I generally go for any of the original beers from Oakham Ales. JHB, Bishops's Farewell and especially Mompesson's Gold are all wonderful, but their 'award-winning' Green Devil is one of the most unpleasant beers I've ever tasted in my life. I had to have a pint of Guinness in an attempt to get the taste out of my mouth.
Really? I've had that and I enjoyed it, gave it a 4.5 out of 5 on UnTappd. Hoppy with lots of tropical, citrusy flavours if I recall. Oakham do some nice stuff. The worst thing I've had recently was from Waen and called Chocolate Limes. I'm not sure if it was badly kept (it shouldn't have been, decent pub and everything else was OK) but it wasn't nice at all.
Just ordered a new selection of things I've not had before:
Siren Uncle Zester - Looking forward to trying this. It's a Braggot, an old 12th century style that is being brought back by some breweries. It's basically half beer, half mead. Not cheap though at £7 a bottle!
To Ol Gose To Hollywood
To Ol Raid Beer
To Ol Stalins Organ
To Ol Nelson Survin
To Ol Garden of Eden
To Ol Baltic Frontier
Mikeller Wheat Is The New Hop
Mikeller Arh Hvad!?
Evil Twin Hipster Ale
Loving the stuff I've had from To Ol up to now so hoping these live up to the others.
Really? I've had that and I enjoyed it, gave it a 4.5 out of 5 on UnTappd. Hoppy with lots of tropical, citrusy flavours if I recall. Oakham do some nice stuff.
I think I had a pint from one of the first batches of Green Devil and I'm convinced it was a brew of Citra that went horribly wrong. It was as if twice the intended dose of hops had gone into it and it could probably have stripped the enamel from my teeth. I tried to tolerate it, but after struggling through nearly half a pint I took it back to the bar as undrinkable.
Old thread resurrection but I've had some cracking beers over christmas. The highlight was Yellow Belly from Buxton, quite simply one of the best beers I've ever had, absolutely stunning.
I had the St Peter's Organic ale and the Golden ale at a mates house and wasn't a massive fan, drinkable enough but nothing special. I agree about the bottles though, very old fashioned looking (in a good way).
My other Christmas highlights were:
Some great Siren Craft stuff including "Mums The Word" a milk porter with cherry and chipotle chilli, "Blue Sky Blue Sea" a Cloudberry and seaweed gose and "Carribean Chocolate Cake". I've got their Calypso (Kumquat edition) at home to try too.
Oscar Blues "Death By Coconut" was a great porter with coconut.
Mad Hatter Blueberry Pancake and Maple Syrup, sounds crazy but it was lovely a nice sourness from the blueberry and just a hint of maple in the aftertaste.
I had quite a selection from Cloudwater too and all of them were lovely, particularly the AUS and NZ Hopfen Weisse and their IPA.
I can't get into Craft beer, I think it's the pretentious hipster names that annoy me. Brewdog are the worst for it (although their gimmicky brews don't help either.)
Going back to the beginning, it now seems odd that RealAle mainly listed beers that many enthusiasts would tend to avoid – especially Doombar, which is produced by Coors and therefore deserves to be blacklisted.
One of my favourite breweries used to be Roosters, along with Outlaw, which I think was actually the experimental brewing arm of the same brewery. The pub changed hands and I haven't come across them for years now. Dancing Duck of Derby produces some current favourites and although I rarely drink bottled beers, Sadlers and McMullens seem to produce some that are quite palatable.
I go out of my way to avoid some of the ones mentioned at the start, particularly Old Speckled Hen, which I think must be one of the most over-rated beers of all time.
I can't get into Craft beer, I think it's the pretentious hipster names that annoy me. Brewdog are the worst for it (although their gimmicky brews don't help either.)
I'm sure the actual beers taste nice, though.
I've really got into the craft stuff over the last year and I love a trip to my local Brewdog bar. Born to Die 27.11.15 and Hop Fiction were two of the nicest beers of last year, they have some great guest breweries too.
The names don't bother me to be honest, why is "Mum's The Word" or "Yeastus Christ Supersour" (one of my favourite names of last year) any different to "Sneck Lifter" or "Fursty Ferret"? It's just a bit of fun. I like the label art too, you do get some genuinely great bottles.
