I feel this sort of underrates what you're paying for with a pint, which is so much more than just raw materials. Rent, labor (brewers, sales reps, tap room staff, cleaners, cellar), insurance, electric, water, licenses, advertising, and so so much more.
Even shitty pour pints in bars are 6 to 8 bucks Canadian. 10 for premium brands.About 50 bucks a case of 341Ml bottles of Meh beer. I still can't get why so many Ontario residents wont homebrew. The stand alone ingredients aren't taxed. I've got my Pilsner costs down to about 12 bucks a case.
This is such a great video, guys! Your recipe videos have helped me hone my homebrew skills over the last few years, but the entertainment value of your videos has definitely boosted.
Thanks for the update on the keg fermenters! Can't wait for my pair to ship, it's been quite the wait from the day 1 order I placed. Gonna make some great beers with them. Cheers!
make more videos on this style tackling a topic and brewing beer at the same time. its the most engaging format I've seen from you guys so far and way better than other people making craft brewing content
As Canadian the answer is mostly taxe$. Homebrew ingredients are not taxed as they have no alcoholic content in raw form. The homebrew suppliers that are in business have no.problem charging 100 bucks for a bag of Weyermann malt. Overall I will still brew and its still viable to do so. But getting pricey pro or homebrew. Great video guys.
Here in the Netherlands as well. Beer is taxed at roughly 40 cents per liter for excise duty and on top of that VAT is 21%. So if a brewery needs 5 bucks to cover their costs + profit, they will need to charge 6.50, roughly.
I think y'all did a well-rounded job covering why this is going on and, while you didn't get into the finer details, you did manage to touch on the various challenges (on top of everything else) that face breweries today. Hard to balance the length of a video like this with the research going into this against the attention many might pay to it. And you did it while doing what you guys normally do: make a beer.🍻
Come to Australia and see how expensive decent beer is here! We have all those contributing factors plus one of the highest rates of alcohol tax in the world.
It blew my mind when I visited one of the most notoriously expensive cities in the US and the australians I met there were raving about how much cheaper the beer was. The place is so expensive it's full of homeless encampments and they were walking around saying they didn't get reamed nearly as hard as they do back home.
@@ffwast Absolutely. About AUD$10-16 for a schooner (425ml/about 14 oz) of decent beer in a craft bar here in Sydney. Touristy areas or trendy bars could be 50% more than that. I lived in Michigan for 6 years, took US$4 pints of midwest IPA for granted.
Beer prices in Australia are ridiculous. From NZ I thought I was buying a a 12 or 18 pack, but it was a 6 pack. Wine is cheap though, and so good. But it’s wine😂
@@yovaalvarado9773 Yes, at least homebrewing is less expensive than in the US, 25€ is cheap! I pay 29€ for 25kg Malterie du Château pale ale malt. Love Akhlys🤘
1. A lot of states require you to make beer for sale in a commercially zoned area, not your garage. 2. Scaling up beer production (i.e. making more than 5-10 gallons at a time) is really expensive 3. Paying labor/lease for brewery space is really expensive. 4. People are willing to pay it. Never thought I would save money homebrewing.
Kyle: your analysis is spot on. I think more push around homebrewing cost should be talked about to get more people brewing at home and growing the community. The cost of ingredients for a 3-gallon pale ale I make, its about $35 for distilled water, the yeast, the grain bill and the hops (granted I'm only using cascade). My pale ale has won awards in the homebrewing competitions(gold and silver). So for $35, I can make and drink about 24 pints of amazing pale ale that I love where the total cost at a brewery (if the cost of a pint is $5) would run me about $120 on the lower cost end. My cost is about $1.46 per pint, dang good deal. I've stopped buying beer at the store unless there is one I really want to have, and just drink the homebrew I make or support a local brewery if I'm looking to go out and enjoy a pint or two. I have saved so much money from doing this! The only downside to brewing beer at home, is your start up cost. Though, you can always start for a great starters kit from clawhammer supply for only $99!
Yea this year I plan on only drinking my own homebrew after spending way too much money buying beer last year. This will hopefully help in 2 ways.. 1, it will probably reduce how much I drink, and 2, kind of force me to brew more and enjoy this hobby that I've kind if neglected over the past few years.
Gave a thumbs up for the Swift comment cuz that's funny! Also even in Portland pints are rarely $8 a pint. But I used to make an agave wine (not carbonated) that cost me 80 cents for a 22oz bottle to make at 12% abv. So there's still a crazy markup, it's probably local taxes.
You would think that with the saturation of the market beer prices would go down but because the demand for hops is so high it actually brings prices up.
Haha love you guys. In short your video is "make your own delicious beer far cheaper than you can buy it. And did you know we also sell all the kit you need to brew your own beer?" Brilliant. Great style of video though. More of this please.
