Beer here (in stores)... (Golden, Breckenridge: price, garden, food)

[Quietude]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

This is hardly deceptive. No one is trying to trick you.

So you go buy a car and it's not until you get it home that you find out it has a 3-cylinder engine instead of the V6 the rest of the country gets. But not one word of the sales literature or any of the sales team told you that. Deceptive, or were you just stupid for not looking under the hood? I mean, everyone in California knows that Colorado got the crappy model...

To make it a serious point, why do you think it's okay for Colorado breweries to sell two versions of their product, without a single useful marking to tell customers the difference? Should I really have to "pry open the hood" - tear open a sealed box - to read the fine print on the labels? Fat Tire is proud enough of their product to make the "5.2%" flag more prominent on those bottles, but their tactic is to just quietly omit that flag on the weaker brew, and only on the bottles themselves - neither the six-carrier, the bottle box or the can box carries any notice except that blurry production code.

We must have different definitions of "deceptive," and should play poker some time.

[Left-handed]

You should see some of the debates that go on about the 85-octane gas that is sold here under the Regular label.

I've talked to a lot of different people about it, and it's about 50/50 split in terms of whether people think it's alright for your car that requires 87 octane Regular.

But I digress. Colorado is weird. We manage.

[Quietude]

Originally Posted by Left-handed

You should see some of the debates that go on about the 85-octane gas that is sold here under the Regular label.

That's labeled right on the pump, in big black-on-yellow digits. Nothing deceptive about it unless someone wants to claim that "Regular" has a specific, universal octane association (it doesn't) or that the numerically-challenged might be somehow fooled. It's right there; it's up to the buyer to decide if it's appropriate. It would be the same with beer if the difference were stated.

If there was even a small but eventually noticeable plaque in the beer section saying something about this - even a bland and misdirecting "King Safeway complies with CO statute 69 and sells only alcoholic products that comply." - it's enough of a clue to make a careful buyer look closer, and ask about it.

But there's not.

Excluding natives and near-natives who "just know this," I wonder how many casual beer drinkers even know that Fat Tire, Avalanche and Colorado Native have different strengths, and in the same sales region (hell, the same strip mall!), regardless of any markings or notices or whatever? I certainly had no idea there was a "Fat Tire Skinny," and thus never thought to look past the unchanged packaging. Guess I'm just a dumm newcommer.


ETA: The New Belgium Brewing site lists Fat Tire as 5.2%. Period. No footnotes. No exceptions. No warnings.

[TCHP]

85 octane here has some scientific logic behind it with density altitude and the resulting impact on compression pressures.

3.2 beer is just a hold over, although Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Minnesota also sell 3.2. Missouri does offer 3.2 ABW "low point" beer alongside other brews at any retail outlet with all the other beer, so I'd imagine they don't sell too much of it.

Internationally, Sweden and Finland sell 3.2 beer.

[Timmyy]

I think it is time to close this thread and go have a beer.

[Crashj007]

Originally Posted by Quietude

So I've just slowly figured out what seems to be another quirk of CO's liquor laws... grocery stores are only allowed to sell 3.2%?
<>

We called it Rocky Mountain Metrocal.
Know all over as Near Beer.
Used to be for 18 year olds.

[Left-handed]

Originally Posted by Timmyy

I think it is time to close this thread and go have a beer.

I highly recommend Breckenridge Brewery Snow Glare Hoppy Wheat Ale.

Cheers!

[Quietude]

Originally Posted by Timmyy

I think it is time to close this thread and go have a beer.

I wouldn't disagree. Wearing my professional hat, I've taken it up with Mssrs. New Belgium, Breckenridge and AC Golden.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by Left-handed

You should see some of the debates that go on about the 85-octane gas that is sold here under the Regular label.

I've talked to a lot of different people about it, and it's about 50/50 split in terms of whether people think it's alright for your car that requires 87 octane Regular.

But I digress. Colorado is weird. We manage.

The people who say that 85 here is a scam do not understand air pressure or elevation.

[Timmyy]

I am going for one of my old reliables tonight. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.