how low avarage cost of a pint

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brewpete
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how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by brewpete » Tue Oct 03, 2017 9:17 pm

hi am starting up all grain again how low cost can you make a pint for am looking at pilsner
the best i can manage is about £35p a pint

robbym123
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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by robbym123 » Tue Oct 03, 2017 10:37 pm

Depends, mainly whether you buy your grain by the kg, or by 25kg sack. Also whether you use liquid yeast or dried.

Reckon the cheapest you could go is 25kg of muntons lager malt for £15, 200g of hops for about £6 and 5 sachets of Cross my loof kolsch yeast for about £3.65. In total £25 for about 200-220 pints of beer, or about 12.5p per pint.

I haven't included any postage cost, or any other grains you might want to include in the recipe.

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by Digby » Wed Oct 04, 2017 5:02 pm

robbym123 wrote:Depends, mainly whether you buy your grain by the kg, or by 25kg sack. Also whether you use liquid yeast or dried.

Reckon the cheapest you could go is 25kg of muntons lager malt for £15, 200g of hops for about £6 and 5 sachets of Cross my loof kolsch yeast for about £3.65. In total £25 for about 200-220 pints of beer, or about 12.5p per pint.

I haven't included any postage cost, or any other grains you might want to include in the recipe.
I guess you need to factor in the cost of water, treatment / cleaning chemicals, electricity, possibly also bottle caps etc to get a true cost. Not to mention the capital cost of any equipment.

Matt

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Fil
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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by Fil » Wed Oct 04, 2017 6:14 pm

not forgetting the time spent at the brewface.. Its a full days work or more spread over 3-4week period.

But cheaper beer is only one benefit of the pastime..
ist update for months n months..
Fermnting: not a lot..
Conditioning: nowt
Maturing: Challenger smash, and a kit lager
Drinking: dry one minikeg left in the store
Coming Soon Lots planned for the near future nowt for the immediate :(

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by Digby » Wed Oct 04, 2017 6:57 pm

Fil wrote:not forgetting the time spent at the brewface.. Its a full days work or more spread over 3-4week period.

But cheaper beer is only one benefit of the pastime..
Yes indeed. I just love making and sharing (mostly) good beer with my family and friends, especially now my garden bar is approaching completion. :)

Matt

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by basswulf » Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:45 pm

On consumables, it is cheap, even when doing small BIAB batches like I do - perhaps about 1.5kg malt, 20g so hops and half a pack of dried yeast. Easily less than a fiver for 10-12 bottles even allowing for things like bottle caps, sterilising solution. Probably a decent margin less than 50p a pint although not approaching the value of Robby's set up and things like water and electricity ought to also be figured in.

Adding in the bits of kit that are only used for brewing, like my brewing pot, does add to the cost although that can be counted against multiple brews, bringing it down unless you buy new toys every time you brew. I'd reckon, although this is still a finger in the air job, that I'm still managing to produce the beer for less than the cheapest supermarket price I can find (currently bottles of Banks, which seem to sit around 90p each).

What really screws the calculations up is the time cost. Even figuring my time at minimum wage, the cost would suddenly make drinking in pubs look economical! It makes me marvel at how economies of scale bring prices down - and probably make us underestimate the value of so much that we take for granted. Just as well I'm willing to work for beer!

Wulf

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by TheSumOfAllBeers » Wed Oct 11, 2017 6:00 pm

The time cost is why home brewers spend so much on kit. Packaging is a good case in point - bottle conditioning is close to free, yet the labour involved in bottling is significant enough to make kegging attractive.

You can ferment very good beer with plastic buckets and a converted second hand fridge. But stainless vessels are much in demand despite their expense. I just tried ghetto CIP (Clean in Place) with my conical & Pump. Mind blown. I am off to buy a rotating spray ball now, and some 3/4" BSP -> 1/2" BSP adapters for the dump valve.

But once you have all that kit in place, it is nice to be able to make something cheap and good. Saisons were the king of cheap and good a few years ago, but I think the achy-fakey-kolschenpils is taking over.

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by Kev888 » Fri Oct 13, 2017 10:46 pm

People can heavily underestimate the cost of getting their beer to the glass - even if you exclude the cost of permanent equipment. Cleaners & sanitisers for FVs and kegs, electricity for brew-day and keggerators, pH papers/probes and so on; small amounts but the true list is very long for some of the more complex and thorough regimes. I can easily add 50% or more on top of the ingredients if I properly take every consumable into account.

It also depends heavily on the method and recipe. If you harvest/re-use yeast and save wort instead of buying spraymalt for starters, and if you make beers with mostly bulk malts and few costly hops then the price can indeed be very low. But brews with special malts, lots of costly hops and bought yeast or spraymalt starters can cost much, much more. One of my high gravity APAs costs around 75p/pt if 'every' consumable is costed in, and thats by no means an excessive NEIPA. A modest stout could easily be much less than half that.

Buying ingredients from more costly retailers can also increase cost hugely over buying from better value sellers, and in a lot of cases buying small quantities per recipe can cost a lot more than buying the common ingredients (like pale malt) in bulk.
Kev

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by brewpete » Fri Oct 13, 2017 11:39 pm

so an onsite microbrewery in pub restaurant etc must have a huge profit margin at about £3.50 a pint

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by Fil » Sat Oct 14, 2017 12:52 am

brewpete wrote:
Fri Oct 13, 2017 11:39 pm
so an onsite microbrewery in pub restaurant etc must have a huge profit margin at about £3.50 a pint
If they sell every pint in a cask, cask ale has a limited shelf life once tapped. Soft drinks n juices bought from the supermarket were the drinks with the highest margin about 15 years back..
ist update for months n months..
Fermnting: not a lot..
Conditioning: nowt
Maturing: Challenger smash, and a kit lager
Drinking: dry one minikeg left in the store
Coming Soon Lots planned for the near future nowt for the immediate :(

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by phil.dadd » Sat Oct 14, 2017 8:19 am

brewpete wrote:
Fri Oct 13, 2017 11:39 pm
so an onsite microbrewery in pub restaurant etc must have a huge profit margin at about £3.50 a pint
A commercial brewery has more costs than you at home, not least duty...

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by guypettigrew » Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:32 am

brewpete wrote:
Fri Oct 13, 2017 11:39 pm
so an onsite microbrewery in pub restaurant etc must have a huge profit margin at about £3.50 a pint
Don't forget there are staff wages, taxes, rent etc etc with a commercial microbrewery.

Guy

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by oz11 » Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:45 am

Not to mention cost of the brewery itself, casks, etc

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Re: how low avarage cost of a pint

Post by Raize » Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:51 pm

My cheapest beer would be a mild ale that I frequently brew.
2kg of pale malt and 500g of crystal, 25g of whatever hops, S-04 for a 20L batch.

So about £0.90 on crystal malt (scam price, need to find a new supplier again) the hops cost me £30 for 5kg so £0.15 for those, £20 for 25kg of cheap grain, so £1.70 on that. Yeast gets re-used about 10 times so £0.20 for that if the original pack cost £2.

£2.95 for the whole brew, that's 9p a pint.

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