[HN Gopher] What crappy beer demand tells us about the economy
___________________________________________________________________
What crappy beer demand tells us about the economy
Author : FollowingTheDao
Score : 50 points
Date : 2023-02-10 18:33 UTC (4 hours ago)
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| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| You can reuse charcoal water filters to remove impurities in
| cheap booze like bottom shelf vodka and gin.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Haha. My Chem major roommate and I used to do this in college
| while hosting house parties. We'd do 3 rounds of filtration
| using a Britta purifier with Popov Vodka and fill up a
| sanitized Ketel One bottle with the result.
|
| Popov, Smirnoff, and Ketel One are all owned by Diaego PLC and
| due to Federal regulations, all vodka is almost basically the
| same - excluding filtration of course.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| It is all watered down industrially produced ethanol. Tito's
| puts theirs through a pot-still but its still the same corn
| ethanol created by some giant factory in the mid-west. If you
| want to make your own pot still you can take the bottom shelf
| vodka, run it through the still then dilute it back to 70%
| with distilled/RO/DI water and get a Grey Goose bottle from
| the recycling and keep refilling it. No one will ever be the
| wiser.
| version_five wrote:
| Is there anything to worry about the vodka pulling out of the
| filter, e.g. chemicals? This sounds like an interesting
| experiment, my (probably ignorant) concern would be that
| running the vodka though a filter designed for water may do
| something bad to it. Is it completely harmless?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Removing impurities makes it _slightly_ less bad for your
| body.
| alephnerd wrote:
| My Chem major buddy said it was fine, but I'm not an
| accurate judge of that as someone who studied CS and
| PoliSci.
| DrSteveBrule wrote:
| The analysis in this article that "crappy beer" demand is
| increasing is wrong. The chart says that "An index of 50+ in a
| segment means volumes in that segment are expanding and an index
| below 50 indicates that volumes in that segment are contracting."
| The below premium segment went from 38 to 48, so volumes are
| still contracting, just slower than before. The import segment is
| the only one with increasing volume.
| 1A--__--__--1A wrote:
| It's one of the cheaper form of relaxation after a hard days of
| work.
| pwenzel wrote:
| This is only conjecture, but could the increased legalization of
| cannabis in the United States lead to a change in alcohol sales?
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/611714/marijuana-use-dur...
| solarmist wrote:
| From what I've heard it's true to an alarming degree for the
| alcohol industry, but it's such a new thing there isn't an
| agreed upon response yet.
| Jun8 wrote:
| Complement this article with the one on NYT about beer ads during
| the Super Bowl this weekend:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/business/media/beer-ads-s...
| danans wrote:
| > It's yet another indicator of our bizarro economy, where
| frivolous goods like air fryers are cheap but staples like eggs
| and meat are increasingly unaffordable.
|
| An air fryer is no more frivolous than a toaster. We use ours as
| our toaster, toaster oven, and convection oven. It's incredibly
| useful.
| sublinear wrote:
| Interesting. My experience with air fryers has been that it
| doesn't do anything in particular any better than other
| appliances and those other appliances are more capable than the
| air fryer.
|
| Big weekend roast? Nope. Make more than just two slices of
| toast? Nope. Reheat leftovers (other than fried junk food)
| without drying it out? Nope.
| themanmaran wrote:
| Perhaps "frivolous" is the wrong word. But the effect he
| discribes in the linked article is a backwards pricing
| relationship between necessities (food, rent, housing) and non-
| necessities (TVs, air-fryers, etc.). This is possibly an
| example of Giffen Goods in effect [1]. Where as the price of an
| inferior good increases (ex. bread), poorer families are forced
| to buy more of that product and forgo more expensive
| alternatives (ex. steak or TVs).
|
| Price change over 2022 [2]
|
| > Smartphones, 23.4% cheaper.
|
| > Televisions, 17.9% cheaper.
|
| > Bread, 16.2% more expensive.
