Why are Rogue bombers such a rip off??

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zanemoseley

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So I was in the beer store today perusing the beers and was looking at the Rogue bombers. I've never bought them as my local store sells them for $6.89ea so almost $3.50 a beer. Then I noticed the only 12oz'ers they sell are the Dead Guy Ale which is $11.50 per 6 pack or $1.90 a beer, the also have bombers of DGA for $6.89 each. Seems most brands are consistently priced from bombers to 6'ers but Rogue is not. Is it just my local stores ripping me off or does Rogue just think they're special in the bomber market?
 
I don't know what other beers you're looking at, but my experience is that bombers are usually priced at a premium. Same goes for 12oz singles.

I would say that $7 a bomber is standard in my experience for Rogue, low for Southern Tier, Avery and the like, and high for a few smaller regional breweries like McTarnahans or Full Sail.
 
You can always capture the Pacman yeast from the various Rogue brews and then use it to brew your own :)
 
Well, my LHBS has the bombers off most rogues for $5 and some change while a bomber of dead guy is $3 or $4. A 6er of dead guy is $10 so it seems like my place has the same kind of deal.

Pacman is almost all I use so I get bombers of the stouts from rouge if I need a fresh culture. I have never had any luck culturing from dead guy though
 
i cant believe no one has mentioned their imperial ipa and stout in the gray bottles. $18 a bomber. thats a rip off. not even a good imperial ipa.
 
Agreed that Rogue (and Stone IMO) are priced way too high. You are a paying a little extra for marketing me thinks. Bombers of dead guy are over 6 bucks at the local liquor store which is completely ridiculous. Im down to pay a little more for good beer but come on. In comparison a bomber of Ballast Point IPA is under 4 bucks and WAY better in the same store.

It's kind if funny, Sierra Nevada Torpedo is under 9 bucks a six pack. Stellar, world class IPA but people don't seem to consider it in the top shelf of IPA's and totally take it for granted. If it was 13 bucks a 6 pack and hard to find it would be the best thing ever..
 
I bought the ceramic flip tops when they were on sale for 9.99 and thought that was spendy. Now they're back to 19.99, and I can't for the life of me see how anyone would pay that much.
 
ColonelForbin said:
i cant believe no one has mentioned their imperial ipa and stout in the gray bottles. $18 a bomber. thats a rip off. not even a good imperial ipa.
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They haven't made I2PA in the ceramic bottles in quite some time so if you had one recently, there is your problem. Also they are not bombers, they are 750 ml.

Where I live rogue 6 packs are $11 and bombers about $5.
 
6pk of rogue here on sale is 10.39
For some reason, It is a premium price. I dont know if rogue has something to do with it, OR the distributor is getting his cut and that why its so high.

They used to have the 1pt 6oz bottles in our store, But they were like 8 bucks a piece.
Compared to other beers the same size,
Ninkasi is 3.75
Elysian 3.99
 
remilard said:
They haven't made I2PA in the ceramic bottles in quite some time so if you had one recently, there is your problem. Also they are not bombers, they are 750 ml.

Where I live rogue 6 packs are $11 and bombers about $5.
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hmm. might actually have to get one of the imperial stouts then and test it out.
 
It really depends on where you live. For example, I live just a bit outside of Chico,Ca. I can get any Sierra Nevada 6 pack for about $6-$7(including Bigfoot) and their 24ozer's for about $3, Sierra 30's for $8.99 right at the Brewery. By the time Bigfoot makes it across the Country people will pay as much as $15 for a sixer. 24ozer's I see from $5-$7, and I hear about Sierra30's being as much as $15. I would lean towards it being the Distributors jacking up the prices and not so much the Breweries.
 
Yankeehillbrewer said:
It really depends on where you live. For example, I live just a bit outside of Chico,Ca. I can get any Sierra Nevada 6 pack for about $6-$7(including Bigfoot) and their 24ozer's for about $3, Sierra 30's for $8.99 right at the Brewery. By the time Bigfoot makes it across the Country people will pay as much as $15 for a sixer. 24ozer's I see from $5-$7, and I hear about Sierra30's being as much as $15. I would lean towards it being the Distributors jacking up the prices and not so much the Breweries.
Click to expand...