When the lagers are $7 you know it's not about hops and raw ingredients, the European grain bill is only a few pennies more per pint. Most consumers would be shocked at how cheap hops are for pro brewers buying at scale. For the enormous 6 lb / bbl hops, they could be paying between $3 / lb for cascade to $4-7 per lb for high end hops the high end for NZ/Aus hops if they have to buy on the spot market. So let's err on the high side and average $5/lb, that's $30 for 31 gallons of beer, 248 pints (but will probably incur 3-5% more loss from T90 pellets), but it comes down to $0.12 per pint to massively dry hop that surf wax IPA. And about $0.05 per pint to raise the grain bill from 6.x% abv to 8.x%, now you have that $8 DDH DIPA, which costs $0.17 more in ingredients to make. If you homebrew, you can make a premium IPA at home for about $0.40 a pint (or $25 for 10lbs of grain, 5-6oz of hops, a packet of dry yeast = 60 pints). That's putting a zero-dollar value on your labor, because this is called a FUN HOBBY. As for the $8 IPA or $7 lager, simply put, breweries charge what they can because the market will bear it. There was a ton of greedflation after the actual inflation of 2020-2022, they raise prices because they can. That $8 pint is paying for the can artist, the marketing team, the LUKR faucet, the rent in a premium taproom location with quartersawn barnwood siding. This is not a secret in the industry, owners will tell you their margins at their taprooms are fantastic when compared with distributing and having accounts (e.g. restaurants). That's why you're seeing the model of satellite taprooms opening up - the brewery, the east side of town, the west side of town, maybe the next major metro over. Sadly it's turning visiting a craft brewery into more like visiting a winery: it's a "splurge" to go tasting, rather than a local watering hole for plumbers and tech workers alike to go hang at a few times a week. Taking my wife and two kids, enjoying 4 pints between myself and my wife, two entrees, and two kids food orders, plus a tip, I'm walking out of there with a $100 charge on my card. That's priced the everyman out of beer, that's winery pricing. If I went and drank at a brewery 3-4 times a week when I wanted to drink beer, just beer for myself and no food, I'd be several thousands of dollars poorer at the end of the year vs homebrewing or drinking cans off prem. It's a shame because I enjoy visiting breweries.
Boom. Nailed it. Tap room costs and other amenities cost $$$. That quarter sawn paneling that was financed at a super low variable rate in 2019 is a heavy burden to bear now that money isn’t free anymore. Also grocery store margins are garbage and tap room profits are used to make up for that. But the recipes are def increasing prices as well. You can’t deny that. Even at the homebrew scale it’s just as easy to rack up $100 for 5 gallons worth of ingredients as it is to pay $50. Paying for a new batch of fancy yeast costs a significant amount more than propping up some of the same old stuff from the last batch.
Definitely local where possible. Lower bulk rates start at the 50 lb and larger sacks. The problem is that to UPS, USPS and FedEx, 50 lbs is considered an overweight package, as it may be a safety hazard to people handling it. They will still ship it, but at a premium. There is no cheap way to have bulk grain shipped to your house.
@JeffTheHokie yeah it is unfortunate. I live near a large malting facility, so most of my base malts are cheap, thankfully. Maybe check with breweries nearby? If you get to know the brewmaster, they might be able to order an extra 50lb in their next shipment.
Great video as always! Totally agree with you on this one. Making good beer isn’t cheap!To your point, that beer prices are up 5-9% while input costs per your FRED graph are up 20+! Sounds to me like the breweries are taking a hit in order to continue offering beer at the most affordable price they can. Also, just my two cents on this but at least here in NYC $16-20 4-packs and $8 pints have been pretty normal for a long time at the hype craft breweries. Not sure how to even find data on this but I’d be interested to know how much of these price increases came from local breweries vs. national. 2019 was when I started seeing beers like hazy voodoo ranger and hazy little thing hit the market and I suspect big breweries simply shifting their product mix to a more expensive style is a big contributor to the price increases
Yes, exactly. We didn't want to get too far into the weeds, but it's clear that one of the reasons beer is more expensive at breweries is because grocery store prices haven't changed much at all they aren't making much, if anything, on those sales due to cost input increases.
In my country its not exactly like this. Usually craft breweries are working a bit differently. Basically u go with your recipie to the brewery and they make your beer. You just buy this beer from them and resell it. Cost of making 1l of pure beer so liquid is about 1$. Then u need to add keg/ can/ bottle + label etc so in general 1 can/bottle costs about 0,7$ max. We buy this kind of beer in the craft beer shops for at least 2,5$ and sometimes even 4$ so u can imagine the difference. Of course there are some other cost like transport, wage to the store, storage etc but i would say 1 beer can be maximum 1$. And we are talking about oat cream ipas, new zeland hazy etc. Like good good stuff. So this is sick for me. That what also motivated me 2 years ago to start homebrewing and i can close my beer bottle in 0,3$ with everything (water, gas, ingriedients) included. Cheers
Idk man, here in Portland you can find amazing pints poured great for around 6-7 bucks. Geographic location has everything to do with it also. Even out of state breweries from coast to coast beers cost around the same.
what size fridge do you use to ferment beer in? im worried about buying online due to the size being wrong. not all places give the exact measurements not sure if i need a 3.5 cubic feet or not . i need something that will fit a 5 gallon fermenter plus airlock
The standard business model, is 3 times cost. Cost to make the present product, the next product, and of course profit. So if a product costs $1 to make, you sell that product for $3. So 8 dollars is not outside the realm of possibility, especially for smaller breweries.
