PINTS 'N' PRICES-- Have you noticed price increases at your local? Two of my favorite places have bumped up their prices: The Basement Pub increased craft-beer prices by a quarter and the Hawthorne Lucky Lab went from $3.95 to $4.25. Both pour generous imperial pints, and a half-barrel yields about 99 impy pints with almost no allowance for spillage, so these guys are just recouping the extra $25 that good kegs now cost. No gouging here.
Also, brewer Ron Gansberg at Raccoon Lodge said that in response to the Honest Pint Project, blogger Jeff Alworth's crusade for genuine 16-ounce or better pints, they've just bought 20-ounce imperial pint glassware for the Raccoon's Den downstairs and don't plan to increase prices.
Bold mine (obviously). Incidentally, Ron and I are going to try to connect next week to try out some of his super-groovy new experiments.
Hey Jeff!
ReplyDeleteIn the spirit of self-promotion, I thought I would mention that Belmont Station has taken this opportunity to actually LOWER our draught prices :)
We analyzed our sales and decided that we could absorb the increased keg costs and still bring the prices down a little bit. Our hope is that it will spur business and result in faster turnover of the kegs. I hate to make the comparison, but I guess you could say we've taken the "walmart approach" to pricing; we'll make a bit less on each sale, but hopefully the increase in pints and jar sales will even it all out.
The most noticeable decreases are on expensive imported beers and our 1/2 gallon "jars to go". Beers which would have been sold for $12-13/jar should now be priced at about $10.
The next step is to (hopefully) transition to 20oz Imperial Pints.
PS - Any more thoughts on a cellar party? One of our employees is hosting an imperial stout tasting on 2/24 (I'm sure you'd be welcome to join us), and doppelbocks are like the imperial stouts of Germany, so I don't think anyone would object to sampling a couple.
If you're interested, drop me a line at my normal email address and I'll get you all the details.