Why is craft beer so expensive?

I was in a bar last weekend where the price for a bottle of local beer – made about a 15-minute drive away from the pub – was €6.50. The beer was a tasty but fairly standard 4.8 per cent pale ale and was the pub’s only craft offering. In the off-licence across the road, I could have bought four of the same 500ml bottles of beer for €12 and drank them at home.

Of course there are costs and other differentials to consider when comparing prices in a pub to an off-licence – but such a dramatic comparison (€3.20 versus €6.50) seems very steep. Is there any reason for this near 100 per cent mark up? And who is benefiting from it?

You’d like to think that the small producer is gaining when you cough up a bit extra but that’s not often the case. A bottle of craft beer is sold into an off-licence at roughly the same price as into a pub – roundabout the €2.20 mark – and the brewer usually has no control over the price it’s then sold at.

Fair return

Publicans, like everyone else, are entitled to a fair return. The pub industry has had a rough time over the past decade or so and many are to be applauded for changing up their offerings, adapting to new tastes and supporting Irish microbreweries. But in some bars, the price of Irish craft beers seem to be hiked up just for the sake of it. It feels a bit like a “craft tax” which is not fair to the microbreweries – up against the multinationals – or the consumers.

I’m all into supporting quality, locally-made beer and if that means paying a bit more I’m willing to do that – but by how much? And when do you start feeling like you’re being ripped off?

@ITbeerista beerista@irishtimes.com