I grew up embracing frugality, and while I can afford to buy “standard brews” at chain restaurants I rarely do.
Why pay $5.00 and up for a bottle or draft that may not match my taste or IMHO not be as good as what I can make at home for about $1.
Brew pubs and brewery tap rooms are different.
I don’t mind paying to sample the brewer’s art and perhaps find an opportunity to expand the styles or try new ingredients in my home brewing.
Comments please and cheers.
Totally agree. I went out this weekend with my wife for dinner (a rare occasion having 2 young kids at home) and was disgusted at my bill from only a few drinks.
I paid $6 for an Ithaca Apricot wheat for my wife! Seriously?
They are currently going for about $8 a six pack in the stores. Ripoff!
+1. If all they have is BMC, it better be cheap, or it’s unsweet tea for me.
I might just order water so I can save up for the sugars in my homebrew next time. I guess it doesn’t really matter as I don’t drink out much, but I also don’t have many fantastic places to drink around me.
To Brewinhard:
It’s rare when I have more than two beers out even when someone else is driving. I really do like a brew with pizza, but we have only one pizza place here with a microbrewery attached and excellent craft draft.
From other pizza places, I get the pizza to go and have it with a pint at home.
I’m the same. I drink water or tea @ chain restaurants usually. I just have a hard time paying 5-6 buck for a Sam Adams draft (or similar) when a six isn’t much more. I like the ‘saving the sugars for homebrew’ approach - pretty much what I do.
Breaking news: Restaurants are expensive.
Seriously I can make a turkey club at home for <$2, but sometimes I choose to pay somebody else $10 to make it for me. Beer is no different.
I will acknowledge that some restaurants tend to gouge. I payed $8 for a pint of Founders All Day because I didn’t bother to ask for the price.
The obvious solution is to never ever go to a chain restaurant. If I was stuck at one I would avoid the food and drink the overpriced beer.
Bingo. That being said, not all chains/franchises are bad. The local Cheeseburger in Paradise (which I think is a franchise?) has decent beer prices, and their food seems to be more wholesome than it used to be. Their beer prices aren’t bad either, craft beer is usually around $5 a beer. The local brewpub charges the same amount, and that’s a pretty average price around the mom and pop restaurants.
Heck, on Monday nights Yeungling is $1/10oz beer.
The nearby Red Robin? My wife and I haven’t been back since paying $7.95 for a 12-ounce bottle of Dogfish 60 minute. Of course they didn’t list the price, and we didn’t ask, otherwise we’d have probably just left.
I get that restaurants obviously have a steep mark up. I guess I’m saying that I’m more inclined give somebody $8 for a decent burger than almost a 6 pack price for a mediocre beer that, depending on how long the keg has sat there, might or might not even be mediocre. Beer pubs with quick tap turnover and better selection are a different story. To each his own.
I’d rather drink a Budweiser from a chain/small bar than craft beer because the craft is normally not rotated out.
If it’s going to be $3 for a domestic and that’s all they have, I’ll probably get one (or two for that matter). $5 for a Blue Moon, pass.
I ought to just start ordering mixed drinks with whiskeys I normally don’t buy for home consumption. For some reason I think beer=restaurant and liquor=bars
I totally understand the feeling. When the “best” beer they have is Sam Adam’s Boston Lager or something similar and that’s the $7 ‘Premium Craft’ beer, it’s frustrating.
On the other side of the coin, restaurants that serve alcohol make a large portion of their money from it. They also can then offer ‘Half-off Happy Hour(s)’ and then it doesn’t seem like such a ripoff. And during prime time it can help quick turn around because people will be less likely to sit and drink $7, not-very-good beers all night.
Standard prices for pints are $5 and up here. I usually get water, but sometimes I’ll get a beer. With pizza, I like cherry pepsi. I just feel it pairs better. I almost never get more than 2 beers when I’m out, usually just 1 at a restaurant. That sh*t adds up real quick.
A friend of mine uses this excuse, “I hardly ever go out for beers and I don’t buy much beer, so when I do go out, I don’t mind paying a little extra.” He also brews and does the majority of his drinking at his place or mine.
I dont expect much in the way of food or beer at most chains. $5 a pint for craft would be pretty good by me. Im more bothered going to an “Ale house/Tap House/beer bar or some other beer named place” or an “Irish Pub” and find out that there are only BMC beers on tap or maybe blue moon. I could also gripe about 95% of the beers at a decent beer bar are some sort of barely average IPA.
I gear my beer drinking to the place I am going and what I want to get out of it. Most restaurants have something I like and I will have two beers or if my wife wants to stay there long enough, maybe 3. While it pains me to overpay for beer, we now often invite the group we are with to come over to our house after the meal - it has become the way things go, now - mention homebrewing in conversation at some point in the dinner and many folks will be glad to visit with you at your taproom!
Just be sure to have a lighter ale or lager available to them for their start, but be ready for the occasional experimenter who will want to take a growler of aged, blended Flanders Red home with him…I keep 16 ounce PET bottles handy for that type of thing. It’s hard to part with a lot of the good stuff.
For me, it depends on the situation and my mood. If I feel like a beer, then I’ll have one. If I’m out at a chain restaurant, I’m not generally thinking about the cost. More often than not, if I’m just out with my family I’m ordering a diet soda or lemonade. It’s rare that a chain restaurant would have a beer that I’m interested in, but if I have a craving for something on the menu I wouldn’t think twice about ordering one.
I’m in the group of if I am out, I don’t expect a cheap beer. Usually, when out with the family, I will have 1 or 2 drafts of something besides BMC if I get the feeling the place is known for a great beer selection. I won’t order anything fancy at a place I know doesn’t move the product though. In that case, at least in the past, it would usually be a Bud for me. Nowadays, I am more focused on avoiding ABInbev products, and that usually leaves me with a Sam Adams seasonal or Boston Lager. The local bar near home has a poor selection of not necessarily fresh non-BMC bottles with Amber Bock and Blue Moon as the only drafts. I have stopped watching sports there. Its cheaper and better at home anyways, but if there, I may have an Amber Bock(shudder) or a cocktail(also pricey, but known quality at least.)