|
| > Eggs, 59.6% more expensive.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good [2]
| https://www.freightwaves.com/news/bizarro-inflation-is-makin...
| jxramos wrote:
| I'd think that was a function of supply and demand to a large
| extent, people can forgo non-necessities and therefore the
| demand drops and the price follows that. For necessities not
| so much.
| danans wrote:
| > But the effect he discribes in the linked article is a
| backwards pricing relationship between necessities (food,
| rent, housing) and non-necessities (TVs, air-fryers, etc.).
|
| That makes sense. But I also think there are simpler
| explanations, which is that smartphones and TVs are sectors
| where a lot of effort continues to go into automation and
| price reduction, and there are still lots of gains to be made
| there. Those products are also not fundamentally energy-input
| sensitive - if anything, newer production methods tend to use
| less energy than previous production methods.
|
| Food production is extremely sensitive to energy and
| fertilizer prices, which have also gone up significantly. You
| have to keep a chicken at a particular temperature, or it
| won't lay eggs. And also, food has just been very cheap for a
| long time, so it was already at high risk of price increases.
| renewiltord wrote:
| TVs are cheaper because you can do targeted advertising
| against them. I worked on this stuff for a bit in its
| infancy. This increases margin sufficiently to drop prices
| on the device itself. It's a pretty huge improvement for
| QoL for most Americans.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| It's more than that. TV prices have been dropping like a
| brick for at least as long as I'd be alive.
| renewiltord wrote:
| True. I should have said that's accelerated it.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I mean... have they considered one possibility?
|
| _Opens article_
|
| cmd-f weed, 0 results
|
| cmd-f canna, 0 results
|
| cmd-f marij, 0 results
|
| Hm. Nope.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Weed is also much cheaper than beer in many states. I'm an
| almost daily smoker and a years supply costs me less than $300.
| Meanwhile when I was drinking more I would easily spend $100 a
| month on alcohol without even going to bars or restaurants.
| Makes a lot of sense to substitute in the face of budget
| tightening.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Let's see... my household gets roughly 3 cases of beer per
| month. Last price I paid was 16.52 for a case of Genny Light.
| All in, my beer costs around ~600 per year. Not to bad.
| Retric wrote:
| This is a little outdated but in 2019 a case is 15.20$ to
| 31.21$ from state to state, and cities can bump that even
| further. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/01/how-much-a-case-
| of-beer-cost...
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| For sure, I buy the cheapest case possible
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Idk what planet you're living on but every smoker I know
| spends closer to 300 a month on weed than 300 a year. Unless
| youre smoking like a single puff on a 1 hitter once a day, or
| unless you are getting insane deals on ganj, this makes
| absolutely no sense to me.
|
| 100 in a month on alcohol seems about right if youre an
| alcoholic (or if you're buying your drinks at a bar)
| turdprincess wrote:
| In my town craft 4 packs of beer cost 15 dollars, or about
| 4 dollars a beer. I have 1 a night, which easily brings my
| cost over 100 a month. I don't consider myself an
| alcoholic.
| ptudan wrote:
| I'm happy that there's someone out there who isn't
| particularly experienced with alcoholism, genuinely, but
| your figures are very, very off
|
| $100 a month on alcohol is like, 5-6 low tier cases of
| beer. That's just 5-6 beers a day. That's alcoholism to be
| sure, but the degeneracy goes way, way further.
|
| If you work at a liquor store, you'll see the grandma who
| comes in 3x a week to buy a cheap plastic handle of vodka.
| Or the guy who buys a 12 pack and two shooters, every
| single day. Or the new mom who goes from buying 2 bottles
| of wine a week to 10.
| rattlesnakedave wrote:
| Concentrates are really great, and cost effective if you're
| a moderate consumer (even daily).
