When he mentioned price, I should've shown him my excel spreadsheet on my phone. Given Sucks and this La Cumbre IPAs ABV, the beer cost value is among the best around. We're at $0.71 and $0.82. Only Bud light tops that at $0.70 when buying a 30 pack.... Value and great beer can be had at the same time..(for reference, the worst valued beers were Southern Charred and Deschutes Abyss). Bomber value is the worst out there. They are ripping us off ten fold at that quantity.
Just my opinion, but I think the ABV
rice ratio is the wrong way of valuing a beer. Taste
rice ratio would obviously be less objective, but definitely more effective at gauging a beer's worth.
About people disregarding your advice of buying an $8 bomber when they can get a 12-pack for the same price, it's understandable. Not everyone cares to appreciate the intricacies of a good beer. It takes time to develop a palate that can discern a good beer from a bad one - maybe the next time someone asks you for a recommendation, ask what they like and give some lower-priced options. When people ask me for a good starter craft beer, I recommend Lagunitas IPA since it's cheap, widely available, and generally palatable for the naive taste buds.
And yea, you do sound like a beer snob
I guess I look at value in two ways.. The cost per ounce seen at grocery stores used to help consumers make decisions. Sometimes an item is $5 for 10 oz. and at another store that same item in a 15 oz. can is $8. Where does the true "bargain" value lie? The other way is when I see two comparable beers but one is priced a touch differently making me wonder why. At total wine, sometimes they have a 12 oz bottle priced cheaper than a 16.9 or 22 oz bottle. Be smart. Be educated lol.
Most of the time, prices are higher because they use more ingredients because it takes more to make higher ABV beer. Common sense type stuff that many consumers don't grasp at with beer just yet. One of my local breweries has changed how they charge for their draft beer. It's now a three tier system where lower ABV beers are cheaper, and those amped up beers are higher priced. Most still have the standard pricing structure in place. I'm a bargain hunter at heart so I look at getting a good bang for my buck with quality beer choices. I have never sacrificed quality for a "value". Or not bought something because it fell out of the 'bargain zone'. If I get a "value", I like to know how it compares.
As always though, high quality ingredients, how it was brewed, and many times the quantity (Bourbon Barrel aging space and time needed is a huge reason those are expensive) are bigger determinants than ABV alone. So this isn't a full proof system.... Malt liquor should dominate the list. So I guess it's not totally about that. No offense to Boatswain Double IPA, but its D rating on BA indicates quite a bit about it, yet its #1 on the list and I'm not running to the store buying that (btw list is sorted by column H A->Z indicating "best value".
Now if I could figure out a nice incorporation of the BA review score in relation to my value chart, it may lead to another column... Any suggestions?
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Kickhead23, I have not tried either of those beers. I don't live in a state with the biggest of distribution choices. I hope to try those both someday. I love a good coffee 'only' stout.
Jbug88, I made this google docs spreadsheet sharable. So everyone can add their own beers if they would like
Yellow columns is where you enter your data. Pretty straight forward. The green columns have the outputs for what you enter.
The first two green columns may be hard to initially grasp. But I'll try to explain
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ABV ozs per $. - Given the price of your beer, how many ABV do you get out of that... As a standard example, I use Dos Equis Lager as the baseline. It contains 50.4 ABV given it's 12 oz. and 4.2% ABV. Higher the number the better here.
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PRICE per ABV oz in cents- Dos Equis in this example has a 1.98 cent value for every ABV. A quick multiplication shows that for every ONE ABV, it costs 1.98 cents. (1.98 x 50.4 = $1.00)
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$$ Price per ABV oz in dollars given standard 50.4 bottle- This is the one I look to the most. For Dos Equis, your standard 12 oz. 4.2% beer has a cost of $1.00. As we look down the list, we can compare a GI BCBCS to a ten fidy. One costs $3 more, but has 3.4% more alcohol. This spreadsheet quickly does the math and shows that BCBCS is in fact a decent value.
This all started when I wanted to know how much more they were charging me on 16 oz pours vs. growlers.. Then sometimes these places would randomly add in a $4 growler fill up charge for their bigger or seasonal choices.. "Was there value?", I asked or should I stick to my regular house choices.
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xxpizzo, Hop Devil is from Victory right? I was out in NY back in May (they don't distribute locally). I had some then. One thing I took away was that even though the IBU was in the 50s (bittering units), it felt way hoppier. One needs to be prepared for that. I found it to be at that extreme hop level. From the smell to the taste, all hops. Quite surprising. I don't think you'll find too many that are that hop forward with supposedly less IBU. I guess you could call it a bit unbalanced. I'd probably buy once in awhile if available.
Comparison Ford, VITUS!. Glad to see you picked some up finally. I caught on to most of Weihenstephaner beers this past May.. been hooked ever since. Vitus will have some of that yeasty fruity flavors, mixed with bananas like a typical hefe, and a nice clean dry carbonated tart finish. The finish on all Weihenstephaners is world class. Original is a classic helles lager. Truly think of a world class "budweiser" type beer. And that beer is a perfect intro to anyone wanting to try something a bit classier.
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.He iInstantly put it down. He said something about $8 bucks being too much to try it again.. I said "yeah expensive stuff" and I kind of shrugged my shoulders (more for me ultimately).
