You gotta be dry humping me, like we need to debate this: Carlsberg A/S ads say it’s ``probably the best beer in the world.‘’ At $400 a bottle, it’s now the most expensive.
That’s right, Carlsberg introduced a beer today that costs 2,008 Danish kroner ($396.47), the price being based on the year of its introduction. The Vintage No. 1 brew will be sold at three Copenhagen restaurants, including Noma, a holder of two Michelin stars and the world’s 15th-best restaurant in 2007, according to S.Pellegrino.
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Hookay, I’m a simple guy. A beer that costs $400/bottle needs to a) give me superhero powers b) make up for my lack of hair and studliness c) make chicks want to fellate me non stop for the next year and d) is served is 100 gallon drums that don’t spoil.
But I’m willing to let someone try to convince me that “hints of prune, caramel, vanilla and oak tree” in a beer are worth $400/bottle.
I was at the bottle shop earlier today and noticed that they now have a $65 bottle of Vodka. I asked the guy at the counter, “Since the hallmark of vodka is its tastelessness, is it really worth paying more than 3 times as much for even less taste?”
People aren’t buying the beer, they’re buying the price-tag.
The point isn’t to enjoy the drink, it’s to be seen to have enough spare wonga that you think nothing of literally pissing it away. It’s an assertion of social status, of wealth, and of power - like all conspicuous consumption. Note that it’s on sale in restaurants - it’s not for sipping at home, it’s for public appreciation.
Oh, and in the right setting, with the right people, you might just find that nonchalantly ordering $400/bottle beer in large quantities would achieve goals b) and c) on your list, and at least get you treated as if a) were true. Whether that would make you truly happy is something you’d have to discover for yourself.
Yeah, but a $400 Carlsberg? That’s like paying £150,000 for a Vauxhall sports car. Why spend that on a Vauxhall when you can afford a Ferrari? If you’re going to be spending that much on a drink, at least make it some sort of expensive wine - something that actually looks the part
In “that setting” and with those “right people”, they’ll have just drank something that “hints of prunes”? I know what someone’s going to be looking like and will be surprised if it impresses anyone.
“Your check, Sir.”
“Hang on, I gotta pump out a grumpy.”
That’s the point. With wine, people tend to assume that you’re getting something for that $400 that you wouldn’t get for $10. So it kind of makes sense to pay those prices. For beer, you’re spending money for the sake of spending money. You’re signalling status and wealth to others, and that’s all you’re doing. The more pointless the expenditure, the better. It’s not rare behaviour: In London, the City bonus-harvest sees traders buy each other £10,000 cocktails which they then set on fire. For practical purposes, a £2 Casio watch will keep time perfectly accurately - but you can still spank £8,000 on a Rolex. Why? Because being seen to carelessly spend money makes people respect/admire/desire you.
…and given that Carlsberg are a large, successful and long-running company, we can be fairly sure they’ve established that there is a market for this beer. A market of stupid, shallow, insecure and vain people, perhaps, but a market nonetheless.
The only beer worth paying a lot for is Trappist Westvleteren 12. It’s got the combo of being one of the best in the world plus extremely limited distribution. There are no authorized distributors… you have to pick up your one case in person, at the monastery in Belgium. You can find it in the US, but obviously not cheap.
Not necessarily. I doubt they need to sell a single one of these beers to have it be a success for the company, given the publicity they have got simply by producing it.
It’s like the Vegas (I think) hotel that started offering a $5,000 bagel, not expecting to sell any of them, but simply for the buzz it created. Now the fact that they have sold multiple ones is a testament to the stupidity of the world, but it wasn’t necessary for the purpose of the experiment.
Hmmm… if we assume that a standard restaurant beer is 1.5o$, then a 400$ beer would have to be 266.67 times better, or 26667% better as a beer. That presumably would be a beer which came with beautiful naked bizexual women dropping from the sky in parachuts along with your new Ferrari and winning the lottery all at once.
So I say, if the beer can do all that it’s worth it.
Beer and wine are both fermented products, with a flavor highly dependent on the base ingredients, I fail to see why one $400 bottle makes sense and the other is simply about spending money.
I answer this question the way I try to engage in discussions with my oenophile (or wine poseur, if you prefer) friends – I take the blame on myself.
“I think it’s great that you can detect all those subtle nuances. I must just have the most uncultured palate – maybe it’s all the rotgut. Anyhow, I just know it would be wasted on me.”
So much more friendship-preserving than “you’re an idiot, there can’t possibly be any wine/beer/stereo system worth $X,” and accurately reflective of the fact that there probably are people who could realistically continue to find marginal utility in increasingly expensive comestibles or whatever. My judgment (economic and gustatory) is that incremental value gain drops off a cliff for me at the USD$30/btl. price point for wine, probably $10 for a pint of plain, but – that’s me.
The really good haircuts do that, sure. The only limitations are that it’s forward in time only; you control the ‘distance’ you travel by varying the length of time you rub.
And my reaction to the OP is “that’s just a case where I feel 200 times smarter about the fact I don’t drink.”
To be fair, at least with the spendy wine you can point to the label and say “See, when this was made your granny was a virgin!” and thereby get some “wow factor” involved. Beer doesn’t age so well, in my experience.
$400 for a beer is just retarded, far’s I’m concerned.