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The store near me sells 2 gram disposable vapes for $30
| after taxes. Those last me two months or so if I'm only
| using them, so I could actually get my cost down more if I
| gave up flower. My alcohol costs were admittedly a lot of
| $3 a can craft beer which definitely adds up fast.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Tolerances vary wildly when it comes to weed. I know people
| who need literally 10x my "I want to be _very_ high " dose
| to get sorta-high. Weed's expensive for them, but very
| cheap for me. I probably spend $400ish per year on it and
| have some almost daily (and our weed prices are nearly
| double what states with better markets are--ours was
| deliberately designed to allow political insiders to rent-
| seek).
|
| > 100 in a month on alcohol seems about right if youre an
| alcoholic (or if you're buying your drinks at a bar)
|
| You can hit $100/month fast without having that high an
| intake or buying like you're royalty. Good sipping liquor's
| hard to come by under $50/750ml, so, 50ml/day and you're
| probably over $100/month. The wine market's _real_ hit-or-
| miss (and mostly miss) under $15 /bottle (in the US) and a
| lot of what one might wish to experience, flavor-wise,
| barely exists at all under $20/bottle. Good beer has been
| moving toward four-packs priced well in the teens of
| dollars, single 12-ouncers at $3-7, and $15+ bombers, over
| the last few years.
|
| Of course if you just want to get hammered and don't care
| what it tastes like, $100 will get you _really_ far, that
| 's true.
| sublinear wrote:
| How are alcohol and weed alternatives to each other at all?
|
| Maybe every now and then you hear about people who don't smoke
| weed anymore because it makes them anxious or people who don't
| drink anymore because they "hate alcoholics", but I think
| they're firmly in the minority.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| If you want something mood-altering more than you want the
| flavor, how's it not? I know a lot of people who've shifted
| toward weed while reducing alcohol consumption (or even cut
| it out all-but entirely!) for health reasons--almost no empty
| calories (IDK maybe a low-two-digit count for gummies, tops,
| if you use edibles?), far less damage to your body
| (especially with edibles), usually way fewer problems with
| hang-overs, and sleep is significantly less-disrupted. A
| whole lot of what used to be 6-8 beer hang-outs for us have
| become 3-4 beer (plus weed) hang-outs.
|
| I could be in a bubble there, sure, but if so I bet it's a
| pretty big bubble. I'm sure some people prefer an alcohol
| buzz to being a bit high, since they aren't _exactly_ the
| same thing, but they 're in the same ballpark, enough so that
| I expect plenty of people find them alternatives to one
| another.
| sublinear wrote:
| > If you want something mood-altering more than you want
| the flavor, how's it not?
|
| Ah I think you mean it as a social device, so sure.
|
| > I'm sure some people prefer an alcohol buzz to being a
| bit high, since they aren't exactly the same thing
|
| Have you ever frequented bars and/or known serious
| alcoholics? I'm not anti-booze, but that's a whole
| different world. They may smoke weed too but are completely
| different people without the booze.
| ryeights wrote:
| TFA notes that total alcohol consumption has not changed, but
| merely shifted from beer to liquor and other types of alcohol.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| Liquor gets me drunker, faster, and usually with less
| calories. Beer and wine also have flavor profiles that, while
| broad, are still fairly specific. Liquor, OTOH, has a whole
| lot of options -- amaros, liqueurs, etc.
| julianeon wrote:
| I never really liked the taste of beer all that much, but
| it's what everyone else drank, so it's what I drank.
|
| I think that, over time, "people who don't like the taste of
| beer" are finding they are a silent majority. As more
| alcohol-but-not-beer options come to market, they keep buying
| those. I like Kombucha more than beer, now add slightly more
| alcohol and you have a suitable replacement.
|
| Now imagine this process repeated across every imaginable
| beverage category that can be sold in stores, and the beer
| decline is easily explained.
