as the numbers of the new one are anywhere close to the old one.

Message phaleslu P admin beers 16553 º places 794 º 14:55 Mon 1/9/2012 Yeah, I was thinking that with two dead accounts and virtually no info other than the name on the old one, we can just make it the new one.
Message phaleslu P admin beers 16553 º places 794 º 10:54 Tue 1/10/2012 Updated: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/schlafly-weizenbock/8383/ Anyone know when it hits shelves?
Message phaleslu P admin beers 16553 º places 794 º 08:01 Thu 1/12/2012 The Civil Life Vienna is on tap now. It’s very good, too. Also, I made sure their entries got updated to more accurately reflect the names on the menu, along with the ABV for each.