Musings on Beer in Liquor, Corner, and Grocery Stores

I spent most of the month of July in Oregon visiting family and putting together a few Beers Made By Walking events. The summers there are wonderful, after nine months of clouds and drizzle the sun comes out for about 60-90 days. Luckily this year I didn't have to sift through the grey skies, I just showed up at the right time. While I was there, I was reminded of how much I appreciate having beer half a block down the street. I'd like to share a few of my experiences. Unlike what I've done in the past I'm not trying to come to any conclusions on Colorado convenience stores and 3.2 laws, I just want to share my experiences.

Why Aren't There More 3.2% Beers Anyway?

I couldn't sleep last night. I started reading beer articles and I don't know why it took so long for me to consider this, but in my exhausted state it dawned on me that barely any craft breweries are participating in the 3.2%ABV ceiling-law that's currently in place for Colorado grocery and convenient stores. I'm not sure why that is. I mean, why is it that we don't see lots of craft breweries making these lower ABV beers so that they can reach a wider audience? It's certainly not because beer that is 3.2% is no good. In fact, there are plenty of examples of good beers with similar or lower alcohol by volume percentages. For example Rockyard's Rock Weisser, part of their Homebrewers Gone Wild series, is a tasty Berliner Weisse at 3%. Many Berliner Weisse beers sit at that percentage. I've had some great Mild Ales that sat around 3.2-3.5%. I've also had a BrewDog 1.1% hop bomb, which was actually kinda fun to drink if I'm being honest with myself. It's funny to think I could drink 16 of those and perhaps only get dizzy from too many hops. There's plenty more examples of course, including some Blonde Ales, Brown Ales, Bitters, and Pale Ales. Here's an article from Beer Today that reports a number of beers that were brewed specifically to be 2.8% or below and still be impressive.

Do breweries want to distribute to the local liquor shops only? If this 3.2% law remains on the shelf, doesn't it seem likely a brewery could make a good amount of money, or at least expand interest in craft beer, by offering quality beer that meets the regulations of what can be sold in grocery/convenient stores? Maybe the American public just won't accept low alcohol craft beer? That's too bad, if that's the case.

What are your thoughts? Maybe, I'll ask a few brewers these questions so we can get an idea of what they think. Also, I'd be very curious to hear from Breckenridge and Boulder, who I believe do indeed make lighter versions of certain beers in order to sell their beer in these stores. Seems like there should be a lot more available though.

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Mike Bristol Responds to Price Jacking Question

The other day we posted a series of questions about the dilemma or non-dilemma of liquor stores jacking up the prices of Bristol's Venetucci fundraising community ale. The topic, originally brought up by the UpaDowna folks, is certainly one that deserves some consideration. Is it okay for a shop to raise the prices of a beer where 100% of profits are going to Venetucci Farms, if in fact they are simply profiting off that beer. Browse the links above to see/participate in the discussion...

Mike Bristol talking with Grant and Isaac.

We invited Mike Bristol, of Bristol Brewing, to respond. Here's what he says:

The issue that they bring up is interesting. It would be naive of us to think that all of our liquor store customers would support the same causes that we do and would be perfectly aligned with our philanthropic goals. The fact is that

Price Jacking the Venetucci Pumpkin Ale

Image is from UpaDowna's site

A moment ago I read a most interesting post on UpaDowna about how many liquor stores across Colorado Springs have jacked up the price of Bristol's famous Venetucci Pumpkin Ale. The author, Bunny, writes that he usually runs all over town the day after the release stocking up on as many bottles as possible but through a conversation with a friend began to see that this might be a serious problem. The beer is supposed to be a fundraiser but people are making profits from the high demand. I highly highly recommend reading the whole article, because I'm only quoting one small part of the larger piece here but Bunny goes on to say:

They're a business, that's exactly what any successful business is suppose to do. Buy low, sell high. The truth is these beers are advertised and sold with the understanding to many that 100% of the proceeds are going to the Venetucci Farm, it says it right there on the bottle. What does this mean?  Are all these stores that have hiked up the price pocketing off of this? Or are they donating 100% of the profits back to the charity, hmmm? The truth is they're not all doing this, if any are at all.

These things have happened before. A few months ago we posted to facebook an article from the Washington Post about rare beers sold on eBay for large amounts of money. (More discussion on that post is here and here.) A number of brewers are really upset that this is happening. But, similar to the Bristol beer, Russian River made a beer called Framboise for a Cure:

[The beer] sold for $12 per bottle to raise money for a local breast cancer treatment center. The beer sold out in a day, and soon somebody sold a bottle on eBay for $400. Then someone else put one up for sale. “We contacted that person,” Cilurzo says, “and we said, ‘This is absolutely ridiculous, because we donated 100 percent of this for charity.’”....The seller didn’t budge. “The guy said, ‘I have to support my habit somehow.’ ” Not heroin or cocaine. He meant craft beer.

This is an interesting thing to think about and I wanted to see what your thoughts were on the matter - Is it okay for liquor stores to jack up the prices if it is for their own profit? Obviously this happens with specialty rare beers but how about these not-for-profit-fundraising-beers? What do you think should be done about the situation? Is what's happening a problem, or is that just the way things go? Bristol is donating the money they get, so does it matter what happens once it changes hands? Ultimately the higher price builds a type of buzz about the beer, which makes it increasingly popular, which makes it sell out fast, which brings more and more attention to Venetucci and Bristol...Is this a bad thing? What do you all think?

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