High Demand/Low Supply Breweries

[tagz]

I have had the pleasure of enjoying Heady 8 different times from various batches and freshness levels... Since they don't date the cans, it really is a gamble on how old the beer is (although you would expect fresh). Some of those cans were easily some of the best DIPA I have had... My last one I legit drain poured half of it because me and my girlfriend just found it "meh" and wanted to move onto other, better beers and not waste the calories... I assume it was quite old based on how different it tasted.

I definitely think that's a factor for hoppy beers. The scarcity ensures that it's drunk fresh, bursting with flavor.

 

[Aristotelian]

Absolutely! I had my first (and later second) Pliny tonight, and was underwhelmed. Overhyped is an understatement. I can't believe the money people spend for an above average beer. Is it good? Yeah! Is it unbelievable? No, not by a long shot.

I'm from Chicago, so my veiw might be a little skewed. The Midwest has some of the most hidden gems in the beer market. Brands that do not get the hype they deserve. Take Revolution for example. They have basically an entire lineup that is stellar, yet most "beer aficionados" either have never given them a shot, or snub their nose at them. IMO, they're a world class brewery. Hell! They distribute to Tokyo now! Fantastic all around stuff, while still having one guy bottle all their bombers! Lol!

Don't believe me? Check out their Deep Woods Series. Holy hell is it amazing!


The nice thing about all this is that I fall over Revolution products when I go into a liquor store. It's everywhere, and I'm grateful! The world is missing out while they pine over Pliny... or Heady, which is not as good as Pliny.


To top it all off, Founder's is 10x's better than Bell's. That's right. I said it.

That's the thing...the major companies have figured out they can mass produce good beers. Like Two Buck Chuck in the wine industry, if it's just about taste, you can get really good beers for $10 a six pack at a decent grocery store.

True microbreweries have to sell more than taste. Uniqueness, freshness, seasonality, once-in-a-lifetime small batches. Those are the only things worth paying a premium.

 

[tagz]

Good point.

 

[BlkWater_brewer]

Yet you're talking up HF??

Why yes I am. They do have some excellent beers and at least once you get to HF you will end up with something to show for it. As opposed to an over hyped and over rated beer of questionable taste. IMO

 

[moreb33rplz]

Why don't these breweries sell more beer? If you sell out the day you release, every day, for a few years, one would think they could afford some new digs.

Oh and my .02 is that heady, HF, trillium et al really are that much better. thats what beer should be

 

[bobeer]

HF beers are in a different league but there again, I don't like playing games with beer, if you have to jump through hoops to get or find it - it's not worth the trouble. Especially HT!

I think, given the market atm, if you brew something good that everyone likes, and can replicate it from batch to batch, you will make as much as you can make off of small batch beer.

I don't play games with beer either and I like the way you put that, BlkWater. My buddy lives in NorCal and he mailed me some Pliny, Blind Pig, and a couple sours. They were good beers but I wouldn't wait in line for it. I'd still like to try Younger but I'd rather spend that time brewing than waiting in line!

 

[Aristotelian]

Why don't these breweries sell more beer? If you sell out the day you release, every day, for a few years, one would think they could afford some new digs.

Oh and my .02 is that heady, HF, trillium et al really are that much better. thats what beer should be

Maybe they are happy with the money they are making and don't need or want to grow if it means changing their product? Maybe the value of their brand is worth more than they could make by increasing their volume?

 

[EcuPirate07]

The ol supply and demand trick from marketing 101. If I have a widget that is just as good as other widgets but I limit production and make it seem superior to others wether it's by others spreading the word or my own company slapping the prestige label on it by pricing it higher, people will throw money at it left and right. That has always fascinated me.

 

[cegan09]

Why don't these breweries sell more beer? If you sell out the day you release, every day, for a few years, one would think they could afford some new digs.

