Price of craft beer?

[Coathanger]

Wondering what the relative cost is for everyone else out there? I'm in Ontario and don't have access to a lot of the highly rated beers out there, but to give you an idea...

One of my go-to beers is Nickelbrook's Naughty Neighbour which runs about $3/tall boy. Cheap compared to their Immodest, at $5.50.

Generally speaking, the more popular IPAs come in somewhere between $2.90 - $3.80 per can.

As a comparative, a 24 case of MGD bottles is about the $40 mark, and something like Coors is around there (maybe a couple bucks cheaper). The discount brands run you about $30 now.

Edit: I should probably mention the average wage around here is something like $50,000 CAD. But it's not unusual for good government jobs (teaching, fire, etc) to be making close to $100,000. Seeing as I assume most posters here are thinking in USD, that may help with relativity.

 

[day_trippr]

10 to 14 USD per 6 pack of 12 ounce beers for most craft brews at my local stores.

Cheers!

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

About 8-12 bucks per 6 pack of 12 oz bottles here. There's quite a bit of more "premium" brand stuff that goes higher. Toppling Goliath bombers run about $11, limited release IPAs like Hopslam run $20 for a 4 pack of 16 oz cans.

The limited release stouts go quite a bit higher. Surly Darkness is $20 for a bomber and more for the BA version.

TG Morning Delight was $100 for 4 twelve oz bottles and two souvenir glasses (oh, and a micro pour of about 1.5 ozs).

 

[Coathanger]

10 to 14 USD per 6 pack of 12 ounce beers for most craft brews at my local stores.

Cheers!

Is that considered a fair range, at roughly $2/beer in USD?

 

[bucketnative]

As a comparative, a 24 case of MGD bottles is about the $40 mark, and something like Coors is around there (maybe a couple bucks cheaper). The discount brands run you about $30 now.

Holy crap! I think Philly has ridiculous prices, but I can still get a 30 pack of MGD cans for $20 on special at my local distributor.

Edit... are those Canadian dollars you're using? If so, it's about $1.20 CD to $1.00 USD... even still, you're getting screwed at $32 per MGD case. I guess tariffs, although MGD is brewed locally by Molson-Coors is Canada?

 

[Coathanger]

About 8-12 bucks per 6 pack of 12 oz bottles here. There's quite a bit of more "premium" brand stuff that goes higher. Toppling Goliath bombers run about $11, limited release IPAs like Hopslam run $20 for a 4 pack of 16 oz cans.

The limited release stouts go quite a bit higher. Surly Darkness is $20 for a bomber and more for the BA version.

TG Morning Delight was $100 for 4 twelve oz bottles and two souvenir glasses (oh, and a micro pour of about 1.5 ozs).

So the Hopslam is in the same range as my aforementioned Immodest. Interesting. Where abouts are you?

 

[bleme]

I'm about the same as day_trippr. I hardly ever buy singles as they run $8-15 each. My wife might buy one for our anniversary or something.

I can usually get a 12-pack of a local craft for $14-$16 so it usually doesn't make sense to buy singles or 6-packs.

 

[Coathanger]

Holy crap! I think Philly has ridiculous prices, but I can still get a 30 pack of MGD cans for $20 on special at my local distributor.

Edit... are those Canadian dollars you're using? If so, it's about $1.20 CD to $1.00 USD... even still, you're getting screwed at $32 per MGD case.

Yep Canadian - I edited my first post realizing that's probably important to point out, lol. We get taxed on booze hard.

 

[Coathanger]

I'm about the same as day_trippr. I hardly ever buy singles as they run $8-15 each. My wife might buy one for our anniversary or something.

I can usually get a 12-pack of a local craft for $14-$16 so it usually doesn't make sense to buy singles or 6-packs.

By 12-pack, do you mean regular bottle size? That's still incredibly cheap compared to me. How does that work out relatively speaking when compared to average wages?

 

[catdaddy66]

Cheapest I can find any in my area is $7.99/6 pack, but I can usually get a "build your own" sixer for $9-10.99.

 

[Coathanger]

Cheapest I can find any in my area is $7.99/6 pack, but I can usually get a "build your own" sixer for $9-10.99.

For me a sixer would likely work out to around $18 CAD. Which would still be a rip off, even given our strengthening dollar, by your standards (and also based on my sketchy math).

