High quality, or quanity?

[spamman1368]

Hey all, I'm sure this question has crossed all brewers minds at one point or other, but if you were to open a brewery would you shoot for making the absolute best beers possible or shoot for the best possible beers for a certain price? As in, make a pilsner to sell at $2-3 a bottle but is three fold better than Bud or Coors or make a pilsner for $10-20 a bottle but its like drinking god? Any and all thoughts are appreciated!

 

[harrydrez]

A base of slightly less expensive beers sold in six packs with some higher quality bombers.

 

[Cyclman]

I think you have to build your customer base with good, solid base beers. Then you can go big with special releases.

 

[JohnGonk]

I agree....a strong base line of beers to start a following. Then you can expand and brew up some better stuff.

 

[spamman1368]

So by 'better' stuff you mean some top of the line brews?

I'm just so divided on which way to go because I find it's equally challenging to produce a top of the line beer for a certain price, or to produce a beer that's the best ever (in that style obviously).

 

[JohnGonk]

Yes. Make good quality beers that could generate a following. Then i would make some higher end, or special release/limited release, beers with different ingredients.

 

[billl]

I'm not sure that the whole premise holds. The ingredients to make any classic pilsner are going to be about the same price whether it is great or horrible. Same holds for most styles.

If you want to make some crazy style that just is inherently expensive to make, then that probably wouldn't be a good beer to start a business plan. eg it's pretty much impossible to open a brewery making all beers that need to be aged for extended periods. You have to pay the bills from day 1 and can't wait for a year to sell your first bomber.

 

[JohnGonk]

Thats what i mean by starting out making good, solid beers. Then after time you could make other beers...eg aged variations, ingredient variations or just experimental one off beers etc.

 

[spamman1368]

I'm not sure that the whole premise holds. The ingredients to make any classic pilsner are going to be about the same price whether it is great or horrible. Same holds for most styles.

If you want to make some crazy style that just is inherently expensive to make, then that probably wouldn't be a good beer to start a business plan. eg it's pretty much impossible to open a brewery making all beers that need to be aged for extended periods. You have to pay the bills from day 1 and can't wait for a year to sell your first bomber.

Billl, just wondering what you mean by the first paragraph. I figured it would be cheaper, but not as good, to make a pilsner with 6-row and lesser quality pils malts than top quality 2-row and pils malts? Am I off-base somewhere?

 

[JohnGonk]

No spamman, you make sense!

 

[Wayne1]

Have you investigated the actual price differences between grains?

At 1000 lb. wholesale levels, the cost difference between American 6-row and American 2-row is $0.01 a pound. The cost difference between the least expensive American 2-row and the most expensive German Pils Malt is $0.23 lb.

In a 15 bbl batch you might use 1,000 lbs. That would be a $230.00 cost difference between American 2-row and German Pils malt. If you yield 5000 12 oz bottles out of 15 bbls that comes out to less than $0.05 a bottle. A very minor cost difference compared to labor and packaging.

In today's market a small brewer cannot compete on cost. They should always strive to offer the highest quality product they can.

 

[spamman1368]

No kiddin! I haven't looked into bulk malt prices so I had no idea they were so close to each other! That really kinda blows my mind, honestly, because I thought for sure you'd pay a good amount for top-o-the-line malts as opposed to lower quality. Well, in that case I can see the obvious route to take. Since everyone is on a pretty level playing field, quality reigns king.

The question that comes to me now is, how to Bud and Coors make their beers for so cheap then?

 

[Wayne1]

The question that comes to me now is, how to Bud and Coors make their beers for so cheap then?

Quantity. There is a slight difference when you make over 20,000,000 bbls of beer vs 2000. Coors does not use "cheap" malt. Coors Light, Coors Banquet, etc. all use Coors own 2-row barley grown exclusively for them. They do all malting in house in Golden. In the lower end beers like Keystone they use corn starch as the adjunct.

As a single brand, Blue Moon Belgian White outsells ALL of New Belgian's beers combined. During it's height of popularity, ZIMA sold well over 2,000,000 bbls in a year. That is close to what ALL of Boston Beer's brands sell combined.

I guess you simply don't realize the size of the "BIG" guys and what that buying power can do. Miller/Coors SAB and AB/InBev do spend far more on advertising and packaging than on ingredients for each beer.

On a nano/micro level you simply cannot match the volume purchasing that even a small regional can do. There is a difference between buying malt by the bag, malt by the container load, malt by the silo and malt by the train load.

I gave you examples at 1,000 lb levels. You do get breaks at 20,000 lbs and
then at 50,000 lbs. Beyond that I am not sure of exactly the pricing structure. I have never bought beyond 20,000 lbs. That was 6 months supply for a 7 bbl brewhouse. That is less than one days production for the Coors plan in Golden.