What's funny is that stores like Trader Joes carry Rogue DG bombers and they sell it for a lower price than the package stores.

They also have some deal with Unibroue where they can slap their own TJs label on Unibroue's seasonal (holiday) ale. Good stuff!

I do think the distributors probably have something to do with the cost.

I don't mind paying for the Rogue bombers, when I can harvest the Pacman yeast and have it year round. It's a good product, and they make wacky stuff like the chipotle ale which is unusual and tasty. I'm not drinking it every day, once in a while it's a treat.
 
I think it is high time we elevate great beer to the status of great wine. Especially when the ingredients have gone up in price. A beer that has a lot of ingredients and or has to age some time in order to be released should cost more. Budweiser and 2 Buck Chuck wine should not help determine what a great beer or great wine is worth.

The breweries that put beer in 12oz 6 packs make nothing on the beer. Subtract the ingredients, labor , bottles, labels, 6-pack holder with artwork, distribution fees, store placement fees, electricity, rent, etc. I would imagine that the brewery makes a dollar or less on each 6 pack. Sell 50,000 6 packs a year to make less than $50,000 to divide between the staff, landlord, and everyone else and you are working sub-minimum wage.

Breweries consider 6 packs as advertising so you will have a pint if you are out and about. They can't survive on 6-packs alone at the prices they charge. They are elevating the bomber to the moral equivelent of wine. I want these breweries to stay in business and that is about the only way they can. If you just look at sales and not consider expenses I am sure it looks like they are rolling in it. But with 6-packs they are just trading dollars and keeping a couple people employed.

How much do you pay for a bottle of wine without questioning the price?

Forrest
 
Austin_ said:
$10. You asked.
Click to expand...

But you know as well as others that better wines have a better price. You just have a limit of $10 for a bottle of wine.

Every one want all beer to cost close to the same price no matter how much better the beer is or how many ingredients or how long it takes to age.

I have tried Ommegang Chocolate Indugence at $8.99 a bomber. That is $29.42 a six pack. I was underwhelmed because it is not better than Young's Double Chocolate which is a 1/4 of the price. I still feel it was worth trying and I know they put a lot into that beer, Belgian cocoa and all. They deserve my money for coming out with unique and interesting beers.

If you want inexpensive beer then bland beer will prevail.

Forrest
 
Count me in on this rant. Anyone pay $5-6 for the 7 oz bottles if the IIPA or Imperial Stout?

Good beer, don't get me wrong, but they are a one time thing per style for me now. I keep expecting one to just blow me away, but they never do...
 
I'm not sure wine is a great comparison, very few breweries have to sit on their product for a minimum of a year. And when they do, don't expect to pay under 10 dollars for a 750 or 22oz.

I can understand high prices for double IPAs, RIS' and wood aged beers because it usually takes a lot more ingredients and in some cases time to produce it. What I don't understand is the high priced bomber tendency creeping into beers that don't take a lot of ingredients or time. Dead guy ale is not a hard beer to make, it should not be $5-7 for a 22oz and over $10/six pack.
 
Austinhomebrew said:
I think it is high time we elevate great beer to the status of great wine.
Click to expand...

I believe the OP's issue is with the price of Rogue bombers relative to other craft bombers, not the price of bombers in general or the comparison to wine. ;)

I rarely buy Rogue beer anymore because their 6-packs and bombers are $2 - $4 dollars more than competing craft beer selections. Rogue makes excellent beer, but so do numerous other craft breweries.
 
Rogue should stop advertising and sponsoring things so they can charge less for their beers.

Forrest
 
I think the wine comparison is accurate. It doesn't cost double to produce a $80 bottle of wine over a $40 bottle. Price is driven by reputation and demand. If retailers/distributors bid on cases of Pliny like they do with fine wine, the price would skyrocket.

The local bottle shop asks about $12 for a 375ml Supplication. Compared to the quality of a $25 750ml bottle wine, that's a steal.
 