 

[mattdee1]

I'm also in Ontario, and yes, the amount we get taxed is ridiculous. A tale to illustrate:

I travel to the US a lot, where booze is much cheaper, but I don't buy much in the US because, barring minor exceptions, I have to pay tax on it at the border to bring it into Canada.

A friend of mine was looking for ways to save money on booze for a party he was having, so he gave me some cash and asked me to pick up some "cheap" bottles in the US. I explained to him that I was not going to smuggle for him, and if I did declare the bottles at customs, any savings obtained in the US would be offset by taxes at the border. He thought I was just being sensationalist, exaggerating, etc. So I said fine, give me the money... you'll see.

He gave me $100, and asked me to get one each whisky, rum, and vodka. I managed to find them for about $15 each; so far so good. When I declared the bottles at customs, I was sent to secondary inspection and received the tax bill. For each bottle, I had to pay $25-$30 extra in tax. The money from my friend that I had left over was not enough to cover the bill, and I had to throw in $20 or so of my own, bringing the final tally for the 3 bottles up to around $120 (at the time the currencies were roughly par). I brought the receipt home with me, hankering to say "I told you so," which I did. But thinking back, he never paid me back for that $20 so I guess the joke's on me.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Not get political but I thought everything in Canada is taxed through the roof to pay for your "free" healthcare..

BMC 30 pack is around $25 here
Lots of craft beers come in 4 packs now...I went to buy a Burial surf wax the other day (awesome beer) They wanted $13 for 4 beers before tax and deposit....highway robbery and the reason I make my own beer

 

[oceanic_brew]

Not get political but I thought everything in Canada is taxed through the roof to pay for your "free" healthcare..

BMC 30 pack is around $25 here
Lots of craft beers come in 4 packs now...I went to buy a Burial surf wax the other day (awesome beer) They wanted $13 for 4 beers before tax and deposit....highway robbery and the reason I make my own beer

And that health care system is failing miserably. I sat in a waiting room for 4 hrs last Thursday and couldn't get a friggin 1" laceration on my arm stitched up. I left and now I can barely use my arm waiting for it to heal.

Anyway

Some speciality beers here in Halifax can go from $5 - $30 for a 750 ml bottle.

It's insane.

 

[Jtk78]

I rarely buy beer anymore, unless I'm out of town or looking to sample a specific style. If I do, I usually do the build your own 6 pack thing for $9-$12.

 

[Senormac]

Here in Oregon a six pack of craft is anywhere from $7.99 - $12.99..... PLUS 10 cents per bottle deposit !!

 

[bleme]

By 12-pack, do you mean regular bottle size? That's still incredibly cheap compared to me. How does that work out relatively speaking when compared to average wages?

It is 12x12oz bottles and there is always one on sale from Stone, Lagunitas, Firestone Walker or Tioga Sequoia. $14 is more than my wife makes per hour, but less than I make so it might be close to average.

 

[pshankstar]

Here is western NY a 6-pack of 12oz bottles of craft beer is usually $8-13. There are some higher end ones, like the Ballast Point beers always seem to be $15 (+/-) a 6-pack. Wegmans has a good selection of pick your own 6-pack for $10.99. If I do pick up beer I try for that to try new beers. Or sometimes they have higher end beers in there to pick from and it makes it a steal. Like Founders Doom (Bourbon Aged Imperial IPA) is $11.99 for a 4-pack, but I found 3 of them in the pick your own 6-pack section.

Bomber bottles seem to average around $5-10 per bottle. We pay 5 cents per bottle or can for the deposit here in NY.

I do recall coming back from Canada picking up alcohol was always cheap from the duty free shop, but that was 10+ years ago. Never had any taxes to pay as long as we didn't exceed the amount we were able to return. It stinks that the taxes to bring it into Canada is so high.

 

[z-bob]

$12 for a 12-pack of whatever is on sale this week, and usually there is something good. Or $23 to $25 for a case at Costco.

I might pay $8.99 for a 6-pack (or 4-pack) of something special, but not very often.

 

[Hanglow]

Typical prices here are about £5 per litre from supermarkets up to about £15/l from independents for hop soup

pubs for craft are about £9/l to £20/l

(about 35oz in a litre I think)

Pints of bitter from the pub can be as cheap as £3/l for the cheapest of the cheap, more like £6/l

I think in the UK we pay more than 4x as much as any other eu country in alcohol tax. It annoys the **** out of me, in Italy they barely tax their native wine industry, in Germany they barely tax their beer industry but in the UK we tax the **** out of beer and whisky. Shameful ****. Obviously the scandinavian countries tax the **** out of everything but at least they see that back in some way or another

 

[SlitheryDee]

The only place near me where I've found a selection of decent craft beers lets you make your own 6 pack for $9.99. I feel like most of the time I've seen them in stores they were more like $12-$15 per.

