IPA into the keg

So the Rainy Day IPA is finished and was ready to go into the keg. I bottled a 6 pack for sharing with my other homebrewers (woohoo, I know 2), but the rest went into the keg. I snapped a picture for sharing as I randomly remembered how much better pictures make a story. It looks dark copper, but that is what you get for talking pictures at night on a dark ass countertop. The color as it ran through the racking cane was more a light gold. It's bitter and hoppy to my taste buds, but I think it will be more floral in the glass than bitter. 5.1%ABV and not to shabby for $26 worth of grain, I count the hops as free (as their cost had already been factored into other beers) but in honesty this beer would have been $50-60 if I didn't already have all the hops.

If I am able to keep this efficiency and only use a single type of hops in a beer I could pull off a $30 batch if I where just brewing a pure efficiency minded beer. That would be in the neighborhood of $.97  a 22oz beer in direct costs. I'm not sure how to cost the indirect costs of water, and propane electricity and my time, but from a no overhead perspective that's pretty sweet. Most of the craft beers sell for $3-6 for a 22oz bottle so if I bottled and sold at that rate I would be about $174 for a batch of 5 gallons, trouble is I would have to sell wholesale price to the distributor to get it to a grocer to sell at retail price. Assume total markup from the two hands to only be 100% I would sell for $1.50-3 for a more meager $43-87. Pretty interesting metal exercise, but just to give you an idea of what breweries have to work on for averages and efficiencies. I would wager that most breweries aim for north of 80% efficiency, and that Budweiser is closer to 90%+.