Austinhomebrew said:
I think it is high time we elevate great beer to the status of great wine. Especially when the ingredients have gone up in price. A beer that has a lot of ingredients and or has to age some time in order to be released should cost more. Budweiser and 2 Buck Chuck wine should not help determine what a great beer or great wine is worth.

The breweries that put beer in 12oz 6 packs make nothing on the beer. Subtract the ingredients, labor , bottles, labels, 6-pack holder with artwork, distribution fees, store placement fees, electricity, rent, etc. I would imagine that the brewery makes a dollar or less on each 6 pack. Sell 50,000 6 packs a year to make less than $50,000 to divide between the staff, landlord, and everyone else and you are working sub-minimum wage.

Breweries consider 6 packs as advertising so you will have a pint if you are out and about. They can't survive on 6-packs alone at the prices they charge. They are elevating the bomber to the moral equivelent of wine. I want these breweries to stay in business and that is about the only way they can. If you just look at sales and not consider expenses I am sure it looks like they are rolling in it. But with 6-packs they are just trading dollars and keeping a couple people employed.

How much do you pay for a bottle of wine without questioning the price?

Forrest
Click to expand...

I agree ^^^

On the distro side it takes alot of gas to move beer across the country too.
 
we are very very fortunate that good beer is as cheap as it is. i will happily pay $8 for an 110z pannepot 2007 or j.w. lees harvest 1999 for example. hell i would pay $20 for the j.w. lees. its worth the extra money for being able to skip 11 years of aging. if it were wine the price would have been quadrupled.
 
Austinhomebrew said:
Rogue should stop advertising and sponsoring things so they can charge less for their beers.
Click to expand...

I've got no problem with people charging whatever they want for their beer. If the beer is good enough (and apparently Rouge is) then people will buy the beer; if not, then they won't sell any and quickly go out of business.

The extra money means that brewers can do unusual and expensive things like barrel aging. Without any financial incentive to make really good beer, you'd end up with a lot more Millers and Coors, a lot fewer Dogfish Heads and Rouges.
 
billvon said:
I've got no problem with people charging whatever they want for their beer. If the beer is good enough (and apparently Rouge is) then people will buy the beer; if not, then they won't sell any and quickly go out of business.

The extra money means that brewers can do unusual and expensive things like barrel aging. Without any financial incentive to make really good beer, you'd end up with a lot more Millers and Coors, a lot fewer Dogfish Heads and Rouges.
Click to expand...

Well, there should be a limit to unusual and expensive things breweries should try....*cough*DFH*cough*
 
Germelli1 said:
Well, there should be a limit to unusual and expensive things breweries should try....*cough*DFH*cough*
Click to expand...

Why?

There's a market for 45% malt liquor stuffed inside small animals. Why shouldn't there be honey saffron ales made with ancient yeast?
 
Considering this is Home Brew Talk, I'd have to add that my own fine brew is $.20 to $.50 per glass and the occasional bottle of commercial I buy is not a big deal at whatever they charge. It's just research IMO and if it is excellent, let the clone begin.
 
Germelli1 said:
Well, there should be a limit to unusual and expensive things breweries should try....*cough*DFH*cough*
Click to expand...

I don't like a lot of the strange beers DFH makes, but I love drinking them just to try them out. How often do you get to say that you drank an ancient recipe or whatever else?

I don't mind paying the price for good beer but I think equating it to wine is a bit off. Wine isn't just expensive because it tastes good or because it's posh. Sure you pay for a name, but grapes are harder to keep than grains. I suppose the extra cost could come from the malt house, but it doubt it comes close to the price of maintaining a vineyard.
 
Teromous said:
I don't like a lot of the strange beers DFH makes, but I love drinking them just to try them out. How often do you get to say that you drank an ancient recipe or whatever else?

I don't mind paying the price for good beer but I think equating it to wine is a bit off. Wine isn't just expensive because it tastes good or because it's posh. Sure you pay for a name, but grapes are harder to keep than grains. I suppose the extra cost could come from the malt house, but it doubt it comes close to the price of maintaining a vineyard.
Click to expand...

There is a lot of expenses for both beer and wine. What is the price of maintaining a barley field and a hop farm?

The wine industry fortunately has customers that accept the price the vineyard needs to make in order to survive. Beer is not the case because beer started out cheap and got more expensive the better it got.

The vineyard decides how much to charge. The brewery is told how much to charge. No one says "no matter how good that wine is it isn't worth more than $5 a bottle". They do say "no matter how good that beer is it isn't worth more than $5 a bomber"

Why is great beer being valued at one quarter the price of wine?

Forrest
 
Austinhomebrew said:
I think it is high time we elevate great beer to the status of great wine. Especially when the ingredients have gone up in price.
Click to expand...

I agree with elevated status, but not an elevated price. Hard costs of ingredients of beer are a fraction of wine, and wine is not ready for market in 3 weeks either. Just look at the cost of wine kits. They cost 4 times as much a beer kit.

Figuring on fermenting, bottling, and storage, beer would have huge margins for $10 bottles.

Personally, I see the price of beer coming back down as the economy continues to falter, but the interest in home brewing increase from a belt tightening perspective.

Brew awesome beer for a fraction of commercial.

I will spend $10 on a 750 ml of Barleywine or something I can age, but I draw the line on commercial sixers at $6.99.
 
I buy pricey bombers all the time. If I taste it, and it sucks, then I'll be a bit bummed out (cough cough Southern Tier Mokah) and will likely not make the purchase again. I think this is the mindset of a lot of beer drinkers. Rogue has a lot greater risk of dissappointment at their price point, yet they seem to be doing okay (ie, I don't think they're turning off a lot of buyers from making repeated purchases). They can simply sell less beer than the competition at a higher price and in the end make the same amount of cash.

Some beers may be better values at their relative prices, but if I dig Rogue's Hazelnut Brown and there is nothing else on the market that is nearly as good, I'll cough up the change. They simply have a different business model than some of the other breweries.
 
I've all but given up on buying beer. my homebrews taste way better and are a lot cheaper to make than anything stone or rogue has to offer at the same price point..
 
This point might have already been said so sorry if that's the case. I noticed a huge price discrepancy between the 6 pack and the bomber until I noticed that the 6 pack was dead guy ale and the bomber (or maybe 750 ml) was double dead guy ale. That explained the difference. Might be the issue you're having too. Sorry again if this is repeated info.
 
Austinhomebrew said:
What is the price of maintaining a barley field and a hop farm?
Click to expand...

A bit of quick math based on numbers I got from various agricultural sites:

Beer:
Barley
[1.3 million spikes of barley/acre] / [21 spikes of barley/bottle] = ~62,000 bottles/acre barley

Hops (using the worst year I could find, with everyone drinking IPAs @ 1lb per 5 gallons)
[1,800 lbs hops/acre] / [0.02 lbs hops/bottle] = 90,000 bottles/acre hops



Wine:
[807 vines/acre] * [40 bunches/vine] * [75 grapes/bunch] / [700 grapes/bottle] = ~4,000 bottles/acre -> ~20,000 servings of wine/acre grapes

Assuming equivalent cost of land, beer uses 1.184 square feet (0.7 barley, 0.484 hops) and wine uses 10.8 square feet a bottle or ~ 2.2 square feet a serving. Therefore it is mathematically proven that wine should cost at least twice as much as beer per serving.

Sources:
http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/aginfo/barleypath/barley&beer.html
http://www.ndbarley.net/malt_barley.html
http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/grapeweb/OGEN/07262006/CropEstimation06.pdf
http://www.wineloverspage.com/wineadvisor/tswa010514.shtml

/no I don't take myself entirely seriously, but this was a pretty interesting exercise
 
This discussion takes me back to the Brewers Association vid about a year ago where all these Brewers, Papazian, etc. are talking about how 'approachable' bier is. Then the whole video (on hosting a tasting I believe) is all upscale in it's appearance and some actually compare it to wine. Which is it? Complex and snooty or flavorful and approachable?