 

[Morrey]

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is typically $9.99 six pack here in SC. This is a standard beer most are familiar with.

 

[Hanglow]

Always annoys me how cheap beer is in the US

Although last time I was in NYC I almost died laughing at the extortionate price of Innis & Gunn and some english ciders, so you win some lose some I suppose

 

[Brownalemikie]

I don't buy beer for home consumption just drink home brew. I brew 3 gallons every week which turns into about 30 beers. If we're out somewhere and no craft beer, I drink Capt Morgan Rum with Diet Coke.

 

[Coathanger]

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is typically $9.99 six pack here in SC. This is a standard beer most are familiar with.

Just under $16 here. Interesting!

 

[day_trippr]

Is that considered a fair range, at roughly $2/beer in USD?

Can't speak to much of the US as a lot depends on the local taxing structure (as already elucidated by many) along with market forces, but on balance I'd have to call that fair relative to my area.

Otoh, I don't buy much beer, so I may be more tolerant of pricing...

Cheers!

 

[Bosh]

Ruinously expensive here in Korea. Nearly $6 for a bottle of SNPA retail, have seen stuff like Old Rasputin go for as much as $8. You can find cheaper stuff but it's often old or bad like the $3 PA I was able to find from a brewery in California that had gone out of business that smelled like fish.

Local craft is really really hard to find in stores (except for some 7brau which is very very bland) but that costs about $3 to $5 a bottle retail.

In bars there cheapest I've ever seen is just under $4 a class for mediocre Korean craft (Kabrew and Platinum) up to $6 for good local stuff or cheaper expert and up to over $10 a glass for fancy **** like Danish sour IPA. Best deals I've found were at a little hold in the wall place that contract brews and has pretty decent beer for $4.50 a glass or so but it's far from where I live and they don't have a very big selection.

Used to buy a few bottles a month as a treat but have stopped that almost completely since I got back into brewing. Just costs too much when the best deals you can find are around $5.50 or so for Ballast Point beers retail (and more for fancy **** like Sculpin).

The result of this is that there are some styles of beer I've brewed a few times that I haven't ever drank commercially or that I've only drank a handful of times years and years ago. Makes for a weird experience where the main baseline of what craft beer should taste like is my own beer since I have so little to compare it to. For example I was frustrated with me not getting enough hop character in my IPAs but then I went and spent $6 for a commercial IPA in a bar and it had a lot less than mine which made be feel better.

Even cheap macro local beer is pretty expensive (although the macro quality of a lot of the bears have increased from around Milwaukee's Best level to around Heineken level while I've been here with Fitz, Kloud, the new OB and Max all being drinkable if not great). Soju on the other hand is dirt cheap, makgeolli (sour rice beer) is really cheap as well and the good stuff is pretty damn tasty, although a lot of it is backsweetened to **** with aspertamine.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Beer is extremely cheap here in my opinion. I just bought a 15 pack of Keystone light to keep in the fridge and that was only $7. My go to bottle shop has create your own 6 six packs, but they are all individually priced. I usually get a good variety six pack for $10-15, but that's also including 13%+ stouts, double ipa's, sours, etc. The sheetz down the road has 4 packs of Genesee 16 oz cans for like $3. Genesee is my go to, so I buy those quite a bit. For local craft, I would say $9.99 or under a 6 pack is average. Some breweries have 4 packs of their "better" beers for $9.99+, but for the quality of the beer I'd pay that price all day. I drink all styles though, so how much I spend is really hard to track.. just whatever I'm in the mood for.

 

[swampbrewcrew]

It must be dependent on location for us in the states. I'm in Mississippi which is one of the strictest states as far as alcohol goes, but we hardly pay anything in taxes. Most craft beers are $7-9$/6 pack of 12 oz. The most expensive beers that are available here are still under $10/ 6 pack. Lazy Magnolia is about something $7.50/6 pack here. 6/ 16oz coors light is only $4.75 for comparison though.

