Portland Beer Price Index: Winter 2013

As predicted by a couple of industry followers of the Portland Beer Price Index (PBPI), beer got more expensive in Portland this quarter.  It's a pretty big leap, with less generous sale prices accompanying higher shelf-tag prices. There's no clear external driver for this -- I think you can thank Oregon's three-tier system for allowing price fixing by the distributors for this.

Here are the Portland Beer Price Index numbers for the winter quarter of 2013:

• 6-packs: $9.69, up 19 cents
• 22-ounce bombers: $5.29, up 7 cents
• 6-packs (sale price): $8.94, up 29 cents
• 22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.93, up 11 cents
• 16 oz. draft: $4.52 unchanged
• 16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.70, up 5 cents

Last quarter, someone commented that beer prices in Oregon are significantly higher than prices in other states... for Oregon beer.  This despite the relatively low level of taxation in Oregon.  The most likely explanation for this disparity is price fixing by the wholesalers.

I have to admit, I get out less and less often these days.  The pub prices may be a little out of date, and may get revised (upward) as I make it around to the pubs in the index.

If you require more information on the makeup of the PBPI, read the page which describes the composition of the index.  Check back in March to see the first numbers of 2014.

Fresh Hop Rankings 2013

Each year I sort the fresh hop beers I've tried into 4 tiers:  1. those that are very special, brilliant examples of why we love this time of year; 2. those that capture the green fresh hop flavor nicely but are not quite as exciting as the first group; 3. beers that don't really show fresh hop character, but are tasty nonetheless; and 4. beers to avoid for one reason or another.

Within the tiers, I try to rank them approximately in order of how well I liked the beer, though with so many -- 44 so far -- I might switch the order of any two or three beers on any given day.  That also means that I might actually like some of the top beers in tier 3 better than the bottom beers in tier 2.  I would have liked to put 12 beers in the Must Try category, but that seemed ridiculous, so I chopped it at 5.  Of course it's just one man's opinion, and your mileage may vary.  For reference, here's last year's list.

About half the beers on the list are ones I tasted at the Hood River Hops Fest this past Saturday.  Don't forget, the Portland Fresh Hops Festival is at Oaks Park this Friday and Saturday, October 4th and 5th, 2013.  Enjoy!


Must Try:

• Deschutes Fresh-Hopped Mirror Pond
• Laurelwood Fresh-Hopped Free Range Red
• Gigantic F'n Legit Fresh Hop
• Solera Chubby Bunny
• Double Mountain Killer Green

Good Fresh Hop Flavor:

• Ninkasi Total Crystallation
• Oakshire Bout a Hunerd
• Barley Brown's Fresh Hop Pallet Jack
• Deschutes Hop Trip
• Burnside Prime Meridian
• Big Horse Strictly Rude #6
• Breakside If It's Wet and Not Yours, Don't Touch It
• Bridgeport Hop Harvest
  
• Double Mountain Killer Red
• Hopworks Powell Estate Fresh Hop
• Lucky Labrador The Mutt
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Crystal Cream Ale
• Widmer Bring The Broom
• Worthy Fresh Hop Session
• Laurelwood Shane's Pale
• Coalition Green Pig
• Ninkasi Hop Fraiche
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Pine Drops
• Social Kitchen Wet Hop American Summer
• McMenamin's Thundercone
• Sierra Nevada Northern Hemisphere Harvest
• Commons Fresh Hop Myrtle
• Stickmen Fresh Hop Cascade SMaSH
• Old Town Brewing Cents and Centsability Fresh Hop Pale 
• Base Camp Hopularity Contest
• Humble Brewing Larch Creek Harvest Ale
• Deschutes Chasin' Freshies
• Vertigo Hop Harvest IPA

Good Beer, Can't Taste the Fresh Hops:

• Rogue Wet Hop Ale
• PINTS Seismic Upgrade
• Lucky Labrador Fresh Hop Pilsner
• Three Creeks Cone Lick'r
• Upright Hop and the Abstract Truth
• Sierra Nevada DevESTATEtion Black IPA
• Elysian Kama Citra
• Full Sail Fresh Hop Pilsner
• Deschutes King Cone
• Pfriem Fresh Hop Mosaic Belgian Wheat
• Portland Brewing Fresh Hop Mactarnahan's
• Burnside Fresh Hop Oatmeal Pale Ale
• Alameda Cascadia Fresh Hop Pale
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Bitter
• Backwoods Fresh Hop Logyard IPA
• Logsdon Fresh Hop Seizoen
• Good Life A Different Season
• Sasquatch Celilo CDA
• Two Kilts Fresh Hop IPA
• Old Town Brewing Fresh Hop Oktoberfest
• Deschutes Fresh Hop Saison

Avoid:

• 10 Barrel Goodin' Fresh -- diacetyl at Hood River
• Migration Wild Style -- too wild, and couldn't find the fresh hops

Portland Beer Price Index: Autumn 2013

Kind of a quiet installment of the Portland Beer Price Index (PBPI).  Prices are all within a nickel of last quarter's prices (after adjusting for a change I made to the stores in the index).  Sale prices were slightly less generous than in the summer, though the shelf-tag price on six-packs went down slightly.  An insider that frequents these posts hints that we are going to see a serious price rise next quarter -- I'm not looking forward to that, but it won't be a big surprise.  You can see from the graph that there was a big jump in Q4 of 2011 that sort of set the level for our current prices.

Here are the Portland Beer Price Index numbers for the autumn quarter of 2013:

• 6-packs: $9.50, down 3 cents
• 22-ounce bombers: $5.22, up 5 cents
• 6-packs (sale price): $8.65, up 2 cents
• 22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.82, up 2 cents
• 16 oz. draft: $4.52 unchanged
• 16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.65, unchanged

I made a switch this quarter, and subbed in the Hawthorne Safeway for the Division New Seasons.  Not finding HUB IPA bombers at New Seasons was the final straw for me.  A few years ago their beer selection seemed amazing for a grocery store, but nowadays it is a little sparse.  Still a good selection, for sure, but other stores have expanded their beer space, whereas New Seasons has shrunk theirs a little by trying to add in a bunch of ciders.  The switch was pretty smooth, since I actually gathered the Safeway prices last quarter, so I was able to make an apples-to-apples comparison against the same bucket of data.  If you try to compare the actual numbers reported last time, it looks like the non-sale prices are way up this time, but the sale prices aren't so different.  That may be because New Seasons touts an "Everyday Low Price" on a lot of common beers, instead of pulling the usual grocery store stunt of showing an inflated shelf price that is marked down every day of the year.

If you require more information on the makeup of the PBPI, read the page which describes the composition of the index.  Check back around Christmas to see the final numbers of 2013.