Hugh Sisson’s Diary of a Brewer

As the Super Bowl approaches beer drinkers may be starting to notice that beer prices – at least from some of the smaller breweries – have begun to creep up, in some cases rather substantially.  This is not the result of a grand conspiracy of brewers who, motivated by greed, have concurrently decided to raise prices. Oh no!  Would that it were that simple (if also incorrigible!).  The real reason is far more boring, and unfortunately probably long term.  As has been noted both here in my blog (click here) and many other publications, the primary raw materials for making beer – malt and hops – have recently at least DOUBLED in price!  The reasons are multifaceted, and are well documented, but suffice it to say it is significantly more expensive for your favorite brewery to make beer!

More important to the consumer is what it means to the pocket book.  I project that the average six pack of craft brewed beer will go up in price about $1 to $1.50, and the price of a pint at the bar will go up somewhere around 50 cents.  While it is certainly not what we all want, in the big picture, it’s really not so bad.

Continue to look at the overview.  If it costs $10 for a sixer of great craft beer, a comparable bottle of wine would probably cost $20 to $30.  A bottle of good whisky will run you $30 easy.  So I am thinking that good beer, relative to the cost of comparable other alcoholic beverages, is still a pretty good value. 

Nobody likes to see price increases on anything they enjoy.  But let’s try to keep things in perspective. And while I certainly hope that prices will stabilize sometime soon, good beer still represents your best alcoholic beverage value!

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