| matwood wrote:
| There's weed/gummies, but also liquor and wine. And, with all
| the negatives around alcohol become more and more known, I
| think people just drink less. If someone is going to have 1
| drink, they are probably more likely to have it be something
| better.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > sumptuous nectars like Miller High Life.
|
| Everything is fine. People are just celebrating more: sales of
| the champagne of beers is increasing.
| tillinghast wrote:
| This is me. High Life is now my go-to. I guess the hop-bombs
| and the trending flavor-blast-du-jour that craft beer descended
| into just wore me out. And $0.50/can vs $2.50/can sure doesn't
| hurt.
| specialp wrote:
| I don't think it really has anything to do with the economy. It
| is changing tastes. Craft beer imploded by moving more and more
| to just silver cans with pretty stickers. All being "Hazy juicy
| IPAs". Seltzers were a refreshing change on this, but they get
| boring after a while.
|
| In countries other than the USA (IE UK) "alcopops" which are
| bottled mixed drinks have always been very popular. In the USA we
| have a mesh of state and taxation issues with selling a pure
| mixed drink in a bottle that they end up becoming "malt
| beverages" which are essentially crappy approximations.
|
| The latest trend in Gen Z is "Borgs" where people have some
| cocktail concoction in a jug. Beer is out of favor with younger
| people and has been for a while. The seltzer crowd went straight
| to Borg.
| gwill wrote:
| Beer prices have also skyrocketed (as mentioned in the article)
| which has further pushed the younger generation away from beer.
| Craft beer is the most approachable in my opinion as there are
| many styles or variants that "don't taste like beer", at least
| for my friend group in college it was easiest to get people
| into beer with fruited sours or barrel aged stouts.
|
| In a strange way beer is headed toward becoming an elitist
| beverage given the cost.
| giantg2 wrote:
| You'll know the economy is really bad when people brew their own.
| I make most of my own alcohol and it saves a lot of money.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| What are you making that saves money? When I half-assed got
| into it (hasn't everyone, at least once?) it became obvious
| fast that even if I scaled up enough (including _significant_
| capital investment) that it wasn 't more expensive than
| equivalently-good commercial beer, it'd only take a failed
| batch every two or three years to wipe out the savings, even
| valuing my time at $0/hr.
|
| I've considered getting back into it to make mead and maybe
| cider, but mostly just because mead's expensive (here) and
| _really_ good cider is usually imported and marked up like 4x
| what it would be back where it came from, which is usually
| England or northern France (back there, it 's cheap--though I
| do doubt I can match theirs without turning it into a high-
| time-commitment hobby, since the method is part of what makes
| theirs so good, plus I'd have to find a source of the right
| kinds of apples), but the economics for beer didn't even come
| close to working out. Fruit and honey can also be fermented
| without some of the steps & equipment you need for beer, which
| helps a ton.
| chelmzy wrote:
| I just always have 5 gal of apple wine going. Apple juice,
| sugar, and EC118 are cheap and produce something that tastes
| good. Just throw it in a carboy with air lock and in 2 weeks
| you are done.
| adversaryIdiot wrote:
| This is how me and my underage roommates did it in college
| :-) It was super cheap after the initial investment. Pretty
| sure we used a home depot bucket lol.
| mrmekon wrote:
| I've been tracking my costs for ~13 years. The cost here
| includes _all_ equipment and ingredients over that time,
| including all of the unnecessary stuff that I bought for fun,
| like pH meters and titration gear.
| |-----------------+-------------------------------+--------|
| | Years | | 12.92 |
| | Liters | | 831.5 |
| | Bottles | | 2494 |
| | Cost (SEK) | | 35373 |
| | Cost/year (SEK) | | 2738 |
| | SEK/liter | | 42.54 |
| | SEK/bottle | | 14.18 |
| | USD/bottle | | 1.38 |
| |-----------------+-------------------------------+--------|
|
| It obviously matters what you brew and what you brew with.