How long would you be willing to let the beer sit in the fermenting keg? Just trying to decide if I am always going to transfer from the fermenting keg to the serving keg
i have wondered that myself. i rarely buy beer and make my own 5 gallons at a time. hops are ridiculous as is european malt. i use mostly american 2 row and non trendy hops like cascade, magnum, etc and can bang out a couple cases for around 25-35 bucks, give or take. so thats like what, 50-75 cents a beer for a standard boring ipa or stout. lets call it a buck if you use lots of expensive hops. i have zero business sense so have no idea how to factor in all the overhead costs of a brewery or pub but figure that even allowing a good amount for fru fru urinal cakes and what not, a brewery/pub is making a pretty nice profit.
The big 3 brewers own the supply chains, so my advice to small breweries is to vertically integrate and start brewing light American lagers creating competition directly for their consumers.
I also think light American lagers and pilsners are a big gap in a lot of brewery’s menus. I don’t usually want an 8% double or triple ipa to start the night and I like having something easy to sip on with food especially.
I wanted to go into more detail on this. New Belgium actually filed a suit against AB InBev over this about 10 years ago. I couldn’t find enough concrete info for this round. Perhaps a good topic for a future video
Inflation? A six-pack of dank beers 20 years ago was $15.... I can go to the store right now and get a six pack of hams for three dollars... Was the same 20 years ago as well
Here in ol Vancouver BC Canada we pay about 9 and some change per pint after the tax man gets it. They actually just released a TAX study on our Beer, Wine and spirits... We pay 50% tax on beer and 65% tax on wine and 75% on Spirits. Oh and the best part.. MR tax man is adding another 6.3% tax to it all April 1st. A lot of craft breweries are getting pinched to the point of closing.
You pay $14.99 USD ($20CAD) for a 6x pack? - Seems fair for North America at this point. Alberta, Canada. A 4x pack of tall boys is $16-19 CAD. Typically, $18 if you buy right from the brewery. But I've seen stores sell that same beer for $16-17. Oh! - Forgot to mention. Trudeau set up a liquor tax, So it goes up every year appox %5. Either way, it's a rip.
What do youguys feel about the cost increase of liquid yeast recently? I made a few batches, Using half liquid half dry, and then all dry yeast. Of course, they taste different however, they still tasted great, no matter if they were liquid or dry yeast. I am never going back to liquid yeast, total freaking rip off….
You’re so friggin lucky you don’t live in Australia. The prices you’re talking about are still cheap compared to here. You want a schnoor (425ml) of craft beer you’re paying $12 to $17 a beer!!!. They’ve have just again raised the tax on beer last Monday, so enjoy while you can, and I’m brewing at home as much as I can!.
I can brew 5gal of a DIPA for $40, I have no idea how these breweries exists with all the competition and still charging $16 for a 4pk of tall boys E: finished the video and you guys had $1.34/pnt, so close to what I had!
The annoying part over here is that breweries start pumping out "craft lagers" for $6 per can in store.. - so yeah $36 if you get a sixpack. (5%, no dryhops) If it was a double dryhopped NEIPA. I could understand why its expensive. - but for Lagers I don't want to pay more than $3 per can or $6 in a taproom/restaurant etc.
I about went into detail on lagers but held back for the reason mentioned in the other reply to this. I think most craft breweries have limited space and probably do a true lager. I wouldn’t believe bud light is truly lagers even if I saw it with my own eyes. In my opinion, it has a horrible green apple taste, indicative of a rushed fermentation.
I love great beer and going to the breweries, but I'm lucky because I've got amazing breweries that are charging 6-7 bucks a pint. Yet there's new ones charging 8-10 bucks a pint. I refuse to pay 8-10 bucks a pint I understand that places need to make money but it's beer, it's supposed to be the middle class American drink. We're not aging it for 5 years like whiskey. I personally think this is why breweries are hurting because people don't see the point of going to the brewery for a few beers and the bills close to 50 bucks for 4 beers with a tip. Luckily in Colorado there's great places around the Longmont area that have great beers for 6 bucks a pint. I'm all about supporting the local breweries but some of these places just aren't worth the money imho
Commercial brewing pushed too much damn fruit, pastry, hazy, and lazy ass soda to be worth supporting. Barley, hops, yeast, water. Make beer Beer again !
The war started a long time ago and craft breweries are loosing big time. Study the history and production of breweries. Your favorite craft brewery might be owned by one of the large corporations or the beer is contract brewed by a larger brewery. The big 3 are gobbling up the competition.
Some breweries are worth the extra cost. However I do think that some breweries try to go over the top with the recipe so that the beer sounds more complex when its not that complex and could have been better being simpler. I absolutely enjoy hanging out at a brewery and drinking $8-$10 pints, but I have a really hard time buying cans to take home.