Gimmicky or just different? I'm happy that there are breweries experimenting with different things, not just different flavours but different styles, it's great to see so many goses, sours and braggots around these days, I love these styles.
I'm not totally sure where you draw the line between "craft beer" and "real ale" anyway, there are definitions about but most have blurred lines.
Essentially beer is beer and I just want to try as many different things as possible.
As far as I'm aware, 'craft beers' are vastly over-priced and only sold in bottles, from which they are drunk by young men with bushy beards, wearing waistcoats and hiking boots. Real ales are served from the cask and are drunk out of glasses.
As far as I'm aware, 'craft beers' are vastly over-priced and only sold in bottles, from which they are drunk by young men with bushy beards, wearing waistcoats and hiking boots. Real ales are served from the cask and are drunk out of glasses.
That's not actually a dictionary definition.
I've not got a beard, waistcoat or hiking boots. I'll claim I'm still young though at 34!
As far as I'm concerned all good beer should be drunk from a glass, I've rarely seen craft beer drunk from the bottle (or can) and a very large amount of it is bottle conditioned so should be poured into a glass as a matter of course. All the decent craft beer bars near me pour everything into a glass.
Over-priced? I guess it depends, I'll generally pay between £2.80 and £5 for a bottle. I don't class that as overpriced if the beer is good. I'll quite happily pay more if it's an exceptional beer. The Buxton Brewery (a great brewery, I've not tasted a bad beer of theirs) Yellow Belly was £6.75 a bottle from my local bottle shop but it is one of the best beers I've ever tasted, I'd happily pay the same again.
You shouldn't have to pay £6.75 for a "good" beer.
I pay £3.20 a bottle in my local Sam Smiths pub for their Oatmeal Stout and that's one of the greatest stouts in the world.
And I'm not being argumentative, but there's a massive difference between naming a beer "Sneck Lifter" (which actually means something, a Sneck is a word used up North for latch, usually on a backdoor. A Sneck Lifter is someone who sneaks home after having one too many in the pub!) than Born to Die 27.11.15 (Seriously, how is that NOT a pretentious hipster name?)
Finally, you see so many young people drinking their precious Brewdog straight from the bottle and that's just plain wrong.
Brewdog can go F themselves, the attention seeking tits.
You shouldn't have to pay £6.75 for a "good" beer.
I pay £3.20 a bottle in my local Sam Smiths pub for their Oatmeal Stout and that's one of the greatest stouts in the world.
And I'm not being argumentative, but there's a massive difference between naming a beer "Sneck Lifter" (which actually means something, a Sneck is a word used up North for latch, usually on a backdoor. A Sneck Lifter is someone who sneaks home after having one too many in the pub!) than Born to Die 27.11.15 (Seriously, how is that NOT a pretentious hipster name?)
Finally, you see so many young people drinking their precious Brewdog straight from the bottle and that's just plain wrong.
Brewdog can go F themselves, the attention seeking tits.
Who cares what it's called though? Surely all that matters is the taste.
There are some real ales that I like and some craft beer that I like.
For me, when it comes to food and drink, all that matters is the taste. You don't "have" to pay £6.75, there are plenty of good craft beers and real ales cheaper but for me it's worth it if the product is good. The same way that you don't "have" to pay £150 to eat in a Michelin star restaurant but when I have it's been bloody amazing so every now and then it's very enjoyable.
I've had a bottle of Sam Smiths Oatmeal Stout and I gave it 3* on Untappd, I just found it a bit pedestrian, there was nothing interesting about it, Yellow Belly was a firm 5*, a wonderful imperial stout, at 11% you wouldn't drink it in a session but it's amazing. Worth the price, plus often stronger beer is more expensive anyway (one of my local real ale pubs prices on ABV).
The other week I paid £3 for a bottle of Siren Craft "Mum's The Word", a wonderful stout with cherry and smoked chipotle. So that was actually cheaper than the Sam Smiths. I also paid £2.80 for Beavertowns Gamma Ray, a lovely pale.
