What I have been preaching for years! 
You pay for what you get, sometimes even more so.
+1. I totally agree. I try to avoid it whenever possible, but some of the killer high gravity beers (RIS, etc.) only get bottled in bombers.
so many bomber only beers, this is kind of a non-issue to me. perhaps if i lived in a beer rich area, but living in a beer wasteland, you buy what you can in whatever form factor they have at whatever price is on the bottle.
options would be nice.
Really, the larger bottle should cost less. This is the reason I typically end up buying 4 packs of Unibroue 12 oz (or 11.3, IIRC) rather than the bomber. Same for others like Old Rasputin, etc.
It costs slightly more in total for the four pack, but you come out ahead.
I thought this was going to be about drinking a bomber before going to the shooting range, with hilarious Darwin anecdote included.
The only bombers I buy are the ones that don’t generally come in 4 or 6 packs, mainly because they’re extremely high alcohol, barrel aged, or sour.
No, no shooting AFTER drinking. You can shoot BEFORE drinking, but you need to wash your hands and face to avoid the potential for lead contamination. There’s your PSA for the day!
And this is why we should ban all activities that can’t be safely done while drinking.
Alcohol and gun stories usually end with “Hey y’all watch this…”. ;D
I disagree with article that price of 22 oz bottle is almost the same as price of 12 oz bottle.
Absolutely not true.
Also process for filling 22 oz bottles is different. Price is all about productivity and cost.
If you are so much price shopper then buy it in the keg.
This harkens back to the discuss a month or two ago stemming from the NYT article about bottle sizes and prices. I’ve yet to be convinced why a large format is superior to a 12oz (or less) bottle size other than it’s more profitable for the brewer.
Exactly. You get less than twice the beer of a 12oz in one bottle for 3 or 4 times the price. And they know how much in demand some of these high gravity, really good beers are. So they almost all come out in bombers.
Thirsty -
So let’s assume a 22 ounce bottle is 2X the packaging cost. That would make it equivalent to two 12 ounce bottles with labels and caps, correct? Still makes two 12 ounce bottles the equivalent packaging materials cost of a 22 ounce.
Anyone know the actual numbers of the packaging of a 12 ounce vs a 22 ounce?
I checked Northern Brewer to see what the difference is in their pricing and they are $0.50 per 12 ounce and $1.08 per 22 ounce, so from a homebrewer’s standard the 22 ounce would be 2.16X the cost since the cap is the same and the label is essentially the same. FWIW - MoreBeer is $0.54 per 12 and $1.08 per 22 or 2X the bottle cost.
I do know some breweries who fill their 22 ounce by hand, but most are now using equipment to improve consistency and quality.
Buying by the keg is impractical for most, although I have considered it for Unibroue and some Goose Island products. I can get a 5 gallon keg from Binny’s for +/- $80, which is a pretty damn good deal for those beers.
Price is not just productivity and cost, it is also about market and demand. For whatever reason, the market allows an up-charge on bombers (I’ll trust you that this may also be linked to higher bottling costs). If there wasn’t demand that supports this we wouldn’t be seeing $10 bombers.
Show me a brewery selling 12ouncers for a better deal than bombers, then you have an article. This one falls under water is wet, fire is hot. BTW if you can get a IIPA from a brewery about 2,000 miles away for $4.99, you should already know it probably won’t be stellar.
Some small breweries (like mine) can only afford to fill bombers. I have a 4 head manual filler. There’s no way it would be cost effective for me to fill 12 oz bottles until I get a real bottling machine.
My IPA sells for $7 on store shelves. Some of our higher gravity beers sell for 10 or more. I can tell you right now that even at those prices we have a hard time making ends meet.
Oh my bad I didn’t realize you were in Fort Collins. :
Major -
But what does/would your IPA sell for at the brewery? (can you even do that in Alabama?)
I know plenty of breweries who do not undercut local stores when they sell direct and they make a killing. One local kept the brewery running with their tap room when it was undergoing some reorganization and dumping a distributor and sold 1500bbl out the door that year at a whopping margin that got them in the black quickly.
I’m sure the blog post was not meant to suppose a conspiracy theory that breweries were packaging in 22 ouncers to draw in some magical profit, rather to say the bomber is generally not a good deal. 8)
You’re correct of course, but maybe you heard the news New Belgium will open in NC in 2015. Perhaps I should revisit the topic in about 2 years and see just how much the Rampant prices change when they are just up the hill.
FWIW - Oskar Blues has opened in Brevard already and I have not seen retail prices drop in NC, although the packaging now has a nice brewed in Brevard, NC line on it. I doubt when Sierra Nevada opens next year (or is it later this year?) in Mills River, NC (near Asheville) their retail prices drop either.
I really don’t get the 2,000 mile freshness comment. Are you implying beers we get on the East Coast from say Escondido are aged and not fresh? Wow, I guess that Enjoy By 5/17 I had back in April was past it’s prime. :