| This is mostly pale ales and stouts. They certainly haven't
| all been great, but I've never dumped a batch, so there's no
| waste to account for.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It depends on scale and stuff. Really fancy equipment can be
| a drag on any economy.
|
| I have a 6 gallon stock pot for primary fermentation, or a
| large mash of beer ($30ish). I use a smaller kitchen pot for
| most of my batches of beer (1-2 gallons is a usual size for
| me). I use my grandparents old 3 gallon carboys and bottle
| capper. I also bought a used glass carboy 5gal for $20. Used
| beer bottles can be found for nothing through local Facebook
| groups and friends. I use screwtop wine bottles to save on
| cork costs. Gallon jugs are about $5 (you can also use these
| as carboys). So a low tech setup that can do 5gal batches can
| run less than $100. My initial setup was the stock pot ($30)
| and a 4pk of 1gal jugs ($20), and ballons ($2) for airlocks.
| That can give you enough room to make 3 gallons. A 5gal
| bucket and some strainer bags can be helpful depending on the
| recipes ($20ish).
|
| Depending on the fruit wine I want to make, I can make it for
| between $3 and $15 _per gallon_ at 18% ABV. Even for for
| beer, which admittedly can involve more equipment, I can make
| a case of NE IPA for about $16. That 's probably about a
| third of the cost in the store.
|
| The only additional beer equipment I have is a capper and a
| grain mill. The only reason I have the mill is that it was
| free. You can order your grain pre-milled.
|
| And yes, I make mead, which as you said is where the real
| savings can come in. I also use my own honey so it's super
| cheap.
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| Depending where you buy your beer ingredients a very basic 5
| gallon batch of 5.2%ABV blonde/pale ale (10lbs 2 row, 2oz of
| hops, dry yeast), would be around $0.55/12oz pour for someone
| in the us (priced from morebeer). Of course $0/hr for labor.
| It would be very easy to lower those costs 20%+ buying a
| slightly more bulk amount, or buying the grain from your
| local brewery. On the equipment side you can go all out and
| get a setup for $1-2k or go super basic for a few hundred
| dollars.
|
| Wine is even cheaper and easier. Most wine kits come out to
| be around $3/per bottle. And only need about $100 in
| equipment.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "go super basic for a few hundred dollars."
|
| My very basic setup is less than $100.
|
| My first wine setup was under $55, and could still be under
| $75 today.
| underbluewaters wrote:
| I found it made more sense to brew 10 years ago. Back then
| craft brew wasn't as easy to find, so if I wanted something
| particular I'd have better luck making my own and sharing it
| with friends. Now I can go down to Whole Foods and have more
| options than I can fathom.
|
| Cost-wise it just doesn't make much sense. A batch might be
| somewhat favorable in price for ingredients if you do all-
| grain, but if you factor in equipment cost and time cleaning
| up...
| chasd00 wrote:
| My wife got me one of those diy kits from northernbrewer for
| Christmas. I was able to produce almost 5 gallons of a
| perfectly drinkable IPA at 6-6.5%ABV with it. Five gallons is
| a LOT of beer. There isn't much labor to speak of, maybe 4
| hrs total. You just have to be patient and wait, it took
| about 4 weeks for my batch to be ready.
|
| I haven't worked it down to the penny but the initial kit is
| about $150 (which comes with a recipe kit) and then around
| $40-50 for additional recipe kits. On the other hand, my
| favorite beer, Manhatten Project Beer Co's Half Life, is
| pushing $12 for a 6 pack.
|
| EDIT: if i just wanted to be inebriated though i'd probably
| just get THC gummies. That would be easiest and likely the
| most inebriation per unit money.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If you want your beer to be ready in a week, you can use
| Kiviek yeast at 90F for most ale recipes. Two weeks around
| 50F for lager styles.
| alephnerd wrote:
| My two cents - a lot of "crappy" beers are honestly pretty good,
| and a lot of trendy Hazy SpaceDust Double IPAs or Coffee Imperial
| Stouts brewed in Bourbon Casks just suck.
