LOTS of beers are contract brewed. What this means is that one company (say… Pabst) owns the recipe, and does the marketing and sales and pretty much everything but the actual brewing of the beer, since that takes specialized and expensive facilities. They contract that out to brewing companies- in this case, MillerCoors. So PBR is brewed in MillerCoors facilities, since they apparently have the excess capacity to both brew their own beer and brew contract batches for Pabst.
That’s at the very large volume end of things; there are smaller contract brewers that as they expand, contract with larger craft brewers to produce their products rather than invest in building a bigger brewery. At some point, brewing is an industrial process, so it makes sense that breweries with excess capacity could make your beer cheaper than you could, even without all the trouble of investing in more capacity. Plus, depending on how your contract’s written, you can probably take advantage of economies of scale; if the brewery’s products jointly use some ingredients, they can buy in bulk for all their clients as well as themselves, vs. making each client source their own ingredients.
Here’s an example of a contract brewer:
https://www.nabreweries.com/contract-brewing/
In a sneakier application of contract brewing(or something very similar), most mass-market “imports” from Europe or Asia (think Guinness, Kirin Ichiban, Bass, etc.) are contract-brewed in Canada, so that they can be labeled as “Imported”, but not actually have to deal with being brewed in Japan/Ireland/England and shipped here. (there have actually been lawsuits by deceived consumers about it)
For some weird reason, Brooklyn retailers have for the past ten years been selling me 16 oz. cans of Bitburger for $1.25-50.
So I’ve been drinking an actual German beer, produced under German purity laws, for less money than the rest of the country is paying for PBR, Old Style, Stroh’s, Rolling Rock, etc.
Not that Bit is the high-water mark of Central European brewery art, but it’s a fine, highly-ranked German Pilsner that’s as refreshing as any rice- or corn-based U.S. beer, and it’s delish.
The Japanese and Chinese beers that come out of Canada are god awful and taste nothing like the real thing.
I bought a 12 pack of Newcastle Brown Ale the other day to benchmark some of my home brew. Took one swig and then looked at the label, and the shite was brewed in Holland.
Sam Adams was contract brewed almost exclusively, IIRC, for their first decade.
Was PBR still cheap? I’ve never had it but I thought hipsters took it over. I figured that made it expensive like avocados. Maybe I was wrong. I went to a concert once where big cans of PBR seemed to be the only beverage but I did not partake.
No, I mean it’s still cheap at the liquor store. Like $5 of $6 for a six pack of tall boys here. And it’s often the $2 pint at the bar, which is really cheap here, where the average pint is $4-$6.
Those prices are true on this side of the country as well. My main stop sells the sixer of tall boys for $5.29 and has for a bunch of years. If you are super hardup, you can get the Steel Reserve for a buck less. However, you spend more in aspirin going that route (and your taste buds will be pissed for days).
For a while (2000-2004) it was available in the Milwaukee area. On Ratebeer.com I rated it 3.1 out of 5 which is decent. I rated the light version a 2.9 which is high seeing I’m not much of a light beer fan.
Yep. Miller.
And Sprecher. And Third Space. And Mob Craft. And Lake Front. and so on. But the Pabst brewery itself is defunct, except for a couple of small batches they are making. And except Miller I don’t believe any of those other brewers have the capacity to brew the amount it would take to stock the country with PBR.
:rolleyes:
People from out of state are always stunned by how cheap beer (and most liquor) is here in Wisconsin compared to where they are from. We’re tied for the lowest beer tax in the country.
I was just at a convenience market this afternoon (where prices are usually higher than regular liquor stores). A sixer of pints for Milwaukees Best (Premium, Ice, or Light) was $2.99, Pabst $3.99, and Schlitz $4.99.
A 12 pack of 12oz cans was $7.49 for Pabst, $6.99 for Milwaukees Best, $5.99 for Icehouse, and $5.49 for Hamms. They had a 15 pack of 12oz cans of Blatz for $6.79. Blatz is better is glass bottles, though.
I was paying attention to the prices because of this thread.
The only time I’ve ever enjoyed beer was on a trip to Germany in 2010, when I drank it because it was cheaper and more available than soft drinks. Otherwise, it’s a drink I happily eschew.
This isn’t a threadshit, though, because reading this is making me nostalgic for my childhood beer can collection, which heavily featured cheap beers like Schlitz, Blatz, and Strohs. I didn’t care for the liquid within them, but I loved Budweiser’s elaborate red-and-white can, and PBR’s bright red, white, and blue, and Rolling Rock’s dark green with the “33”. Seemed like we had a lot more regional beers, too - eastern Pennsylvania had Rolling Rock and Pittsburgh had Iron City. Genesee was the New York beer, while Pearl I associated with Texas and Olympia with Washington. This will tell you how old I am - some of my beer cans were made of soldered steel.
Sometimes we’d go to a restaurant, where, if asked nicely, the waiter would bring you a can from some exotic, far-off land; Tuborg Gold or Tecate or Kirin. Those were the prizes of my collection. Along with my six-pack of Billy Beer from Georgia.
Actually, Rolling Rock [del]is[/del] was brewed in western Pennsylvania (Latrobe, near where we live). When RR pulled out of Latrobe a few years ago, everyone I know stopped drinking it. I was in a Latrobe bar last year and someone ordered a Rolling Rock. A hush fell.
I’ve been to all 50 states. Almost every region in the U.S. has “regional” beers, even if they are produced by macro brewers. For instance, one of my favorite cheap brews, Stag, is not distributed as much outside of the southern Illinois/St Louis area. But it’s made by Pabst, presumably under contract at another brewer.
During the macro take overs of smaller breweries (and each other} of the 80’s and 90’s a lot of areas didn’t have as many regional beers as they previously had. I’m glad that has changed.
Anyone remember Weber? It was first brewed in Waukesha, then by Joseph Pickett in Dubuque, Iowa. Vat brewed beer, came in 16 ounce bottles. Good and hoppy bitter. Twas a sad thing when that brewery closed.
That’s a good price for the sixer of PBR 16ozers and the Schlitz. I think the cheapest I’ve seen PBR around here is $4.49/six pack tall boys. Binny’s (the local mega store) has it for $4.99. The 30-packs of 12 oz are $7.99, so not really all that much more expensive than Wisconsin (and this usually means some local liquor store will have it for cheaper.)
Icehouse at Binny’s is also $5.99 for a six-pack of 16ozers. I can’t really compare Hamm’s, Blatz, or Old Milwaukee, as they’re a little scarce around here. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen any of those on the store shelves. Schlitz, though, is usually $5.99-$6.99 (!?) for that size. When they revamped their formula about a dozen years back, the prices went up to be saddled between cheap beer and craft beer prices.
What I love is one of my local liquor stores will get excess craft beer dumped on them and sell them for crazy prices, like $2.99/six pack of Goose Island IPA, which usually is about $7.99/six pack here. This particular batch was excess inventory from Wrigley Field, I guess. So perhaps slightly past its prime, but not by much (the season only ended in October) and I sure as heck couldn’t tell the difference.
States often have low taxes on things they make a lot of . NC has very low taxes on tobacco. They used to be super low like 2 cents a pack but now they are still much lower than other states.
Weed in WA is getting dirt cheap. And they grow a lot, lot, lot of it. Not sure how much the tax is, but it’s far less than their booze tax which is sky high.