I do not mind paying $7-8 for a pint at the local craft breweries, figuring I am paying for the atmosphere as well. It is still worlds cheaper to homebrew though. Lately I have noticed that those craft brews which are sold in liquor stores locally carry a lower price tag for the pints, usually in the high teens for a 4 pack.This is a good thing.
Are we talking about normal beer or craft beer? With craft beer I blame Untappd. The higher the rating, the higher the price and you can ask yourself in some cases what came first. The price or the rating?
Imagine paying $15 for arguably some of the best most flavorful hop forward beers in the world. Meanwhile no one even blinks about a $15 bottle of reg grade wine. Like everyone would consider that a "budget" wine... Beer is still incredibly cheap for what it is. Stop crying about it
@@brewinfusedyeti3798 I'd argue that's not true. Wine has a much higher profit margin vs. beer. Wine is also a blended product whereas craft beer is not. There is much more room for error and producing it is cheaper because it doesn't go through a hot side brewing process. Wine also isn't as sterile as beer for many reasons that I won't get into here which also makes production more simplistic. More importantly though, as a consumer why should I care what it costs to produce? I'm not producing it. Do you consider the production costs of everything you buy? Beer and Wine are to me and I'm sure many others are supplementary goods. A six pack goes up $2 and people lose their minds. A wine bottle goes up $2 and no one cares (atleast in the US). That makes no sense to me.
@riskyb250 the core components of wine, being grapes vs grain is the most expensive difference. A quick comparison shows that to brew 5 gallons of wine, you would need 25lbs of grapes. That's roughly $60 at my local grocery store. 5 gallons of beer on the other hand needs roughly 10 pounds of grain, which is as low as $10. Grain is far easier to grow than grapes... Also, why wouldn't you compare cost to brew vs buy? That's one of the biggest benefits of homebrewing. This is a homebrewing channel.
@@brewinfusedyeti3798 To brew beer you need a mill, a brewhouse, and a fermenter. To make wine you need need some crushing equipment and a fermenter. Equipment wise it's much more simplistic making wine vs. beer. Much much lower start up costs for example- no steam boiler install and no fire marshal paperwork that you would need for a grain mill. Many "wineries" don't even make their own wine they just buy white label products from CA and put their own label on it. These are called "marketing houses". Due to the nature of beer it's much more difficult and capital intensive to do this with beer. Beer doesn't have nearly as long of a shelf life as wine. Grain (really malt which is different) isn't the expensive ingredient cost of making beer it's labor #1, packaging #2, and then probably hops #3 (which isn't even required in wine). . All three of those a brewery requires more of than a winery. Using grain cost as your main reasoning tells me I'm probably wasting my time arguing with you. Again, beer in general has a much lower profit margin than wine in general by volume. This is an objective fact within the industry. On top of all of this, there are often draconian beer laws that vary by state which often hamstring beer distribution to a greater degree then wine. I'm talking about professional wine and beer making...not your hobby wine making. Which is the subject of this video we're discussing. Yea sure your table grapes at your grocery story might sell for what you're describing but wine grapes and wine must in general is relatively inexpensive when purchased in bulk in CA, OR, or WA for example. It's extremely cheap when purchased in Chile or Argentina. Source: 10 years working professionally in the fermented beverage industry
I feel this sort of underrates what you're paying for with a pint, which is so much more than just raw materials.
Rent, labor (brewers, sales reps, tap room staff, cleaners, cellar), insurance, electric, water, licenses, advertising, and so so much more.
Yes, true.
MAKE PINTS $5 AGAIN
$2 Pints!
Even shitty pour pints in bars are 6 to 8 bucks Canadian. 10 for premium brands.About 50 bucks a case of 341Ml bottles of Meh beer. I still can't get why so many Ontario residents wont homebrew. The stand alone ingredients aren't taxed. I've got my Pilsner costs down to about 12 bucks a case.
@@tonesmith909pints for a song!
This is such a great video, guys! Your recipe videos have helped me hone my homebrew skills over the last few years, but the entertainment value of your videos has definitely boosted.
Thanks for the update on the keg fermenters! Can't wait for my pair to ship, it's been quite the wait from the day 1 order I placed. Gonna make some great beers with them. Cheers!
make more videos on this style tackling a topic and brewing beer at the same time. its the most engaging format I've seen from you guys so far and way better than other people making craft brewing content
As Canadian the answer is mostly taxe$. Homebrew ingredients are not taxed as they have no alcoholic content in raw form. The homebrew suppliers that are in business have no.problem charging 100 bucks for a bag of Weyermann malt. Overall I will still brew and its still viable to do so. But getting pricey pro or homebrew. Great video guys.
Here in the Netherlands as well. Beer is taxed at roughly 40 cents per liter for excise duty and on top of that VAT is 21%. So if a brewery needs 5 bucks to cover their costs + profit, they will need to charge 6.50, roughly.
I think y'all did a well-rounded job covering why this is going on and, while you didn't get into the finer details, you did manage to touch on the various challenges (on top of everything else) that face breweries today. Hard to balance the length of a video like this with the research going into this against the attention many might pay to it. And you did it while doing what you guys normally do: make a beer.🍻
Come to Australia and see how expensive decent beer is here! We have all those contributing factors plus one of the highest rates of alcohol tax in the world.