|
| A simple Hamm's, Miller High Life, Modelo Negra, or Coors Banquet
| is pretty tastey, inoffensive, and great bang for your buck.
|
| Also, a lot of beer snobbyists have now transitioned into Bourbon
| (f** taters for making it impossible to get Buffalo Trace at an
| affordable price), so that's also playing a role
| themanmaran wrote:
| The article is not referencing "demand for crappy beer", but
| rather "crappy demand for beer".
|
| Compound adjectives are not great in article titles.
| timerol wrote:
| It's kinda both. From the article:
|
| > That explains why the "below premium" segment was the only
| one to see an increase in demand in January compared to
| January 2022, according to the National Beer Wholesalers
| Association's Beer Purchasers' Index.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Whoops my bad. I thought I saw crappy beer when I posted.
| Still stand by my sentiments thought.
| joegahona wrote:
| I almost commented solely about the headline, but resisted.
| Indeed, while the article title is correct, hyphenation usage
| is so spotty among regular people that the chance of
| misreading the title is too high.
| version_five wrote:
| The important part is at the end: However, the
| state of alcohol purchasing says something larger about the
| American consumer. We're seeing folks once again organize into
| two camps - haves and have nots. Consumer demand for
| singular "sub-premium" beers is rising at the same time as high-
| end mezcal.
|
| This has been accelerating since the 2008 "crisis" and got way
| worst the past few years. There is no middle, there's either
| premium to cater to the (mostly) white collar class who are now
| comparatively rich, and there's crap for the working class, who
| are now super poor.
| notch898a wrote:
| Maybe I'm an outlier but the more high end beer/alcohol I buy,
| the more sub-premium beer I buy as well. That is buying more
| sub-premium means I've gotten richer.
|
| I'll have a nice mezcal with a shitty bud light or whatever
| afterwards. If I don't have a high end drink then that's when
| I'll have something middle of the road like a local affordable
| craft or something and since it's affordable I don't need to
| buy a sub-premium beer to finish off the night.
|
| Could it be people have just discovered better alcohol and are
| drinking that for the taste and then the budget stuff for the
| buzz? The masses may have discovered it's kind of an optimal
| strategy.
| dylan604 wrote:
| when you see someone walking out of the store with a 30 pack
| of Keystone, you know they are not drinking for the taste.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Ehn, it's just Coors Light in a separate can. And I can
| confirm that due to unscientific experiments of mine while
| in college.
|
| Same with Natty Light btw - that's just Bud Light.
| sokoloff wrote:
| "Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more
| than one."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRecWSp4VFg
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| More than 6
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| I'd drink keystone over like half the garbage craft beers
| or like a budweiser any day
| Domenic_S wrote:
| It's a strategy that's endured thru the millennia:
|
| John 2:10
|
| > "A host always serves the best wine first," he said. "Then,
| when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less
| expensive wine..."
| version_five wrote:
| Good advice, but If I understood that passage they all just
| got a bunch of free wine though
| dylan604 wrote:
| it was all free to the guests. the passage was in
| response to how good the miracle wine was to have tasted.
| it was the end of the night when they were running out of
| wine, so the expectation would be that they had already
| long finished off the good stuff. but here they are
| bringing out the best wine at the end of the shindig.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I don't know about you, but I've always known "joe six-pack"
| to be pretty price conscious.
|
| Then again, as others in this thread have pointed out; the
| market is rather saturated with gross $12 4-packs. I've been
| suckered by a few.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| If you had assets during the pandemic you got many good gifts,
| some once in a lifetime (those 1.95% mortgages).
|
| If you didn't have assets, you got a check for $2000.
|
| It really cannot be overstated enough the wealth divide that
| pandemic QE created. The way things are you have to inflate
| assets by $100 for $1 to make it down to poverty level hands.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Last two years the increase in equity in my house and my
| retirement savings exceeds my income over the last ten.
