Portland Beer Price Index: Winter 2010

A few days late, here is the Winter 2010 installment of the Portland Beer Price Index.  Please remember, this is not a rant about how expensive beer is, it's just a project to watch how prices change over time.  Click here for a full explanation of the PBPI.

It's a pretty quiet update. It doesn't appear that draft prices have changed in the pubs in the survey, and on the retail side only the sale prices fluctuated a little. One small wrinkle: for comparing this quarter's bomber prices against the last quarter's, I am throwing out Pelican IPA, which was only available at two stores in the autumn survey, but the final average price includes Pelican's replacement: Beer Valley Leafer Madness.

• 6-packs: $8.73, unchanged
• 22-ounce bombers: $4.99, unchanged ($4.68 leaving out Pelican and Leafer Madness)
• 6-packs (sale price): $8.13, unchanged
• 22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.98, down 1 cent ($4.67 vs. $4.68 leaving out Pelican and Leafer Madness)
• 16 oz. draft: $4.29, unchanged
• 16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.52, unchanged

It's possible that Pelican IPA will return to the PBPI -- I found it at three stores this time. Only Fred Meyers failed me. So I recorded the Pelican prices as well as the Leafer Madness prices, because even though I found LM at all four places I check, a couple of months ago when I looked only two of them had it. Pelican is a delicious IPA, it contributes to the geographic diversity of the survey, and its new lower price is a piece of good news for Oregon beer lovers. If Fred's starts carrying it again, I'll reinstate it in the PBPI (maybe keeping Leafer Madness also).

The next PBPI will be out when the days and nights are next of equal length.