American Craft Beer Prices – Again!

By scot in Beer, Lounge on Saturday, February 10th, 2018

American craft beer prices continue to climb. There seems to be no stop in site. It drives me to home brew more often in spite of a crazy busy day-to-day schedule.

This most recent rant on American craft beer prices was brought out by the purchases I recently made at the local box beer store. Severn different American craft beers were purchased with an overall cost of $96.93 (excluding tax). Side note: this was the first American craft beer purchase in several months. Below is a list of the purchases:

• 4 pack, 16 ounce @$11.99, Son of Juice, Maplewood Brewery
• 4 pack, 12 ounce @$14.99, Victory At Sea – High West Barrel Aged, Ballast Point Brewing Company
• 1 750 milliliter @$8.99, Bam Biere, Jolly Pumpkin
• 1 22 ounce @$11.99, Fire, Skulls & Money, Toppling Goliath
• 1 22 ounce @23.99, The Abyss – Tequila Barrel, Deschutes Brewery
• 1 750 milliliter @$13.99, Serpent Stout, Lost Abbey
• 1 22 ounce @$10.99, Coffee Abduction, Pipeworks Brewing

Only one beer under $10.00. And, that beer, when I originally had it was only $6.99. That is a $2.00 price hike or, more meaningful, a 28.6% price hike. Other beers, on the list above, that I have reviewed on Two Beer Dudes, have had similar price hikes (why logging this crap is so important).

According to the graphic (huffingtonpost.com) some 52% of the cost of American craft beer comes from the distributor and retail markups. Never thought it was that much. Wait. Why does beer still cost so much when purchased directly from the brewery?

This isn’t my first rodeo discussing (complaining) about American craft beer prices…

Past articles on American craft cost:

• The Co$t of American Craft Beer
• Craft Beer Destined for Big Crash?
• Craft Beer Pricing By Beer Store?
• Are Limited Release Beer Prices Destined to Increase

Some of the articles above were speculative. Surprisingly, possibly not, but some of those have come true. Especially the post on American craft beer limited lease price increases.

What is next?

The only way that change will occur: people have to stop paying the rising prices for American craft beer. But, the fever is on, it is the in thing. This is scary similar to the wine industry some 15 – 20 years ago.

Prediction: I think that the American craft beer bubble is going to burst in the next three to five years.

In the meantime, make mine a home brew. Enjoy!

Useless Fact: There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess.