Think paying $8 for a beer is outrageous? Then steer clear of ordering the Baladine Xyauyù at Park Slope's Beer Table, the 17-oz. bottle will set you back 95 bucks (but to be fair, would be the perfect accompaniment to the $175 hamburger).
The new bar calls the Slope's 7th Avenue home, and the Daily News, unsurprisingly, describes the digs as "swank." As for the beer, it cannot be found anywhere else in New York, and takes three years to brew; something that Paul Kermizian, beer connoisseur and co-owner of Barcade and The Gutter, tells us factors in to what may seem like an inflated price tag.
It is an extremely rare beer from a tiny artisanal brewery in Italy. Many craft breweries brew small batch beers such as this that are extremely time consuming and labor intensive. That, plus the skyrocketing costs of ingredients, puts the brewery in a position to have to charge a good deal more than they would for a typical Pale Ale. Often, breweries brew these beers for enjoyment and will likely only break even once all of it is sold. One thing to consider is that if a brewery makes a beer that takes 3 years to age, the beer is probably taking up precious tank space in a brewery already working in too small of a facility.
Of the 22 bottles made available at the bar, 4 have been purchased so far. And if you want a taste of the top shelf for slightly less, there's also a "rotating collection of about 100 obscure and artisanal beers also includes a $64 Danish beer that changes its ingredients with each new batch and a handful of $50 brews." Or, you know, there's always the champagne of beers.
How much does one tip for such a costly brew? When we asked Craig Wedren for his tipping scale, he said $3-5 on a $10+ drink.
Photo via Richard Byrom's Flickr.
