Really Expensive Beer

I was wondering what was the most expensive beer out there, and to be perfectly honest with you, it is not easy to find a straight answer. Even with all the powers of the internets combined! One site would list the price at $525 the other at $52, or $600 and $400. It took a lot of winding my way through these series of tubes that make up the internet until I could finally come to some sort of conclusion. Here is the list:

1. Carlsberg Jacobsen Vintage no.2 - MSRP $396.00

If you're wondering why the price difference between Vintage No.1 and 2 is only $1.00 (it's actually closer to 20 cents but I rounded up because I felt like it) it is because its actually price is 2,009 Dansk Krone. Since that is the year this barley wine was born. The No. 1 was price at 2,008 Dansk Krone for the same reason. The Vintage No.2 is a 8.7% Baltic Porter of which only 600 twelve ounce bottles are brewer per year.

2. Carlsberg Jacobsen Vintage no.1 - MSRP $395.00

I remember first learning about this beer on the Denmark episode of Three Sheets. This 10.5% Barley Wine is barrel aged for six months leaving it with a very cognac-esque taste. Each bottle of Jacobsen Vintage No. 1 is labelled with an original hand stilled lithographic print made by the Danish artist Frans Kannik (making the empty bottle worth $100) depicting Sif, the wife of Nordic god Thor.

3. Samuel Adams Utopias - MSRP $130.00

This is something. A 54 proof beer. There are hard liquors with less kick than that! At one point it was the strongest beer in the world, but has since slipped into the third place spot following Südstern XXL coming in a 27.6% and Schorschbräu Schorschbock weighing in at 31%! That is only 9% off whiskey. Personally I think the bottle alone is worth the money, look at that beauty. Production is limited at 3,000 bottles per year.

4. La Vielle Bon Secours - MSRP $795.00 / 9 = $85.00 per 24 ounce serving

This 6 liter bottle goes for £500. I could not find any explanation for why this beer costs as much as it does. It is only sold at the BierodromeRestaurants in London. I really could not find anything on this beer, I know it's an abbey-style brewed in Belgium.

5. Tutankhamen Ale - MSRP $76.00

This beer is based on a archeological find in Egypt by the University of Cambridge. A brewery was found in a section of the Queen Nefertiti’s Temple of the Sun, which was presumably built by King Akhenaton who is King Tutankhamen’s father. From that find they were able to look at the residue on an old brew kettle and determine the ingredient list. This one remided me of Anchor Steam's Sumerian Beer Project. Where pretty much the same thing was one only instead of a 3,500 year old Egyptian temple brewery, it was based off of a 6,000 year old poem from Mesopotamia.

I did not include beers that were auctioned off for charity since that would not really be an accurate reflection of their price, if I did the winner would be a six pack of Stella Artois that went for $14,850, but was signed by various celebrities to support Wild Aid.

MSRP vs. Market Price
The question all this brings to my mind is whether those beers are worth the price of admission? The Carlsberg Jacobsen seems like it is artificially expensive since it's not too hard to find barrel-aged high gravity beers. While the Utopias seems more reasonable since it is such an unusual beer that weighs in at 27% ABV and only costs 1/8th the price per ounce of the Jacobsen. La Vielle Bon Secours seems a little gimmicky too, especially since there is really no other information available other than you can only get it at one restaurant in London. The Tutankhamen Ale just seems like a cool deal to support your local archeologists. I'd like to get my hands on the Sumerian Beer Project beer too.

I did a little sleuthing on eBay to see what the market was for unusual beers from some craft breweries. There are many "collectible" bottles for sale, they are not selling them for the liquids inside of course since that would be illegal. The highest asking price I could find was for a 4 pack of Dogfish Head for $400.00, the next closest was a Stone Vertical Epic 04-04-04 that was priced at $65. Still, it is not even close to the price people are willing to pay for wine

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau

Welp, we pretty much got all of our TTB paperwork in line. They ask us about everything from our environmental impact, water quality and sources, trash disposal methods, how we intend to protect our delicious beers from beer thieves and all sorts of stuff you wouldn't think that the Tax & Trade Bureau would care about. Well, I guess in the event someone comes and steals our beer we wouldn't have to pay taxes on it... and that would be a huge bummer for the IRS.

This was probably my favorite piece of paperwork that we are submitting to them. I love Google Maps.

After this all we have left to deal with is the Department of Environmental Health. DEH!!! I am really hoping that dealing with them is easier than trying to navigate their website which consists of hundreds of broken links. Although, their Facebook page is pretty fun and informative. Watch out for West Nile Virus Mosquitos and Hantavirus Mice! Hantavirus AKA the "English Sweate" is something you probably do not want. Unless you are a certain Korean dictator looking for a good weaponizable virus. Then you might really like the stuff.

If you ever want to apply with the TTB you can find all the paperwork here or click on the items below:

1. The Brewer's Notice - this tells the TTB you intend to become a brewery. You need to attach a diagram of the premise, a description of the security, a legal description of the brewery, and all your corporate by-laws and articles of incorporation, and your SS-4 Employer ID number.

2. Brewer's Collateral Bond - a bond for $1,000 for the first 4,000 barrels of beer you produce. If you produce more than that you will need to obtain a strengthening bond.

3. Personnel Questionnaire - includes everything you've ever done ever, as well as how much you plan on spending to open the brewery.

4. Water Quality Considerations - you need to tell them if you are going to be poisoning any rivers near by.

5. Environmental Information - you need to let them know how much polution you plan on generating, hopefully zero.

6. Signing Authority - only in the even you are a corporation or LLC.

7. Pay.gov User Agreement - whereby you agree to use their website to pay taxes on the beer ($7.00 per barrel, which is really what all this paperwork comes down to in the end.)

Experimental Brewing Session #1

This is our first of many "Experimental Brewing Sessions."

Saturday brewing started at the crack of dawn today. 5:30AM and we had plans to brew an IPA split it into two batches and test two different yeast strands on it. In about three weeks we will be able to have a blind tasting of the two and see how they hold up against each other. We also wanted to brew a very BIG beer, we decided on a Rye Imperial Stout.

Pictured Above: IPA split in two batches, one with 1450 & the other 1968.

Our second batch was a Rye Imperial Ale. This is going to be a heavy beer. Starting gravity of 1086, it should ferment down to about 10% ABV.

Pictured Above: The Mash Tun full of TONS of malts. 7 Different types!

Mike trying an erlenmeyer flask full of the Rye Imperial Stout.

I can tell you that it is going to be a very full flavored beer. It has seven types of grains from Chocolate to Pale. This will be a beer that we are going to want to age. We'll likely put away 10 gallons and save it for our one or two year anniversary.

I'll be sure to update you on their progress.

Fictitious Business Name

I was just working on some TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) paper work and realized I never looked into whether our Fictitious Business Name made it through the old bureaucratic machine or not. Turns out that it did and we are ready to start doing business as Hess Brewing Company. *electric guitar shread* SWEET ASS SWEET! 

It's pretty cool being able to see our business name up on the old internet machine. Just one step closer to actually being in business.

Today we also finished installing some copper piping, if you are ever installing copper pipes check out GatorBite or SharkBite, they are weld-less copper pipe fittings that make your life so much easier.

One thing I never realized was that concrete is one tough SOB. I'm pretty sure that our warehouse will survive the nuclear Armageddon. We went through four drill bits just putting in fourteen holes into the concrete walls.


p.s. get stoked for the the new season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia! September 17th!

The Shining of the Sink

This is just me cleaning a sink. Nothing special.

The Continuing Story of an ABC License

Today we visited the San Marcos branch of The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Twice.

Twice because we forgot to bring our corporate paperwork (secretary of state filing number, stock issuance, etc...) so we had to go back down to our offices to get them. Luckily they were not busy today and we were able to schedule an appointment for after lunch.

Once back we talked to Vicky, the friendly ABC worker, for about twenty minute. After updating some information, correcting a few details here and there, we were done. Just had to wait for them to enter the info into the computer.

While we waited we headed downstairs to talk to the Board of Equalization (in soviet russia-board equalize you) to talk to them about getting a seller's permit and whether we need to obtain a surety bond or not. Turns out they have no idea...

Headed back upstairs and they presented us with this pretty little piece of paper we need to post for 30 days. Overall a productive day.

The Storefront (is a figment of my imagination)

Imaginary Store Front

This is my vision for a storefront in the near future. Since we are not on the street we are going to have to have a good amount of signage so people can actually find us in this industrial park. Once we finalize our logo and brand direction we can get a sign up there. I don't know whether I should make it by hand or outsource it to a professional... or have one of my art student friends make it? Too many decisions.

Today it got pretty darn hot in this joint, up to 135 degrees on the bay door. I need to figure out a way to harness all of that power.

We had the guy from Culligan's Water come in today to with our water test results and to talk about what kind of filtration system we are going to go with. Luckily our water is pretty good quality, not too hard and not too soft. It is a little bit salty though, which is odd but easy to correct.

