Would you pay $100 for a kit.

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Not quite $90 from mine, but darned close. Look two posts up.

;)

*EDIT* Actually, when I add tax... $92.07. My bad.

*blush*
 
Last edited:
slym2none said:
OK, just for the heck of it, I am going to my LHBS' site and breaking this down. If they offer a discount (and they do) for larger-volume purchases, I am using that figure.

I saw 14 pounds of grain used in another clone, but we don't know what this kit has. I am going to round up to 15 pounds, just for the heck of it, and also to off-set any price discrepancy for any specialty grains used (which I don't know if there are any in this kit or not). Very un-scientific, but hey...

:)

$20.50 - 15# grain, American 2-row
$12.00 - 3 5mL hopshots
$42.75 - 19oz of hops at an average of $2.25/oz (Simcoe is $2.50, Columbus is $2, the rest are all $2.25/oz)
$8.00 - 2 packets US-05 yeast

$85.25 total from my LHBS to piece this out. Add 8% sales tax (here in NC) then it jumps to $92 and change.

Yeah, I'd still rather do that and save $, but $100 isn't as far off as I initially thought.

Again, this exercise was to piecemeal the recipe out & see what the maximum charge would be. Of course, bulk buys will drop that number significantly, esp. where the hops are concerned.
Click to expand...

now that looks like an IPA I would rather pay $100 for

but also why I buy all my IPA hops in 4, 8 or 16oz packs. I could make like 3 of my favorite IPA recipe for $100, but thats with grains in bulk too
 
I often use Northern Brewer recipes but order the actual ingredients from RiteBrew because it's almost always cheaper that way. For this beer, you can get the grain, hops, corn sugar and liquid yeast for 59.89, not including shipping ($72 with the cheapest shipping option to my house). That doesn't include the hop shots since RiteBrew doesn't carry those. Three of em would run you $12 from Northern Brewer, plus the $8 flat rate shipping, so another $20, which puts us at around $92 total. If you could piece everything together and eliminate the shipping (LHBS), you could come out quite a ways ahead.

Regardless, like others have said, there's no way I could consume 5+ gallons of a 10% triple IPA soon enough to avoid losing the hop flavor. This seems like the type of beer that would be good to brew with a few other people and split the beer (and cost) amongst yourselves. :mug:
 
Last IPA i made came in at 20 pounds of grain and 24 oz of hops. Materials came in at just under $50. So yeah, i don't think I'd pay $100 for less.
 
Would I - No. But it is because I could make this for less than half price just from what I have on hand that was bought in bulk.

Is the price unreasonable - No. If you don't buy/store in bulk, it is priced reasonably, if you are looking for a beer like this.
 
Real back of the envelope here:

I buy grains in group buys, hops by the pound, so my avg cost of grain is <$1/lb, hops around 1.25-1.5/oz. If I make a yeast starter (and not just use slurry) add another 1-2 for DME, all in still around $40. Pre-boil! $100??- no way!
 
McGarnigle said:
For me, the kit should cost about what the ingredients all cost on their shelf, not assuming any bulk purchases. If it includes a pound of Biscuit, then that's $2.59 (what Morebeer charges for a pound), not the lower bulk price. Same with hops.
Click to expand...

I differ on that opinion. Kits are prepared in bulk. Whether or not there is a bulk amount of any particular ingredient, you're buying a large amount of ingredients that should qualify for some kind of bulk discount. I guess NB knows that they don't need to do that, though, because enough people would rather just follow a pre-packaged recipe that they're willing to pay (maybe even pay a premium) for a kit rather than buying the ingredients separately.
 
FatDragon said:
I differ on that opinion. Kits are prepared in bulk. Whether or not there is a bulk amount of any particular ingredient, you're buying a large amount of ingredients that should qualify for some kind of bulk discount. I guess NB knows that they don't need to do that, though, because enough people would rather just follow a pre-packaged recipe that they're willing to pay (maybe even pay a premium) for a kit rather than buying the ingredients separately.
Click to expand...

Kits are for convenience. If they sell them for similar to the price the ingredients are on the shelf, it saves the occasional brewer the need to buy extra stuff he doesn't want too keep.

Granted this is a BIG kit, and they could have given a break, their normal kit is more like a 6 lb container of extract, 1 lb of mixed grains, and a few ozs of hops for around $30 or so.
 
Is it expensive? Yes. But trying to compare it to buying in bulk is not fair. Sure you can do it cheaper if you buy in bulk, but a lot of brewers cannot buy several types of hops in bulk just to save a few bucks on a recipe. Same with grains. The casual brewer would spend a ton buying all the ingredients in bulk.

Look at it.. 3 hop shots, 19 oz of hops., That is a big chunk of the cost. Grains.... you are not going to get them at bulk price. so that adds up too. if a LHBS charges 2.50 for hops. that is half the cost right there, add a couple of hop shots, and a lot of grain at lhbs prices and it will get you close.

Would I buy that kit? No way, but I can understand how someone would. I remember when I first started brewing and my LHBS only sold stuff by the pound. I was reluctant to buy grains that I only needed 1/4 lb. because I would have extra stuff that I was not sure if I would ever use. Same thing with the argument of buying in bulk. Sure if you brew a lot then you can do it, but a beginner will never buy several pounds of hops that they may or may not use in the next several months. Add in shipping, trying to buy everything at a betteer price and it will add up also.
 
For an IPA, no.
The most expensive beer I've made (5gal) is my Quad. $90 for the whole deal, including the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon that I use to soak the oak chips and the 2# of Montmorency cherries.
 
First, nope. Couldn't justify that. To date I think the most expensive I've done is about $50 for a 10g batch. Stopped counting batch costs after a while. Still do every now and then on the more common recipes. But $100 for a 5g hell no. A local brewery also sells all their beer at $90 for a corny + deposit. I'd sooner just do that and have something already to go dropping that kind of cash.

14 lbs grain @ sack price = $13
14 oz hops @ $2/oz = $28
10mL hopshot @ $4.50 = $4.50
Safale US05 yeast @ harvest = $1.00

=$46.50 CAD

Somewhat more reasonable. I've yet to make a DIPA so I think that would be a somewhat more logical step to take first.
 
It's got over 12 pounds of extract in it. I haven't bought extract in many years, but I thought it was expensive then. It's like $20 for 6 pounds of LME, and $12 for 3 pounds of DME- so the biggest part of the expense is the extract.

Grain is cheap- you can't compare the price of 12 pounds of extract to 18 pounds of grain.

So, by my math the extract alone is about $44. The grain costs is less than 1/2 sack of grain- so that's about $15 in grain.

Hops are expensive as well, of course.
 
slym2none said:
So do lots of things - from Italian sports cars to comic books, that fact doesn't make them worth what they are priced at.



;)
Click to expand...


Never said it was worth it. Just stating the fact that it did sell out.
 

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