Why is craft beer so expensive

So how good are Georgia craft beers? Which craft breweries are opening in metro Atlanta next? What happened to beer bottles? How hard is it to open a brewery in Georgia? Which Georgia beers do Georgia brewers drink? What does the future hold for craft beer in Georgia?

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At the Weinhaus beer and wine store, in business for 39 years, beer prices "have gone up steadily," said owner Hunt Mallett. Many breweries will raise prices, then offer promotions to soften the blow, he said. Some beers, like the popular Cold Mountain winter seasonal ale, cost more to produce and fetch a higher price because pricier ingredients are used and the length of brewing time is longer, which ties up tanks used to lager beer. But brewer Doug Riley said he was paying 35 cents for a pound of grain.

The biggest brewers, both craft and domestic, order trainloads of ingredients, keeping their costs in check, while smaller breweries don't have that option. Traditionally, beer was made using only water, grain, yeast and hops. But today, many craft beers can include such as coffee or fruits, which bring added costs. Meanwhile, the biggest domestic brands often mix in less expensive corn and rice into their beers and many of those beers are lower in alcohol, which keeps down their costs and prices.

Across Asheville, at the Bruisin Ales craft beer shop, higher-end and rarer beers are going for big money. In a purely objective way, the answer is yes. The cost may be double in some cases a bit more to purchase craft beer rather than the items with the blue or red labels, but the ingredients alone are well over twice as expensive. The typical macrobrew has only 21 cents worth of ingredients per six-pack: 16 cents for malt, 5 cents for hops and next to nothing on yeast.

Either that or you are being hugely overcharged for Bud Light.