|
| I got that for doing absolutely nothing.
| acuozzo wrote:
| > It really cannot be overstated enough the wealth divide
| that pandemic QE created.
|
| :s/\<created\>\\.$/exacerbated./
|
| The underlying causes go back further than _Roger & Me_.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Some of us got neither
| bailoon wrote:
| > If you had assets during the pandemic you got many good
| gifts, some once in a lifetime (those 1.95% mortgages).
|
| Exactly. Real estate doubled, tripled. Stock prices
| skyrocketed. Established stocks like Apple triple during the
| pandemic. It's mindboggling. That's after 12 years of
| continuous growth after the 2008 recession. Going off of
| assets, the past 15 years has been the greatest economic boom
| in human history.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I used to (like, 5 years ago) find a lot of $7 and $8 bombers
| that were pretty great, or $9 6-packs that were damn solid.
|
| From my perspective it's not so much that I stopped buying mid-
| tier beer, as that it _vanished_ and isn 't there to buy
| anymore. Now I look at a $12 4-pack of beer that's not even
| _that_ good and wonder if I should put the money toward a very-
| nice scotch instead....
|
| I still buy from a few brands that I know well and that do
| deliver good quality at non-crazy prices, but there just aren't
| as many "yeah, sure, at that price I'll give it a shot" beers
| on the shelf. At least locally.
| tvanantwerp wrote:
| I've had this same experience. Every time I go to my local
| specialty beer shops, it's nothing but 4-packs that _start_
| at $16. I've never even heard of most of them, and a large
| portion are just the really over-done trendy IPAs that every
| brand new brewery seems eager to produce. Maybe 20% or less
| of their offerings are what I'd call a solid mid-range 6-pack
| of beer.
| 88913527 wrote:
| Local markets vary, but I regularly see ~$1/bottle as a
| promotion price for "mid-tier" (aka premium) beers, or to
| give examples of brands: Corona, Stella, etc. (I'm not
| talking about stuff like PBR here). These mid-tier's can be
| had for $11.99 12-pack, 12 fl oz. The non-promotion price is
| closer to $18. Both the promotional price and not-on-sale
| price began noticeably ticking upwards in January. I haven't
| bothered with crafts unless I can get it on tap when I'm out.
| Paying craft prices for at-home enjoyment isn't the right
| value proposition for me.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Bells and New Belgium six packs are $10-$12 here, a long with
| a bunch of similarly priced stuff from smaller regional
| breweries.
|
| Are they not mid tier?
| xadhominemx wrote:
| This is just not true. The real wages and wealth of those the
| the 10th to 98th percentiles of income have all grown since the
| period prior to the financial crisis. The real wages of those
| in the 10th-20th percentile have grown the most.
| boc wrote:
| Yeah but it _feels_ true, which is almost good enough.
|
| It's just like everyone who _knows_ a recession is just
| around the corner. Hard to support with evidence but it's the
| vibe du jour.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Prices have also increased?
| ccooffee wrote:
| Do you have a preferred source for this? I went down a
| rabbit-hole of googling and trying to evaluate how reliable
| the sources were and got pretty lost. I found several
| articles claiming to use data from the US Federal Reserve
| with conflicting interpretations.
| jxramos wrote:
| I was watching a Robert Kiyosaki talk with some podcast
| recently where he mentioned investing in Wagyu beef ranches I
| think. And he said something to the effect that the poor will
| stop buying hamburger, but the rich will suck the additional
| costs because they essentially are not stoic enough to go
| without was the vibe of his claim. So pretty much the division
| of essential and non-essential curves differently for different
| classes is how it sounds.
| version_five wrote:
| The conclusion makes sense though I'm not sure it being a
| question of a kind of stoicism. From personal experience, if
| you have money, costs go up, and you get angry you're
| spending more, but you can afford it so you suck it up and
| pay (ironically, a bit stoic).