It blew my mind when I visited one of the most notoriously expensive cities in the US and the australians I met there were raving about how much cheaper the beer was. The place is so expensive it's full of homeless encampments and they were walking around saying they didn't get reamed nearly as hard as they do back home.
@@ffwast Absolutely. About AUD$10-16 for a schooner (425ml/about 14 oz) of decent beer in a craft bar here in Sydney. Touristy areas or trendy bars could be 50% more than that. I lived in Michigan for 6 years, took US$4 pints of midwest IPA for granted.
Beer prices in Australia are ridiculous. From NZ I thought I was buying a a 12 or 18 pack, but it was a 6 pack. Wine is cheap though, and so good. But it’s wine😂
This is one of the reasons why I started homebrew, in France where I live a pint of craft is 10-15 freakin Euros.
Same here in Neighboring Belgium, but my local Brewers Supplier sells a 25 Kilogram bag of Base malt for around €25! Nice Akhlys cover by the way!
@@yovaalvarado9773 Yes, at least homebrewing is less expensive than in the US, 25€ is cheap! I pay 29€ for 25kg Malterie du Château pale ale malt. Love Akhlys🤘
Tariffs always hurt people in the country that enforces said tariffs.
This video makes me happy. Thanks
Glad to hear you are getting close to shipping the Kegmenters!!
Us too
@ClawhammerSupply looking fwd to receive my shipping notice.
Honestly, I very infrequently visit a brewery that has pints for more than $5-$6.
1. A lot of states require you to make beer for sale in a commercially zoned area, not your garage.
2. Scaling up beer production (i.e. making more than 5-10 gallons at a time) is really expensive
3. Paying labor/lease for brewery space is really expensive.
4. People are willing to pay it.
Never thought I would save money homebrewing.
Kyle: your analysis is spot on. I think more push around homebrewing cost should be talked about to get more people brewing at home and growing the community. The cost of ingredients for a 3-gallon pale ale I make, its about $35 for distilled water, the yeast, the grain bill and the hops (granted I'm only using cascade). My pale ale has won awards in the homebrewing competitions(gold and silver). So for $35, I can make and drink about 24 pints of amazing pale ale that I love where the total cost at a brewery (if the cost of a pint is $5) would run me about $120 on the lower cost end. My cost is about $1.46 per pint, dang good deal.
I've stopped buying beer at the store unless there is one I really want to have, and just drink the homebrew I make or support a local brewery if I'm looking to go out and enjoy a pint or two. I have saved so much money from doing this!
The only downside to brewing beer at home, is your start up cost. Though, you can always start for a great starters kit from clawhammer supply for only $99!
Would you share your recipe? I am planning on brewing a few pale ale this spring, would be fun to try out a medal winning recipe!
@@brewinfusedyeti3798 hey, for some reason. CZcams keeps removing my reply! It’s in brewfather and the recipe name is Millers Pond Pale Ale.
Yea this year I plan on only drinking my own homebrew after spending way too much money buying beer last year. This will hopefully help in 2 ways.. 1, it will probably reduce how much I drink, and 2, kind of force me to brew more and enjoy this hobby that I've kind if neglected over the past few years.
@@RegicideBrewing looks delicious! Thank you for sharing!
It's in the description
Gave a thumbs up for the Swift comment cuz that's funny!
Also even in Portland pints are rarely $8 a pint. But I used to make an agave wine (not carbonated) that cost me 80 cents for a 22oz bottle to make at 12% abv. So there's still a crazy markup, it's probably local taxes.
Another great vid, beer looks lush cheers 🍻👍
You would think that with the saturation of the market beer prices would go down but because the demand for hops is so high it actually brings prices up.
Going to Mooresville NC for work training. Had some really good beers there last time!
The big breweries boosted their prices way above inflation (read, gouging) and offer rebates and coupons to bring beer down to its real market price.
Haha love you guys. In short your video is "make your own delicious beer far cheaper than you can buy it. And did you know we also sell all the kit you need to brew your own beer?" Brilliant.
Great style of video though. More of this please.
Yes! I’ll be getting the fermentation keg soon.
When the lagers are $7 you know it's not about hops and raw ingredients, the European grain bill is only a few pennies more per pint.
Most consumers would be shocked at how cheap hops are for pro brewers buying at scale. For the enormous 6 lb / bbl hops, they could be paying between $3 / lb for cascade to $4-7 per lb for high end hops the high end for NZ/Aus hops if they have to buy on the spot market. So let's err on the high side and average $5/lb, that's $30 for 31 gallons of beer, 248 pints (but will probably incur 3-5% more loss from T90 pellets), but it comes down to $0.12 per pint to massively dry hop that surf wax IPA. And about $0.05 per pint to raise the grain bill from 6.x% abv to 8.x%, now you have that $8 DDH DIPA, which costs $0.17 more in ingredients to make.
