I have to admit we’ve not been much of anywhere for two years, but this past week we went to a brewpub and I was a little shocked to see the pint was $8.50 with tax. Is this a new normal? I know I can get the same draft at a restaurant not far away for $6 all day everyday and for $2 when on special. I expect to pay more for beers at some restaurants and especially at bars and events, but is $8.50 per pint a new norm for a brewpub or brewery tap room?
In my little town the range is $5 at a pizza place Happy hour, to $8 at another place all the time.
During our stay at Santa Fe NM one newish place was $7. Many places were $6. We didn’t stop at the touristy places overlooking the plaza, but looked online and thoses are $5.50. Our go to was the SF Brewing Brakeroom, $5 at Happy hour, $4 on Tuesdays.
yes, most recent time i went to my city (in canada)'s main craft beer bar place the nothing-special pints (IPAs, craft lagers, etc) ranged from about $7.50 to $9 plus tax. these are not full pints but 14oz type things.
i’m completely off drinking outside the house.
i know different places in america have very different prices, but here in ontario the prices are pretty standardized and there isn’t a thing on having sales hours or sales products for cheap.
if the government didn’t have insane taxes and fees on all levels of producing, selling and serving alcohol, we would probably be cheaper than the states. hate this crap.
See, this is why I like the self serve tap. I can top it off until I hit $5.00, like getting gas in high school :D. And no tip.
But yes, I think prices are up and they aren’t going down. Between the pandemic and having two kids in the past 2 years, I have found that experiences that I used to like to pay for are not worth the price anymore. I’ll go to the destination breweries that have tons of beautiful outdoor space on farmland, or the places that legitimately have great beer, as well as the restaurants I like. But I buy a lot more things to prepare at home because there’s also a lot of crap out there that’s not worth paying money for just to be doing it with a crowd of other people.
So in my neck of the woods I have noticed an increase in prices. I was in Pittsburg yesterday at Cinderlands Brewing and a 7% WCIPA was $7.25 so if memory serves me correct it had a very slight increase. I was also in Cleveland a few weeks ago at Saucy Brew Works, had a few under 5% abv lagers and the price was $6. Similar markets and pretty similar prices for what they are.
Hmmmmm. Three pints at a pub or the ingredients to brew three gallons at home? What to do, what to do?
this is exactly the math i do whenever i buy beer nowadays. tbh, im thinking of making a KISS but powerful explanation of why beer and alcohol prices are BS and people need to stop supporting the monopoly here that enforces them and rakes in money. i plan to post this on a bunch of subreddits and hopefully get more people into homebrewing. its basically extortion the way there are (high) minimum prices set in this province and they keep going up and up.
I can’t see having three pints at a pub for an evening instead of brewing three gallons and having a bottle with supper all month.
Life choices, right? Whatever makes you happy. I can’t see spending 1k on a Grainfather when I can mash and boil in a $75 kettle, but that’s just me. And yet I’m happy to spend $8 a pop for a decent beer at a restaurant. 
Everything is more expensive these days and beer is no exception. At breweries a lot of this seems driven by the elevation of tap rooms from a small room with some stools to a destination bar that needs staff and equipment to upkeep a fairly large bar. I understand that profits at a taproom are generally better than distribution but costs increase with sales, too. Once one brewery in the area starts charging more so will everybody else.
$75 kettle? luxury.
Of course it depends where you are, and what you are having. Here in Wisconsin, we can still find draft beers for “as little as” $4-$5 at a lot of places, maybe $6 for the more expensive places. Meanwhile, just a few miles south in Chicago, I know the normal price is closer to $7-$9. When I fly out to California next week, I expect to pay that much or maybe even >$10 per pint. Cost of living crapola. This is why I never ever ever want to move away from the state of Wisconsin. Not only is it my one and only place I’ve called home since birth, but I know the cost of living is relatively very reasonable. My company wants everyone to move to Florida in the next couple years. Of the dozens of people I work with, I can think of zero who have actually agreed to move. The rest are leaving the company or finding other permanent plant positions here (like me, I have to change from Engineering to Chemistry department later this year – I’ve been in Engineering for 24 years – guess it’s time for a change!).
Just kinda depends. “Regular” craft beers are in the $5-6 range. Special ones, like Alesong, can run 8-12.
Depending on what you order, $6 to $8 is the going rate for a craft beer at a brewery or restaurant nowadays in SoCal (or at least my part of Los Angeles / San Bernardino counties). Probably around $5 to $6 for the mass market stuff. Probably more if you’re downtown in LA and paying tourist rates.
didn’t want to keep bumping this, but ron pattinson just posted about draft prices today. he seemed to be complaining about 5-6 pounds per pint and said a different local had “cask beer”(?) at 2.10 a pint.
that’s a great price there. anywhere from $4-5 is what i’d consider a good, but admittedly somewhat unrealistic price.
in korea a 500ml of basic beer would be as low as $3
I just found it odd to be at a brewpub and we ordered a somewhat expensive small (yet delicious) pizza and a single beer and the price was $27. In reviewing the bill the beer was $8.50. Before we got there we went to a tap room and had two full pints and a single half pint and the total tab with tax was $16. That’s what I would expect at the source for a draft.
beer prices have gone up like so many other things, and like so many other things, the value just isnt there for me anymore so I rarely buy it.
i feel like there is a logic gap in general in the west that goes “okay, this item/service is not making enough profit for us, let’s raise prices.”
for example my city’s public transport (just buses) system. they “can’t afford” to expand the routes, and kept raising ticket prices because of insufficient ridership. i see virtually empty buses constantly, cant remember seeing a remotely full bus.
5 passengers per hour/bus at $3 per ticket is worse than 10 passengers per hour/bus at $2 per ticket if you get what im saying.
I see a lot of empty buses and i see a lot of empty bars outside of peak fri/sat night times.