Archive for the ‘Beer and Price’ Category

This Is Something, Frankly, We Need to See More Often

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the international beer blogging community these days over so-called “cult beers” and their rapid followers. It all stems from the April edition of The Session which asked “What beer would you stand in line for hours to taste?”

Ireland’s Beer Nut offered his rejoinder, decreeing that beer does not truly matter, while young Mark Dredge of the U.K. chimed in with a contrary view and fellow Canadian Alan McLeod offered his view that…well, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what his view is. And from the look of things, he may not be, either.

Of course, I couldn’t help myself and felt the need to chime in on my other blog. But I felt that this topic was in need of a distinctly Canadian spin, too, and so I am here to tell you all that, absolutely, Canadian beer needs higher prices and more cult beers. Here’s why.

Ask almost any Canadian craft brewer and they will tell you how hard it is to survive in the current environment. Margins are tight, they’ll say, and distribution is difficult unless you make a ton of any one brand. But that’s because most of them are producing solid but generally unremarkable ales and lagers. I say that more of them need to think like American craft brewers!

(Which is why, incidentally, I’m delighted to see a strong Ontario contingent en route to the Craft Brewers Conference in Chicago this week.)

Especially around our major urban centres, which is where most craft brewers are based, there now exist more than sufficient beer fans who will travel distances and pay good money for special releases and one-offs, à la Dark Lord Day. Hell, the LCBO in central Toronto sold 20 cases of $18.40 a bottle beer in a matter of hours without any advance press whatsoever! You think a whole whack of extraordinary, limited edition bottles of some bizarre but delicious hybridized style of over-the-top barley wine or IPA or Belgian-inspired lunacy wouldn’t sell just as well? Of course it would.

And here’s the kicker: such special releases not only add to the bottom line, they also tend to attract the media, thus resulting in great publicity. It’s the exact strategy pursued by Boston Beer in the U.S., and they are now the largest craft brewer in the country.

Brewers get money and hype. Beer drinkers get greater variety and more exciting brews. It’s a classic win-win!

Posted in Beer and Price, Brewing Innovation, Canadian Beer | 1 Comment »

A Mix-Up with Positive Results

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Ontario beer aficionados were left seething this week when two-thirds of the province-wide allocation of the rare Ola Dubh Special Reserve 40 wound up by mistake at a single store and sold out in a day! But there is much more to the story than just that.

First, some background. Ola Dubh – pronounced “Ola Due,” not “Ola Dub” – arrived this winter in Ontario in two versions, the 12 and the 40. The first, which is now out in stores in reasonable quantities, was aged in barrels that had previously held Highland Park 12 Year Old Single Malt, while the second is the same beer aged in barrels that previously aged the much rarer Highland Park 40 Year Old. I sampled both a couple of weeks ago and found that the 12 has a wonderfully constructed character featuring raisiny notes of dried fruit and obvious notes of whisky, all in a luxuriously creamy texture, while the 40 has greater complexity with well-integrated but more apparent whisky notes and bigger spiciness.

Here’s the kicker: At $5.45 a bottle, the 12 is not cheap, but it pales in comparison to what is the most expensive beer ever sold at the LCBO, the $18.40 per 12 ounce bottle Ola Dubh 40.

It is the 40 which sold out 20 cases in a single day, prompting the beer category manager to send an email to the press apologizing for the mistake and assuring us that a further 100 cases have been put on expedited order, arriving too late for the holidays, of course, but arriving nonetheless.

So let’s do the math here. The 20 cases that sold out from a single store in a single day – with no advance press, I might add – represent close to $9000 in retail sales, or the equivalent of almost 900 six-packs of mainstream beer! That is, by almost any definition, remarkable, and bodes very well for the future of high-end, eclectic beer in Ontario.

Posted in Barrel-Aged beer, Beer and Price | No Comments »