If you homebrew, you can make a premium IPA at home for about $0.40 a pint (or $25 for 10lbs of grain, 5-6oz of hops, a packet of dry yeast = 60 pints). That's putting a zero-dollar value on your labor, because this is called a FUN HOBBY.
As for the $8 IPA or $7 lager, simply put, breweries charge what they can because the market will bear it. There was a ton of greedflation after the actual inflation of 2020-2022, they raise prices because they can. That $8 pint is paying for the can artist, the marketing team, the LUKR faucet, the rent in a premium taproom location with quartersawn barnwood siding. This is not a secret in the industry, owners will tell you their margins at their taprooms are fantastic when compared with distributing and having accounts (e.g. restaurants). That's why you're seeing the model of satellite taprooms opening up - the brewery, the east side of town, the west side of town, maybe the next major metro over.
Sadly it's turning visiting a craft brewery into more like visiting a winery: it's a "splurge" to go tasting, rather than a local watering hole for plumbers and tech workers alike to go hang at a few times a week. Taking my wife and two kids, enjoying 4 pints between myself and my wife, two entrees, and two kids food orders, plus a tip, I'm walking out of there with a $100 charge on my card. That's priced the everyman out of beer, that's winery pricing. If I went and drank at a brewery 3-4 times a week when I wanted to drink beer, just beer for myself and no food, I'd be several thousands of dollars poorer at the end of the year vs homebrewing or drinking cans off prem. It's a shame because I enjoy visiting breweries.
Boom. Nailed it. Tap room costs and other amenities cost $$$. That quarter sawn paneling that was financed at a super low variable rate in 2019 is a heavy burden to bear now that money isn’t free anymore. Also grocery store margins are garbage and tap room profits are used to make up for that. But the recipes are def increasing prices as well. You can’t deny that. Even at the homebrew scale it’s just as easy to rack up $100 for 5 gallons worth of ingredients as it is to pay $50. Paying for a new batch of fancy yeast costs a significant amount more than propping up some of the same old stuff from the last batch.
I made 5 gallons of Belgian Tripel for $65. It was about $3 a pint. That’s why I home brew
Definitely recommend buying locally sourced grain in bulk. I pay < $1/lb, my simple lagers end up costing ~$20 for 10 gallons!
Definitely local where possible. Lower bulk rates start at the 50 lb and larger sacks. The problem is that to UPS, USPS and FedEx, 50 lbs is considered an overweight package, as it may be a safety hazard to people handling it. They will still ship it, but at a premium. There is no cheap way to have bulk grain shipped to your house.
@JeffTheHokie yeah it is unfortunate. I live near a large malting facility, so most of my base malts are cheap, thankfully. Maybe check with breweries nearby? If you get to know the brewmaster, they might be able to order an extra 50lb in their next shipment.
Great video as always! Totally agree with you on this one. Making good beer isn’t cheap!To your point, that beer prices are up 5-9% while input costs per your FRED graph are up 20+! Sounds to me like the breweries are taking a hit in order to continue offering beer at the most affordable price they can.
Also, just my two cents on this but at least here in NYC $16-20 4-packs and $8 pints have been pretty normal for a long time at the hype craft breweries. Not sure how to even find data on this but I’d be interested to know how much of these price increases came from local breweries vs. national. 2019 was when I started seeing beers like hazy voodoo ranger and hazy little thing hit the market and I suspect big breweries simply shifting their product mix to a more expensive style is a big contributor to the price increases
Yes, exactly. We didn't want to get too far into the weeds, but it's clear that one of the reasons beer is more expensive at breweries is because grocery store prices haven't changed much at all they aren't making much, if anything, on those sales due to cost input increases.
In the UK mass market beer is much cheaper in cans than in bars. But craft works out the same at the brewery as in cans.
In my country its not exactly like this. Usually craft breweries are working a bit differently. Basically u go with your recipie to the brewery and they make your beer. You just buy this beer from them and resell it. Cost of making 1l of pure beer so liquid is about 1$. Then u need to add keg/ can/ bottle + label etc so in general 1 can/bottle costs about 0,7$ max.
We buy this kind of beer in the craft beer shops for at least 2,5$ and sometimes even 4$ so u can imagine the difference.
Of course there are some other cost like transport, wage to the store, storage etc but i would say 1 beer can be maximum 1$. And we are talking about oat cream ipas, new zeland hazy etc. Like good good stuff.
So this is sick for me. That what also motivated me 2 years ago to start homebrewing and i can close my beer bottle in 0,3$ with everything (water, gas, ingriedients) included.
Cheers
What country?
Poland@@Smocha95
Idk man, here in Portland you can find amazing pints poured great for around 6-7 bucks. Geographic location has everything to do with it also. Even out of state breweries from coast to coast beers cost around the same.
Viva la Home Brewing!!!
Something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
what size fridge do you use to ferment beer in? im worried about buying online due to the size being wrong. not all places give the exact measurements not sure if i need a 3.5 cubic feet or not . i need something that will fit a 5 gallon fermenter plus airlock
I got in to home brewing to save money…
LMAO😂😂😂😂😂
right….
