Craft Beer Poll! The Founders CBS Dilemma: Has Limited Release Craft Beer Pricing Gotten Out Of Hand?

While the Craft Beer industry has been experiencing steady and consistent growth over the past several years (click here for a list of Craft Brewing Statistics from the Brewers Association), there has been one very significant downside to all of this growth: Craft Brewers can’t keep up with demand. In order to keep their local markets happy, many craft brewers have had to scale back distribution (much to the chagrin of many a Craft Beer lover). Here are just a few examples:

• Oskar Blues drops distribution to eight states.
• Dogfish Head apologizes for pulling out of four states.
• Avery Brewing drops distribution to eight states.

This past Saturday afternoon, while perusing my Twitter feed, I noticed that a South Philly Craft Beer “boutique” called Brew (they are owned by the people that brought us the South Philadelphia Tap Room) would be selling the Founders CBS at 11AM on October 10th. Here’s the exact Tweet:

They want $28 for a bottle of beer??? Since I had no idea how big the bottle would be, I did a quick search on the interwebz and found out that the Founders CBS will be distributed in 750ml bottles (25.3 fluid ounces). Assuming a 12 ounce pour, that works out to just under $14 per serving. What I also found out during my little bit of research was that people were auctioning off bottles of the CBS on eBay. Here’s a screenshot of what I stumbled upon:
I wasn’t sure how to feel about all of this. At first I thought that Founders was just trying to capitalize on all of the hype surrounding this beer (is it me, or does it feel like there’s a new “Holy Grail” beer being released every week?), but after checking out there website (click here to read their press release from October 6th), it turns out that they too are having a hard time meeting the demand for their product, and once their beer leaves the brewery, they have no control over the pricing.

Rather than wrestle with this issue on my own, I thought that I would ask you, our loyal readers, what you think about the rapidly escalating prices of Craft Beer. Please take a minute to vote. Here’s the poll…

<a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/5570777/">View This Poll</a>