We have a meeting with the Alcoholic Beverage Control on Monday. Hopefully all of our paperwork is in order and we can get licensed. After that only a couple more governmental agencies to work with and we can start brewing!

Label Design

We are beginning to talk about branding and direction our brewery is going to take once we are up and running.

Today our good friend and excellent graphic designer got us five drafts for our label concepts. Unfortunately I cannot show you the designs quite yet, since I would have to kill you, you see? I can say that they are going to be great.

As with any alcoholic beverage we will need to eventually get the designs approved by the FDA/"The Man" before anything is final. This involves showing the alcohol content by volume, recycling info, net fl.oz, that no animals were harmed during the making of, etc...

Once we are more sure of the direction this place is going to be headed I will be sure to share it with you. Until then... CLASSIFIED.

The Blueprint

Today was a busy day. I got the electricity, WiFi, and telephones up and running. Once all of that was set up I was able to begin working on drafting a blue print to comply with the DEH, TTB, and ABC.

Today I was just worried about getting the scaling right on all of the objects that are going to be in the warehouse. After that I can begin to focus on how they are going to be arranged. Also, we are not 100% sure of the size/capacity of the brewing equipment quite yet.

I'm just not sure how the ABC is going to feel about a pool table and shuffleboard being in the space with us.

CA Dept. of Alcoholic Beverage Control

There is nothing more fun than working on paperwork when opening a new business. Especially if you are going to be selling alcohol. There are about 15 different licenses/permits/agencies that you need to work with and each of those have enough paper work to make you get carpal tunnel syndrome.

Here is a shot of the ABC paperwork on my computer.

That is 22 pages worth of questionnaires, diagrams, financial and personal histories. I have yet to figure out how much getting this license will cost us, but I know they can be a little pricey.

I do like that Arnold is on the ABC's homepage. I imagine he drinks fine hand-crafted beer and not ABInBevSABmillerCoorsMolson Conglomerate Fizzy Water. I cannot believe Obama drank a BL at the beer summit.

Home Sweet Home

WE MOVED INTO THE OUR WAREHOUSE!

This is the biggest move forward we have made to date, besides registering our fictitious business name.

I am excited to get this show on the road and actually having a space to call home will help push us in the right direction. Next up, dealing with the DEH to pass codes and whatnot. I hear that is going to be the toughest/most costly aspect of getting the business up and running.

I'll be sure to post more pictures once we actually have the place set-up. It might not look like much right now, but give us a couple months and you'll be surprised how great the beer this little place will be putting out.

Just remember, it's not the size of the brewery that counts. It how you use it.

Research: Breweries per Capita

U.S.A. vs THE WORLD

I have been doing a little bit of research lately, specifically on the number of breweries per capita. I thought the USA would dominate considering we have far and away the most breweries at 1,480ish. Turns out we only come in 6th in terms of breweries per person.

[this was in July of 2009, as of November 2025 there are 9,945 making it around 1 for every 34,000]

Although this doesn't really concern us in anyway I just thought it was interesting and I couldn't find the information anywhere else, so I did a little research and came up with some numbers. I'm not sure how accurate they are, but they are probably somewhere in correct range.

Here's the top 10:

1. Belgium - 1 per 77,550 with 124 breweries
2. Germany - 1 per 91,250 with 940 breweries
3. Austria - 1 per 101,220 with 82 breweries
4. New Zealand - 1 per 122,650 with 35 breweries
5. U.K. - 1 per 160,877 with 282 breweries
6. United States - 1 per 218,520 with 1,480 breweries
7. Switzerland - 1 per 249,190 with 31 breweries
8. Sweden - 1 per 287,500 with 32 breweries
9. Canada - 1 per 294,950 with 112 breweries
10. France - 1 per 408,800 with 159 breweries

What surprised me most was Spain only has 16 breweries! Talk about a place with room to grow.

What hath God wrought?

Well, well, well... it looks like we are about to go on a bit of an adventure.

In three days we will be moving into a warehouse, which in turn will allow us to start dealing with the Health Department--eventually get our Type 23 ABC license, TTB approval, Fictitious Business Name, Seller's Permit, and so forth-- needed to become a legal commercial nanobrewery.

Make it stand out

So grab a beer, relax, and enjoy me bloggin' & tweetin' and usin' whatever social networkin' tool comes out between now and our grand openin'.

It is sure going to be a wild ride, probably very similar to Splash Mountain, consider me your Br'er Rabbit.

I hope this blog will be useful to anyone who hopes to open a business of their own someday. I will be writing about all of the hardships, triumphs, and pitfalls of opening a new brewery in a very competitive industry.

Consider this BUS101 for beer.

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah