The Bar Towel

midlife crisis wrote:Fair comment. I'm certainly not predicting that Stone will leave this market in failure in six months time, or anything like that. I guess I was reacting to much earlier comments that seemed to suggest (in my interpretation at least) that the arrival of Stone and SN was going to be a significant game-changer for the Ontario beer marketplace that would force some local craft breweries out of business, and force others to re-assess or change their core lineups.

ok makes sense. I'm just a goober drinking beer, but I don't see stones arrival negatively impacting the big breweries making legitimately good beer in this province (great lakes, nickel brook, etc). On the contrary people trying stone for the first time because of their marketing may move on to other solid beer.

I can see their presence hurting some of the smaller breweries that have popped up making inferior beer. Tons of places have opened in ottawa recently. They should at least be somewhat worried that more access to good beer means more people will know their beer is not up to snuff. Will stone wipe all these guys out? Of course not. But I do think there's a good chance stone has more impact on these guys than, say, a new Great Lakes beer or whatever. Significantly more? Not sure. Just thinking of the marketing and hype potential that stone could generate if they put their full muscle behind their beers.

saints_gambit wrote:

rejtable wrote:I find it very hard to believe... pricing aside there is no way Toronto is too good for those two beers.

It's not a question of "too good." I'm saying we're very fickle and the reception would probably be greater if it had gotten here earlier.

Who's the 'we' that's too fickle? I think Stone is qualitatively perfect for a large mixed market of beer drinkers - freak hardcore minorities (us) plus the growing craft-aware segment plus the new-to-craft dabblers.

No doubt Stone would now have a better foot in the market if they had entered around the time Rogue did / attempted to. Stone is beer-for-beer generally better yet Rogue still did sort of OK in less receptive times, ergo Stone may have really taken off.
^ woulda coulda shoulda. How well Stone will do here today is all that matters.

Also - it's interesting how many jaded, fickle beer drinkers still hotly debate the viability of Stone in Ontario & what this means about the brand's staying power. I don't know about you guys but I've never lost interest in Stone's brews while other breweries have come and gone from my radar. The good ones stick.

Stone kegs are retailing for over $300.
it's nuts.
but i don't blame Stone. it's the stupid keg distribution system in Ontario. wish Tomas from Keep6 would come on and explain why Stone's so expensive.

atomeyes wrote:wish Tomas from Keep6 would come on and explain why Stone's so expensive.

Keep6 isn't representing Stone in Ontario, it's Horizon.

Tom's a smart guy, I bet he could still do a pretty good job explaining it.

atomeyes wrote:Stone kegs are retailing for over $300.
it's nuts.
but i don't blame Stone. it's the stupid keg distribution system in Ontario. wish Tomas from Keep6 would come on and explain why Stone's so expensive.

In the free market that is Alberta, kegs of Stone are nearer to $400.00 (wholesale), so thank yourselves lucky you're getting a relative bargain in Ontario.

So there's your explanation! Evidently this is what Stone believes the market will bear. (No doubt recent drop in the Canadian dollar, etc., also has had an impact).

Compare the Stone price to the same sized keg of Green Flash IPA, which is around $350, or a 50L keg from Anchor of their IPA which is $280.

Stone are definitely at the high end of pricing, and these prices are BEFORE the recent decline of the dollar.

So Sid if we estimate the adjusted price for the low Loonie about $500 for a keg which is 124 pints, the wholesale cost to the bar before all other expenses is roughly 4 dollars a pint?

Yeah that's beer nuts. And I can see a lot of the bars trying to sell about 160 foreshortened"pints" out of this keg just to make a profit. Because people will already pay silly prices for those fake – size servings, anyway. It's a race to the bottom!

Cass wrote:

atomeyes wrote:wish Tomas from Keep6 would come on and explain why Stone's so expensive.

Keep6 isn't representing Stone in Ontario, it's Horizon.

Tom opined before regarding posters complaining about the price of non-local draught. he knows how draught in ontario's kind of broken.

so, to my understanding:

It cost Stone $5000 per SKU to sell in Ontario.
on each pint of stone, you see markup from 5 bodies:

Stone
Horizon (wholesaler)
Ont govt
keg distributor
dispensing bar

hence, a bloody expensive beer.

atomeyes wrote:so, to my understanding:

It cost Stone $5000 per SKU to sell in Ontario.
on each pint of stone, you see markup from 5 bodies:

Stone
Horizon (wholesaler)
Ont govt
keg distributor
dispensing bar

hence, a bloody expensive beer.

That's IS sort of broken. Typical for Ontario, there's no plan*, but it's screwed up and expensive as hell!

* Unless the plan is a sort of venal protectionism E.g. for the meatballs running the beer store. then the plan is working great.

atomeyes wrote:so, to my understanding:

It cost Stone $5000 per SKU to sell in Ontario.
on each pint of stone, you see markup from 5 bodies:

Stone
Horizon (wholesaler)
Ont govt
keg distributor
dispensing bar

hence, a bloody expensive beer.

But none of that is unique to Stone, is it? Why is Stone so much more expensive than other imports?

midlife crisis wrote:But none of that is unique to Stone, is it? Why is Stone so much more expensive than other imports?

Because Capitalism.

lister wrote:

midlife crisis wrote:But none of that is unique to Stone, is it? Why is Stone so much more expensive than other imports?

Because Capitalism.

Because Koch.