Your Thoughts on Beer Prices?

I'd like your input on an idea I've been kicking around for a little over a year. After I published the map of Portland growler prices, Jeff Alworth suggested the notion of the Growler Price Index, or GPI. He figured that the average cost of a growler around town was $10, so if you saw one cheaper than that, it was a good deal.

Taking Jeff's idea one step further, I'd like to compute quarterly price indexes for beer in Portland, so that we can watch price trends over time. It seems like the following indexes would be interesting:

• Retail six-pack index
• Retail bomber index
• Pub pint index
• Pub happy-hour pint index
• Pub pitcher index
  
• And, yes, growler price index

The retail prices will be the average of non-sale prices of a collection of year-round Oregon beers, at a few representative Portland outlets. Similarly, the pub prices will be taken from a few beer bars, based on the usual price of a pint. For instance, an imperial pint is usually $4.50 at Bailey's Taproom, though of course some selections cost more. Pub prices will be normalized to six-pack equivalents, using either the fill line on the bar's glassware, or by taking the volume of the glass and subtracting two ounces for head/air.

Ideally I would gather these prices 4 times a year, on the solstices and equinoxes -- the upcoming equinox is what motivated me to finally ask for help. With the caveat that this has to be a doable chunk of work for me, and it can't be all things to all people, I would like your advice on the following matters:

1. Which beers go into the retail six-pack index and bomber index?
2. Which retail outlets do I gather the prices from?
3. Which bars do I gather the prices from?
4. Do brewpubs go into a separate category than non-brewing pubs?
5. Is the happy hour price the lowest pint price at the place (e.g. Roots $2.50 Tuesday) or the daily happy hour price (Roots $3.50 happy hour)?
   

Here are my proposed answers, please comment and let me know what you think:

1. Six-packs: Bridgeport IPA, Deschutes Black Butte, Full Sail Amber, Terminal Gravity IPA, Widmer Broken Halo. Bombers: Hopworks IPA, Laurelwood Red, Lompoc C-Note, Ninkasi Total Domination, Rogue Brutal Bitter.
2. Retail stores: Beermongers, Belmont Station, Fred Meyers, New Seasons.
3. Bars: Bailey's Taproom, Belmont Station, Green Dragon, Horse Brass, Vincente's Pizza.
4. Brewpubs: Barley Mill, Bridgeport, Deschutes, Hopworks, Laurelwood, Lucky Lab, New Old Lompoc, Roots, Widmer Gasthaus

What changes would you make, either to the details or to the whole scheme?

Breweries in Mirror Appear Closer than They Are

The trouble with taking a beer blogger on a family road trip, is that he maps out all the potential breweries and pubs along the route -- many more than it would be possible to actually visit. It's a pretty easy task, thanks to the Beer Mapping Project, and the handy proximity maps on beermapping.com make the problem worse, because when you look at some of the things inside the circle, you start imagining different itineraries than what has already been planned out.

But, as I said, it was a family vacation, so many beery destinations were left off, either because we passed them at the wrong time of day, or they were too far out of the way, or they didn't have food or weren't family friendly. No regrets: the vacation was a great success. It was the first visit to Yellowstone for all of us -- I would say it's the quintessential all-American vacation, except that about 60% of the visitors there were from other countries -- and a lovely drive through some amazing Western scenery.

Of course we accomplished a few beer tasks, like a visit to the smashing Barley Brown's pub in Baker City. But here are some of the breweries and brewpubs that we passed by along the way (in some cases, I mean we saw the whites of the brewers' eyes, but still couldn't or didn't stop):

• Laht Neppur, Waitsburg, WA
• Skye Book and Brew, Dayton, WA
• MJ Barleyhoppers, Lewiston, ID
• Kettlehouse Brewing, Missoula, MT
• Bayern Brewing, Missoula, MT
• Bozeman Brewing, Bozeman, MT
• Snake River Brewing, Jackson, WY
• Grand Teton Brewing, Victor, ID
• Wild Life Pizzeria, Victor, ID
• Portneuf Valley Brewing, Pocatello, ID
• Beer Valley Brewing, Ontario, OR
• Mt. Emily Ale House, La Grande, OR

We even walked into Portneuf in Pocatello, but it didn't feel right to take the girls into such a boisterous bar on a Friday night, so we sheepishly walked back out. No problem, compensation was had the next day, when we hit Table Rock in Boise and Barley Brown's in Baker City.

Again, no regrets, but if ignorance is your bliss, then stay away from beermapping.com.

Lucky Lab Harvest 2009

Yesterday afternoon was a reminder of how great it is to live in Southeast Portland -- the center of the universe. An assortment of beer lovers came out to help the Lucky Lab pick fresh hop cones off of donated vines, for inclusion in the Lab's fresh-hop seasonal, The Mutt. I had a blast the short time I was able to participate last year, so I scheduled a little extra time to hang out this year.

Angelo already has a good writeup of the event at Brewpublic -- including the fact that the Lab ended up with 215 pounds of hops from the shucking bee -- so I'll content myself with presenting a slideshow of pictures from the day. [Update: John also has a nice article at The Beer Here.]