
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.