 

[foam_top]

Cheapest I can find any in my area is $7.99/6 pack, but I can usually get a "build your own" sixer for $9-10.99.

I really like the build your own option. It's the safest way to experiment trying new beers. Buying a sixer of the same beer you run the risk of not liking it.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Here in AZ it seems pretty comparable to other places in the U.S. posts on this thread, maybe a little cheaper. Four Peaks is 8.99/6 15.99/12. Santan is about a dollar more. Sam Adams or New Belgium went up from consistent sales of 13.99/12 to consistently 15/16.99/12. We get sales like buy 2 12 packs of Kona for 11.99. Another sale, get a sixer of Sleepy Dog Wet Snout Milkstout for 7.99, but prices are much more stable recently and not in a good way. Build your own sixer is never more than 9.99, but there's never anything very special in there either.

 

[madscientist451]

I've seen Goose Island IPA as low as $6.99, local craft brews run $10-$12. (prices are for a 6 pack) Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams Variety 12 packs are sometimes on sale $15-16. I travel a lot and different states have asinine laws designed to protect small "mom and pop" stores that generally have higher prices.
The high price of beer is (in my opinion) a "bubble" waiting to burst as more competition and over capacity in the beer industry should be having an effect on the prices. Alcohol, like heath care, is a regulated industry with built in "regulatory capture" being used to create a pricing structure that has nothing to do with supply and demand. As long as consumers (and voters) are willing to put up with it, nothing will change.

 

[jwalk4]

Wondering what the relative cost is for everyone else out there? I'm in Ontario and don't have access to a lot of the highly rated beers out there, but to give you an idea...

One of my go-to beers is Nickelbrook's Naughty Neighbour which runs about $3/tall boy. Cheap compared to their Immodest, at $5.50.

I love Nicklebrook beers. Their Headstock is delish, but so is their blonde. I have a brother in law that lives in Burlington, so I have a place to crash when I visit their Funk Lab soon.

 

[Coathanger]

I love Nicklebrook beers. Their Headstock is delish, but so is their blonde. I have a brother in law that lives in Burlington, so I have a place to crash when I visit their Funk Lab soon.

I haven't been out that way recently but would love to check them out. I discovered Headstock around the onset of my home brewing and it was a huge influence on the beers I started making. It was largely an introductory beer for me to the whole craft thing.

Honestly I've never had a beer of theirs I didn't like, and most of them I absolutely love.

 

[kristiismean]

Chicago (suburbs here). Craft beer store expect to pay 8.99-11.99 for your typical IPA, either 6 pack or 4 pack of talls. 3 floyds expect to pay 16.99 a six pack for yum yum, zombie dust, gumballhead.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Chicago (suburbs here). Craft beer store expect to pay 8.99-11.99 for your typical IPA, either 6 pack or 4 pack of talls. 3 floyds expect to pay 16.99 a six pack for yum yum, zombie dust, gumballhead.

Wow. I just bought a 6 pack of gumball ten minutes ago for $11 at the shop down the road from me in Cleveland. That's crazy.

 

[shellsbells]

Hey Coathanger, I'm in Ontario too. We have some awesome craft breweries, but our prices are ridiculous! One of the best deals I've seen lately was a 2-4 of GLB Canuck (tall boys) for $54. Works out to $2.25 a can, which is really pretty good as far as prices around here go. Plus, it's an awesome brew :rockin:

 

[Kharnynb]

In finland everything is expensive, alcohol doubly so

craft beer starts around €3.- for a small bottle, up to €8-10,- for the more expensive ones. Everything over 4.5% is only sold at the state alcohol store.....

Normal bulk lager is about €25,- for 24 cans, average wages are nowhere near as high as over there, a normal worker takes maybe 20,000,- a year, a teacher would make about 40.000,- a basic doctor 70.000,-

 

[beernutz]

Just under $16 here. Interesting!

Which would be about $13 USD so taking tariffs into account that sounds reasonable. FWIW, $10 USD is the standard price for SNPA at local grocery and liquor stores here in Alabama.

 

[Coathanger]

Hey Coathanger, I'm in Ontario too. We have some awesome craft breweries, but our prices are ridiculous! One of the best deals I've seen lately was a 2-4 of GLB Canuck (tall boys) for $54. Works out to $2.25 a can, which is really pretty good as far as prices around here go. Plus, it's an awesome brew :rockin:

I haven't had Canuck in a while - time to give it another taste, I think!