The standard business model, is 3 times cost. Cost to make the present product, the next product, and of course profit. So if a product costs $1 to make, you sell that product for $3. So 8 dollars is not outside the realm of possibility, especially for smaller breweries.
Kyle's Mustache Ride IPA.
I wonder if people are gonna start homebrewing coz of the raise of the prices
How long would you be willing to let the beer sit in the fermenting keg? Just trying to decide if I am always going to transfer from the fermenting keg to the serving keg
How dare you call me a smooth brain! As a smooth brained home brewing individual, I am offended.
😂😂😂
Ive walked away from breweries, everything is "hopped up"". Few if any clean tasting beers.
I design all of my recipes for 6 gallons to ensure I get a full 5 gallon keg. Cheers! 😁
i have wondered that myself. i rarely buy beer and make my own 5 gallons at a time. hops are ridiculous as is european malt. i use mostly american 2 row and non trendy hops like cascade, magnum, etc and can bang out a couple cases for around 25-35 bucks, give or take. so thats like what, 50-75 cents a beer for a standard boring ipa or stout. lets call it a buck if you use lots of expensive hops. i have zero business sense so have no idea how to factor in all the overhead costs of a brewery or pub but figure that even allowing a good amount for fru fru urinal cakes and what not, a brewery/pub is making a pretty nice profit.
How would you salt this beer? Neipa or West coast.. ?
The big 3 brewers own the supply chains, so my advice to small breweries is to vertically integrate and start brewing light American lagers creating competition directly for their consumers.
I also think light American lagers and pilsners are a big gap in a lot of brewery’s menus. I don’t usually want an 8% double or triple ipa to start the night and I like having something easy to sip on with food especially.
I wanted to go into more detail on this. New Belgium actually filed a suit against AB InBev over this about 10 years ago. I couldn’t find enough concrete info for this round. Perhaps a good topic for a future video
I'd be interested to know what you mean by vertically integrating
Simply put, owning as much of your supply chain as you can and cutting out the middle man. This helps protect against inflation. @@Duci1989
dont forget to add tips!
Inflation? A six-pack of dank beers 20 years ago was $15.... I can go to the store right now and get a six pack of hams for three dollars... Was the same 20 years ago as well
Here in ol Vancouver BC Canada we pay about 9 and some change per pint after the tax man gets it. They actually just released a TAX study on our Beer, Wine and spirits... We pay 50% tax on beer and 65% tax on wine and 75% on Spirits. Oh and the best part.. MR tax man is adding another 6.3% tax to it all April 1st. A lot of craft breweries are getting pinched to the point of closing.
I would like to see you try to clone a Modelo Chelada.
You pay $14.99 USD ($20CAD) for a 6x pack? - Seems fair for North America at this point.
Alberta, Canada. A 4x pack of tall boys is $16-19 CAD. Typically, $18 if you buy right from the brewery. But I've seen stores sell that same beer for $16-17.
Oh! - Forgot to mention. Trudeau set up a liquor tax, So it goes up every year appox %5.
Either way, it's a rip.
What do youguys feel about the cost increase of liquid yeast recently?
I made a few batches, Using half liquid half dry, and then all dry yeast.
Of course, they taste different however, they still tasted great, no matter if they were liquid or dry yeast.
I am never going back to liquid yeast, total freaking rip off….
i also blame T. swift
As a *smooth brain pure blood* I really did enjoy this video.
You’re so friggin lucky you don’t live in Australia. The prices you’re talking about are still cheap compared to here. You want a schnoor (425ml) of craft beer you’re paying $12 to $17 a beer!!!. They’ve have just again raised the tax on beer last Monday, so enjoy while you can, and I’m brewing at home as much as I can!.
My solution has been to hit up Happy Hours around town 👌👌👌
I hate following recipes, too!
Beer brothers, please check the typo on the recipe, amount of Simcoe vs. Mosaic hops doesn't jive
Beer and smokes got so expensive in Australia i just quit
Taylor Swift causes our prices to go uk in the uk...
I can brew 5gal of a DIPA for $40, I have no idea how these breweries exists with all the competition and still charging $16 for a 4pk of tall boys
E: finished the video and you guys had $1.34/pnt, so close to what I had!
I live in the Balkans and my brew costs 0.75$ per big can (0.500L)
Craft breweries also sell about twice as cheap (drank a DIPA for 5 dollars)
The annoying part over here is that breweries start pumping out "craft lagers" for $6 per can in store.. - so yeah $36 if you get a sixpack. (5%, no dryhops)
If it was a double dryhopped NEIPA. I could understand why its expensive. - but for Lagers I don't want to pay more than $3 per can or $6 in a taproom/restaurant etc.
I about went into detail on lagers but held back for the reason mentioned in the other reply to this. I think most craft breweries have limited space and probably do a true lager. I wouldn’t believe bud light is truly lagers even if I saw it with my own eyes. In my opinion, it has a horrible green apple taste, indicative of a rushed fermentation.
