Portland Beer Price Index: Winter 2012

I wasn't in a big hurry to get the PBPI out this quarter, in case the Mayans were right.  No sense wasting all that work.

Six-pack sale prices are down quite a bit from last time, even though you can see from the graph that the nominal shelf-tag price has been steady for a year.  I think you can explain that by sales on Ninkasi Total Domination. Ninkasi entered the six-pack world at a pretty high price point, and it worked pretty well for them, but I think they'll have to keep the sale prices competitive to keep the product moving, especially with new six-packs from 10 Barrel hitting the shelves.

Bomber prices are back up after some declines last quarter.  A couple of pub prices went up this time, bringing the average up a bit.  I think we'll see more of that in 2013.

Here are the Portland Beer Price Index numbers for this quarter:

• 6-packs: $9.23, down 2 cents
• 22-ounce bombers: $4.84, up 8 cents
• 6-packs (sale price): $8.76, down 10 cents
• 22-ounce bombers (sale price): $4.66, up 3 cents
• 16 oz. draft: $4.44 up 5 cents
• 16 oz. draft (happy hour): $3.61, up 2 cents

The six-pack numbers are slightly adjusted from the ones reported last time, because QFC has made room for Caldera six-packs again.  It was a safe adjustment to make, I just recalculated last quarter's numbers with the same price QFC charged this time and the time before.  If you require more information on the makeup of the PBPI, read the page which describes the composition of the index.