|
| If you literally don't have the money, you have no choice but
| to change your behavior, so you go without.
| jerlam wrote:
| Funny you brought up Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad author)
| since one of the lessons in the book was - the rich (wealth
| accumulators) are smart enough to not spend their money on
| luxuries such as expensive new cars, and presumably high-end
| craft beers.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I don't have enough money to be investing in Wagyu beef
| ranches but I agree with that (especially if they really get
| cell based meat going, but even without just based on regs
| and consumer behavior RE animal cruelty). Eventually it'll be
| just premium meats vs... tbd (plant replacements, bugs, cell
| based meat off an assembly line)
| agentwiggles wrote:
| Obviously this is wildly anecdotal and a laughably tiny sample
| size, but I have found myself moving back towards a few
| favorite cheap beers over the last few years. I just got kinda
| sick of heavy stouts and hop-bomb IPAs, and have found myself
| enjoying cheap watery pilsners more. I drink a lot of PBR
| completely unironically, and my favorite local "craft" beer is
| "Hilltop Lager" - which is sold in red and white tall cans
| clearly designed to ape the PBR look and feel a little bit.
|
| I don't know that this is a counterpoint to TFA really, but I
| wonder if some degree of folks just getting sick of the craft
| beer craze could be a confounding factor.
| thedaveoflife wrote:
| I like the taste of IPAs but can't stand the hangovers if i
| have more than one
| jhbadger wrote:
| It's popular for some reason for IPAs to have high alcohol
| (like 7% or higher), but there's been a recent trend in
| IPAs (and other styles) for "session" beers that have more
| normal ~5% levels. I know it's just a few percent, but I
| find two or three pints of a lower alcohol beer leave me
| feeling much better than the higher ones.
| boredtofears wrote:
| This is where I'm at. Pale Ales or Session IPA's both
| have lower calorie and lower ABV. Toppling Goliath's
| Psuedo Sue is fantastic. It's not cheap though.
| maxerickson wrote:
| If you grind your teeth/clench your jaw during sleep,
| consider trying a bite guard.
|
| No more headaches for me.
|
| (I got one when I had a couple nasty headaches during a
| period I didn't drink for a few months. I knew from my
| dentist I ground my teeth but that was what pushed me over
| the edge.)
| scruple wrote:
| > I wonder if some degree of folks just getting sick of the
| craft beer craze could be a confounding factor.
|
| Yup. I'm a (former) home brewer. I have quite a few friends
| who are current or former home brewers, too. We're all
| basically done with the craft beer trends at this point,
| preferring classic styles that are in the <= 5% ABV range.
| [deleted]
| linkjuice4all wrote:
| I'm in the same boat.
|
| I got older so hangovers hurt more but there is definitely an
| over saturation of beers, brands, and bottles. I'm still
| loyal to some semi-premium brands when I can find them - but
| so many smaller breweries put out millions of different
| brands/flavors/types and I can't be bothered to make space in
| my brain to remember them (and I'm not interested in Untappd
| or similar to remind me of how bad my drinking habit is).
| slothtrop wrote:
| Similar place. I find over time I find I appreciate the
| lighter euro-lagers or pilsners most, and periodically some
| belgian non-trappist ales and german beers. Ales are heavier
| so I don't usually go for them, and "craft" beers generally
| disappointing.
|
| Have shifted more to wine, but owing to being conscious of my
| health, I buy infrequently.
| jonhohle wrote:
| I've always like PBR & MGD (when I'm feeling more premium)
| and really dislike IPAs. It's really nice to see local small
| brewers finally making their way into pilsners and lagers.
| I've had some really good ones that remind me of the
| Leinenkugel's of yesteryear.
|
| In the Phoenix area Huss and The Shop are knocking it out of
| the park with their lagers. Spotted Cow is still the best;
| even though it's an ale, it drinks like a lager.
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