I love great beer and going to the breweries, but I'm lucky because I've got amazing breweries that are charging 6-7 bucks a pint. Yet there's new ones charging 8-10 bucks a pint. I refuse to pay 8-10 bucks a pint I understand that places need to make money but it's beer, it's supposed to be the middle class American drink. We're not aging it for 5 years like whiskey. I personally think this is why breweries are hurting because people don't see the point of going to the brewery for a few beers and the bills close to 50 bucks for 4 beers with a tip. Luckily in Colorado there's great places around the Longmont area that have great beers for 6 bucks a pint. I'm all about supporting the local breweries but some of these places just aren't worth the money imho
Didn't you guys get a foudre? What ever happened with that??
Commercial brewing pushed too much damn fruit, pastry, hazy, and lazy ass soda to be worth supporting. Barley, hops, yeast, water. Make beer Beer again !
All the more reason to homebrew.
That explains why so many Yanks get absolutely smashed when they come to South Africa, most craft beer would cost you less the $3 here.
Many yanks get absolutely smashed at home too, to be fair
It's time for cheap synthetic beer, like other foods are already made in laboratories.
This video is going to start the next cold war.
The war started a long time ago and craft breweries are loosing big time. Study the history and production of breweries. Your favorite craft brewery might be owned by one of the large corporations or the beer is contract brewed by a larger brewery. The big 3 are gobbling up the competition.
Some breweries are worth the extra cost. However I do think that some breweries try to go over the top with the recipe so that the beer sounds more complex when its not that complex and could have been better being simpler. I absolutely enjoy hanging out at a brewery and drinking $8-$10 pints, but I have a really hard time buying cans to take home.
respectfully, was Kyle hammered when narrating this video or what? lol slurring like crazy :P
I do not mind paying $7-8 for a pint at the local craft breweries, figuring I am paying for the atmosphere as well. It is still worlds cheaper to homebrew though.
Lately I have noticed that those craft brews which are sold in liquor stores locally carry a lower price tag for the pints, usually in the high teens for a 4 pack.This is a good thing.
Are we talking about normal beer or craft beer? With craft beer I blame Untappd. The higher the rating, the higher the price and you can ask yourself in some cases what came first. The price or the rating?
Is this a political video?
Haha. Great question. No.
Imagine paying $15 for arguably some of the best most flavorful hop forward beers in the world. Meanwhile no one even blinks about a $15 bottle of reg grade wine. Like everyone would consider that a "budget" wine...
Beer is still incredibly cheap for what it is. Stop crying about it
Very good point.
Beer is significantly cheaper to produce than wine. Why compare them?
@@brewinfusedyeti3798 I'd argue that's not true. Wine has a much higher profit margin vs. beer. Wine is also a blended product whereas craft beer is not. There is much more room for error and producing it is cheaper because it doesn't go through a hot side brewing process. Wine also isn't as sterile as beer for many reasons that I won't get into here which also makes production more simplistic.
More importantly though, as a consumer why should I care what it costs to produce? I'm not producing it. Do you consider the production costs of everything you buy?
Beer and Wine are to me and I'm sure many others are supplementary goods. A six pack goes up $2 and people lose their minds. A wine bottle goes up $2 and no one cares (atleast in the US). That makes no sense to me.
@riskyb250 the core components of wine, being grapes vs grain is the most expensive difference. A quick comparison shows that to brew 5 gallons of wine, you would need 25lbs of grapes. That's roughly $60 at my local grocery store. 5 gallons of beer on the other hand needs roughly 10 pounds of grain, which is as low as $10. Grain is far easier to grow than grapes...
Also, why wouldn't you compare cost to brew vs buy? That's one of the biggest benefits of homebrewing. This is a homebrewing channel.
@@brewinfusedyeti3798
To brew beer you need a mill, a brewhouse, and a fermenter. To make wine you need need some crushing equipment and a fermenter. Equipment wise it's much more simplistic making wine vs. beer. Much much lower start up costs for example- no steam boiler install and no fire marshal paperwork that you would need for a grain mill. Many "wineries" don't even make their own wine they just buy white label products from CA and put their own label on it. These are called "marketing houses". Due to the nature of beer it's much more difficult and capital intensive to do this with beer. Beer doesn't have nearly as long of a shelf life as wine.
Grain (really malt which is different) isn't the expensive ingredient cost of making beer it's labor #1, packaging #2, and then probably hops #3 (which isn't even required in wine). . All three of those a brewery requires more of than a winery. Using grain cost as your main reasoning tells me I'm probably wasting my time arguing with you. Again, beer in general has a much lower profit margin than wine in general by volume. This is an objective fact within the industry. On top of all of this, there are often draconian beer laws that vary by state which often hamstring beer distribution to a greater degree then wine.
I'm talking about professional wine and beer making...not your hobby wine making. Which is the subject of this video we're discussing.
Yea sure your table grapes at your grocery story might sell for what you're describing but wine grapes and wine must in general is relatively inexpensive when purchased in bulk in CA, OR, or WA for example. It's extremely cheap when purchased in Chile or Argentina.
Source: 10 years working professionally in the fermented beverage industry
👍🦘🦘
Your commitment to high production standards is awesome. You guys are incredible.