Oh and my .02 is that heady, HF, trillium et al really are that much better. thats what beer should be

Some are, some don't care. Tree House is building a new brewery. Lawson's is building a new brewery. The Alchemist is building a new brewery. But Kimmich put it best in a talk a couple years ago when he said something along the lines of "if you enjoy what you're doing, and you don't have to worry about your next paycheck, why expand to the point that it ceases to be fun?"

The ol supply and demand trick from marketing 101. If I have a widget that is just as good as other widgets but I limit production and make it seem superior to others wether it's by others spreading the word or my own company slapping the prestige label on it by pricing it higher, people will throw money at it left and right. That has always fascinated me.

While that is a real and interesting phenomena, that's not 100% what's going on here. The beers are good (at least the new england hype train beers). I was in Waterbury on Saturday with some friends. One guy, who's only been in the country a couple years, and isn't really a beer fanatic got heady topper based on recommendation. He loved it, not because of the hype, because it was good. he admitted he dislikes IPAs, but loved that beer. Sure the limited availability is propelling the hype train, but it's backed by the beer being good.

 

[EcuPirate07]

Some are, some don't care. Tree House is building a new brewery. Lawson's is building a new brewery. The Alchemist is building a new brewery. But Kimmich put it best in a talk a couple years ago when he said something along the lines of "if you enjoy what you're doing, and you don't have to worry about your next paycheck, why expand to the point that it ceases to be fun?"



While that is a real and interesting phenomena, that's not 100% what's going on here. The beers are good (at least the new england hype train beers). I was in Waterbury on Saturday with some friends. One guy, who's only been in the country a couple years, and isn't really a beer fanatic got heady topper based on recommendation. He loved it, not because of the hype, because it was good. he admitted he dislikes IPAs, but loved that beer. Sure the limited availability is propelling the hype train, but it's backed by the beer being good.

I understand what you are saying, my point still holds true though. While yes those are great beers, there are definitely other breweries that have just as good beers but don't get as much hype. My example is wicked weeds pernicious IPA, no one really talks about it but I hold that IPA up against most others (and I've had heady). There have been many people who have done blind taste test and picked the non heady brew many times, couple on here that I have seen. My point is there may be 2 oranges picked from the same tree but one of those oranges is mass marketed as being limited, so person A will pay more for that orange just because it was marketed that way. But in the end both those oranges are great oranges. That's all I was trying to say.

 

[cegan09]

I understand what you are saying, my point still holds true though. While yes those are great beers, there are definitely other breweries that have just as good beers but don't get as much hype. My example is wicked weeds pernicious IPA, no one really talks about it but I hold that IPA up against most others (and I've had heady). There have been many people who have done blind taste test and picked the non heady brew many times, couple on here that I have seen. My point is there may be 2 oranges picked from the same tree but one of those oranges is mass marketed as being limited, so person A will pay more for that orange just because it was marketed that way. But in the end both those oranges are great oranges. That's all I was trying to say.

I do understand that. And I wasn't trying to say that the hype train beers were the be all end all greatest beers of all time. I was only pointing out that most of these can back up the hype with actual quality.

It's fun to play into the hype and seek out those beers on occasion. But I'm also perfectly aware that there are beers of equal quality with less notoriety.

 

[Amadeo38]

A friend sent me a 4-pack of Todd the Axeman tall boys by Surly in Minnesota. I don't remember exactly how he got them, but it sounded very complicated like Heddy's process. The thing is, we were doing a local beer trade and I knew nothing about that beer when I tried it. I randomly selected one of them from the assortment he sent me and was blown away. It was like Heddy but better AND I could pour it out of the can into a glass. I learned of its rarity after contacting him and asking how to get more of it, to which he scoffed, "good luck!"

 

[MaryB]

Brau Brothers in SW MN... Often sold out, especially the seasonal beers.

 

[pretzelb]

Why don't these breweries sell more beer? If you sell out the day you release, every day, for a few years, one would think they could afford some new digs.

Oh and my .02 is that heady, HF, trillium et al really are that much better. thats what beer should be

In some cases the laws get in the way especially when it comes to distribution. In some areas if you get too big you are forced to give up all your distribution rights permanently.

