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A Beginner’s Guide to Finding the Best Craft Beer Drink Deals

by Celena Cipriaso on August 30, 2010 · 7 comments

in Tips & Tricks

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People hesitate to discover the best about craft beer due to one simple fact: to drink quality, you have to pay the price. As we all know, the price can get pretty steep. As a new convert to all that’s awesome about beer, I decided to share how I came to find the best craft beer deals in my area.

1. Go on a quest for the deal.

You’ll only find about the deal if you go about looking for the deal. This means trying different bars. Expand your horizons. Accept the fact that the bar down the block might not ever have anything better on tap than Sam Adams at 6 bucks per pint. Go outside your comfort zone, outside of the neighborhood you find yourself always drinking in. This was how I happened across the Peculier Pub, a jazzy little place in the Village. Once we opened the menu and saw the plethora of quality beer a $6, we knew we struck gold.

2. Try drinking during off hours.

It’s a known fact that drinking will always be expensive on high peak hours — this means pretty much any time after 8pm Thursday night through Saturday. Occasionally, you’ll come across a nice happy hour that lasts until 9pm (thank you 11th Street Bar, we know what a godsend you are), but for the most part, bars are likely to hit you up with deals when the bar is most likely to be empty. I’ve found that grabbing a beer during the day (on Saturday or Sunday) can lead to some awesome finds such as The Double Windsor, which offers an AMAZING drinking deal at $2 off all their wonderful, quality taps until peak drinking time.

3. Don’t be shy – Make beer loving friends

Amongst the beer community, I’ve found that most beer lovers enjoy meeting other enthusiasts. We sit and drink and talk about beer until the cows come home. This is great on several levels. Beer lovers always talk about the best places to go and the best deals to find. This is how I found out about Bar Great Harry in Brooklyn, where you can find a great beer like Captain Lawrence Kolsch for an astonishing $5. Another great thing about this is that beer drinkers always like to taste test beers they buy with other friends. So invite your new beer loving friends over, have an awesome spread, and ask everyone bring a bottle or two of quality beer to share. This was how I discovered the breathe-taking Cisco Woods Full and Rye in Massachusetts.

4. Once you’ve found that bar with amazing deals, get to know the bartender

Bartenders at great bars are hired there for a reason — they know their stuff and love to share their knowledge. Get to know them, remember their names. If you’re lucky, you’ll come across some awesome bartending friends that will remember the mostly forgotten, glorious Third Drink as the Buy Back deal. If bartenders know you appreciate them (hint, hint: TIP WELL), they’ll appreciate you. Thus, leading to some awesome beer drinking. This is why I spend a lot of my beer drinking days at Sycamore Bar and Flower Shop.

5. Be open to understanding beer

Once you get to know the beer world, you’ll learn that just like a quality bourbon, a quality wine, this type of drinking doesn’t come in bulk and it won’t come dirt cheap. Craft beers are the same. Quality beer won’t really come in a two for one type of sale (but if it does and I don’t know about it, um, please email me). More beer doesn’t necessarily mean great beer. On Tuesday nights, Doc Holidays has $7 deal for a plastic cup for a night of Bud or Bud Light refills, but you’ll be waiting in lines for a horrible, foamy pour for a lackluster beer. Basically, what I’m saying is, you get what you pay for. Craft beer really is worth the extra bucks and the single pint to enjoy and learn about a quality brew.

6. Google your beer drinking hear out

Get to know the best beer bloggers in your hood. Check websites of bars and restaurants you like. Often, you can get amazing deals in terms of beer related events. For example, I attended a Pretty Things beer dinner for about $65 at The Farm on Adderley — that includes four courses and four pours of beer. While it’s not the all you can eat at Sizzler, I ate some amazing food and was introduced to what is currently one of my favorite breweries.

Got a tip for finding a great beer drinking deal? Let us know about it!

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Tagged as: Brooklyn, Drink Deals, Find Craft Beer Bar NYC, Manhattan

  • http://www.facebook.com/lydia.broussard Lydia Broussard

    Excellent article, Celena, that’s going to come in handy! I always was fond of the third drink as the buy back rule, but you’re right, you’ve got to be on your game and worth it. There are a few places I know of in the DC metro that are of the 2-for-1 variety, but they have a lot of caveats, and come in funnier-than-usual portions. I don’t think it’s the kind of trend that’s likely to catch on very soon, but I’ll remember to e-mail you if it does.

  • http://thebeersessions.com/staff/#andrew-henderson Andrew Henderson

    Thanks, Celena. I think the average price of a craft beer in a bar makes it cost prohibitive for a lot of people. Especially the curious newcomer. In order to get better beer to more people, the price has to come down. Specials are a great way to counteract this, but craft specials are few and far between. This dilemma is what caused me to write: Hey, Craft Brewers! We Want Pitcher Deals!

  • http://thebeersessions.com/author/celena Celena Cipriaso

    Thanks, Lydia! There always is a double edge sword with some deals, same in NYC.

    Thanks for the comment, Andrew. I understand where you’re coming from. There are some quality places that will sell a beer for $5, but a quality pint doesn’t get too much lower than that.

    Pitcher deals are good when you can find them, but the quality of the beer sometimes is affected. Some beer is great in pitchers, others — not so much. Craft beer is an art — all about enjoying the taste and work behind it. Great beer should be in a proper glass where you can enjoy it to the fullest. That’s why I think happy hours are sometimes the best way to go.

    It’s essentially that craft beer is every bit as important as wine or good scotch, but it’s not seen that way by the general public. At a Dogfish Head restaurant, our dinner companions balked at the idea of a $20 bottle of beer. But the thing is, people don’t get that way with wine or scotch or anything that’s seen as high end. Craft beer deserves that same respect. Sometimes, I think it’s worth paying a higher price to taste quality.

  • http://thebeersessions.com/staff/#andrew-henderson Andrew Henderson

    I agree. I think in order for people to stop balking at a $20 bottle of beer they need to be educated on the art of craft beer. It’s up to the breweries and the craft beer community to spread the word. It will just take time.

  • hg

    more than a few bars in brooklyn (double windsor, fourth avenue pub) off $2 off happy hours, bringing the average cost of a beer down to $4, which is a great price and an opportunity to try new beers cheaply. and if you’re with friends and everybody chooses a different beer you can sample a wider selection than if you just split a pitcher. or, if you’re by yourself, beer flights can be a great way to try multiple beers, and still be able to walk out of the bar afterwards without stumbling.

  • http://thebeersessions.com/staff/#andrew-henderson Andrew Henderson

    Thanks for the recommendation hg. I’ll def have to try Double Windsor. That’s a fair price.

  • ak

    I second the beer flight. For about 15 bucks, you get an oppurtunity to enjoy a wide selection of great beers, for the cost of some pitcher of swill.

    Also, many great bars offer smaller sized beers at smaller sized prices. I love getting mugs and half-pints of beers. Penny per ounce, no its not a “good deal” but you can have two or four great half pints of craft beer (often thats more than enough) without spending more than a $10-15.

    Brazen Head and Waterfront Ale House come to mind as craft beer institutions in my neighborhood who are happy to offer half pints and mugs of great beer.

    great article celena.

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