When bier becomes wine... I'm out! Or rather when bier culture becomes wine culture I'm out. As for pricing, remove the tax man and let the free market roll! No way bier should cost more than 1/3rd of wine unless specially treated in barrels, ingredients, etc.

I LOVE certain spirits, Scotch comes to mind. However Dewars is the only thing less than $40 bucks a fifth I drink as my taste dictate it, most of what I prefer is over $55. Thus I purchase 1/5th of spirits about every 24 months. Same with bourbon, wine, etc. First I don't have the $$$ and second at some point it becomes a moral issue 'FOR ME' (not saying it should be for anyone else) as to spending money rather than investing it into something worthwhile like helping people etc.

Schlante,
Phillip
 
It is about what the beverage is worth not what you are willing to pay. Anyone that makes their own beer is going to have a different perspective on what beer is worth.

A masterpiece painting is only worth the price of the paint and the canvas.
Musicians should write and perform music for free.
I can make my own coffee at home for pennies.
I will do anything for a discount.

Think of all the beers you miss out on because you buy beer by price. To me it is like buying a car by the color.

Anyone with me?

Forrest
 
RogerMcAllen said:
A bit of quick math based on numbers I got from various agricultural sites:

Beer:
Barley
[1.3 million spikes of barley/acre] / [21 spikes of barley/bottle] = ~62,000 bottles/acre barley

Hops (using the worst year I could find, with everyone drinking IPAs @ 1lb per 5 gallons)
[1,800 lbs hops/acre] / [0.02 lbs hops/bottle] = 90,000 bottles/acre hops



Wine:
[807 vines/acre] * [40 bunches/vine] * [75 grapes/bunch] / [700 grapes/bottle] = ~4,000 bottles/acre -> ~20,000 servings of wine/acre grapes

Assuming equivalent cost of land, beer uses 1.184 square feet (0.7 barley, 0.484 hops) and wine uses 10.8 square feet a bottle or ~ 2.2 square feet a serving. Therefore it is mathematically proven that wine should cost at least twice as much as beer per serving.

Sources:
http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/aginfo/barleypath/barley&beer.html
http://www.ndbarley.net/malt_barley.html
http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/grapeweb/OGEN/07262006/CropEstimation06.pdf
http://www.wineloverspage.com/wineadvisor/tswa010514.shtml

/no I don't take myself entirely seriously, but this was a pretty interesting exercise
Click to expand...

Well played, sir. Well played.

Forrest
 
MVKTR2 said:
This discussion takes me back to the Brewers Association vid about a year ago where all these Brewers, Papazian, etc. are talking about how 'approachable' bier is. Then the whole video (on hosting a tasting I believe) is all upscale in it's appearance and some actually compare it to wine. Which is it? Complex and snooty or flavorful and approachable?

When bier becomes wine... I'm out! Or rather when bier culture becomes wine culture I'm out. As for pricing, remove the tax man and let the free market roll! No way bier should cost more than 1/3rd of wine unless specially treated in barrels, ingredients, etc.

I LOVE certain spirits, Scotch comes to mind. However Dewars is the only thing less than $40 bucks a fifth I drink as my taste dictate it, most of what I prefer is over $55. Thus I purchase 1/5th of spirits about every 24 months. Same with bourbon, wine, etc. First I don't have the $$$ and second at some point it becomes a moral issue 'FOR ME' (not saying it should be for anyone else) as to spending money rather than investing it into something worthwhile like helping people etc.

Schlante,
Phillip
Click to expand...

I appriciate you saying that the more expensive spirits are worth it. IMHO the brewer is a chef not a cook. I pay for inspiration and unique beers because I should. I value the talent that brought the creation to market.

You pay more for exceptional food as opposed to going to the Sizzler for all you can eat.

I could go to the $3.99 all you can eat pizza joint but I prefer a Chicago style pizza.

Forrest
 
lamarguy said:
Think of all the cars I haven't owned because of "price". :D
Click to expand...

Yes, but the cars you had to choose from in your price range were not chosen by color. You know what I am saying:)

I don't drive a Mercedes because they don't have the color I like.

:cross:
 

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