 

[pretzelb]

I understand what you are saying, my point still holds true though. While yes those are great beers, there are definitely other breweries that have just as good beers but don't get as much hype. My example is wicked weeds pernicious IPA, no one really talks about it but I hold that IPA up against most others (and I've had heady). There have been many people who have done blind taste test and picked the non heady brew many times, couple on here that I have seen. My point is there may be 2 oranges picked from the same tree but one of those oranges is mass marketed as being limited, so person A will pay more for that orange just because it was marketed that way. But in the end both those oranges are great oranges. That's all I was trying to say.

But your original point was they were tricking the market by limiting production. This has a chicken and the egg kind of logic. HT didn't create the hype, the consumers did. So the hype started because it was hard to get out because or was good? And once popular was it their moral obligation to expand to meet the demand?

If you've seen the original brewery and surrounding area you can understand why The Alchemist hasn't expanded much. They were lucky to even survive at all having just finished the new location when the flood took out the original place.

There is a big difference IMO between hype and what you call marketing 101. The brewery controls marketing but the consumers are in charge of hype. If you want to blame someone for the hype then I'd look at BA. They are responsible for much that is wrong with the industry IMO.

 

[MaryB]

Distribution does come into play, in MN "Brewpubs" Can't sell outside their premises, smaller breweries get sucked into the local distribution monopolies...

 

[pretzelb]

Distribution does come into play, in MN "Brewpubs" Can't sell outside their premises, smaller breweries get sucked into the local distribution monopolies...

I read an article about NC that said once you exceeded a certain amount you had to sign up with a distributer. So if you had distributed your own product before that, you had to get rid of all the trucks and labor and start paying someone else. This resulted in an immediate revenue hit. The really appalling part is once you sign you lose all rights to your distribution. You cannot renegotiate and you can't protest if the distributor sells your product rights to someone else.

I've heard that TX had the same law but one brewery is going to try and take that to court. The idea that you can't even prevent your distribution rights from being sold or attempt to arrange for a new distributor seems to violate the basic contract law and free market.

 

[BlkWater_brewer]

Sitting around with some friends at their brewery tonight killing time. As it turns out another friend just returned from Chicago with some Zombie Dust. We were all set to be wowed and then the tasting. It was good but no different than any of the 40 or 50 readily available beers. Just goes to show - you always want what is not readily available.

Flashback to the late 70's, Coors was not available on the East Coast. A couple of friends and I got together and had tractor trailers bring us two full loads of Coors and each one was sold with a few days. Now Coors was nothing special - but was unique in New England and turned a tidy profit.

 

[pretzelb]

Flashback to the late 70's, Coors was not available on the East Coast. A couple of friends and I got together and had tractor trailers bring us two full loads of Coors and each one was sold with a few days. Now Coors was nothing special - but was unique in New England and turned a tidy profit.

My older brother did something similar after graduation. I think he did a drive across country from CT which was a popular thing to do back then. On the way back they loaded up on Coors. Seems like he drove non stop to try and prevent it from spoiling.

 

[b-boy]

Flashback to the late 70's, Coors was not available on the East Coast. A couple of friends and I got together and had tractor trailers bring us two full loads of Coors and each one was sold with a few days. Now Coors was nothing special - but was unique in New England and turned a tidy profit.

I grew up in the 70s. I had a friend in college that made a trip to Texas. He brought back a trunk full of fireworks and many, many cases of Coors. That was a hell of a party.

I took a sky rocket right to the chest. Came away unscathed. I like to think that the Coors made me invincible.

 

[Natdavis777]

+1 to FFF. Sunking and FFF petitioned the state law and had it changed, but their high demand beer is still scarce (like ZD and GBH) I know they have been going through growth expansions, as there have been spurts in the past couple years where I could get ZD by the case, and times, like now, where you can only find it on tap somewhere (and that isnt even all that common). I know most times I go to Chicago, I can usually find it on tap.

Alpha King, Yum Yum, and a lot of their bombers are always available at the stores, which is nice though.