It's all about taste. I'd never shun something that I'd not tasted though just because of the name. You obviously have some kind of dislike of Brewdog, they make some bloody lovely beers though (for the record the Born To Die 27.11.15 was a beer designed to be drunk as fresh as possible, only produced for a very short while the date was an indicator of when it should be drunk by and it was taken off tap on that date, so the name actually just does what it says on the tin.).
I agree with Jambo's stance here, beer is beer and should be judged on that alone. The guy who hates craft beer seems to do so based on stereotyped images of hipsters and trendy names, when for the most part these stereotypes are inaccurate anyway.
Forget about the hipsters, forget about the names, just focus on the beers and quit worrying about definitions and image.
I absolutely refuse to pay anywhere near the price for a bottled beer as it would be to buy the same measure in a pub. Personally I'll never pay more than £2 a bottle, but mostly pay very much less.
One of the best was a Sadlers light ale of about 4.3%, which was on sale at B&M Discounts for £1.19 for a 500ml bottle. McMullen's Hertford Castle was another beauty, this time at Morrissons for £1.49.
I agree with Jambo's stance here, beer is beer and should be judged on that alone. The guy who hates craft beer seems to do so based on stereotyped images of hipsters and trendy names, when for the most part these stereotypes are inaccurate anyway.
Forget about the hipsters, forget about the names, just focus on the beers and quit worrying about definitions and image.
Exactly, I think if I was forced to make a definition of the difference between real ale and craft beer it'd possibly come down to one being more experimental and innovative than the other although even that's not strictly true.
I genuinely don't understand these people who hate stuff despite never even trying it. How can more breweries brewing different styles and experimenting with different flavours ever be a bad thing?
I'm just happy to drink different beers, I've been logging them on the Untappd app and have had 640 different beers so far (440 of them were in 2015), I've made it my new years resolution to have 500 different new ones in 2016. Amongst the 640 there have been some good real ales and some good craft beers and some poor real ales and some poor craft beers. It's all beer at the end of the day and is there to be enjoyed!
I absolutely refuse to pay anywhere near the price for a bottled beer as it would be to buy the same measure in a pub. Personally I'll never pay more than £2 a bottle, but mostly pay very much less.
One of the best was a Sadlers light ale of about 4.3%, which was on sale at B&M Discounts for £1.19 for a 500ml bottle. McMullen's Hertford Castle was another beauty, this time at Morrissons for £1.49.
That's your perogative but you're missing out on some great beer. As I say it's all about taste but for me I like to try as many different things as possible. For certain things you have to pay more. For less than £2 I'm not going to be able to get a sour citrus braggot or an imperial stout with brett, aged on Shiraz grapes or a saison with thyme and lavendar, all of which I've had recently which have been fantastic.
For less than £2 I'm not going to be able to get a sour citrus braggot or an imperial stout with brett, aged on Shiraz grapes or a saison with thyme and lavendar.
But the point is that it's all beer, it's not a competition, if you put your prejudices aside you might actually find some great stuff you enjoy.
To be honest, I've a mate who buys a lot of the cheap £1.49 stuff from supermarkets and I generally find it pretty bland, drinkable but nothing that makes me sit up and go "ooh wow". He had a Sadlers one, Worcester Saucerer I think it was and it was just a bit boring. I love some real ales though.
I'm not going to sit here and slag stuff off that I've not tried though, it's that I don't understand, you actually said you'd not had a Brewdog beer yet you've slagged them off, open your mind a little. How can more breweries experimenting and innovating and making more beers and more different styles available be a bad thing?
That's your prerogative but you're missing out on some great beer. As I say it's all about taste but for me I like to try as many different things as possible. For certain things you have to pay more. For less than £2 I'm not going to be able to get a sour citrus braggot or an imperial stout with brett, aged on Shiraz grapes or a saison with thyme and lavendar, all of which I've had recently which have been fantastic.
WTF!
Next time I go to my local, I must remember to ask if I can have a pint of saison with thyme and lavender.
Next time I go to my local, I must remember to ask if I can have a pint of saison with thyme and lavender.
This particular one with thyme and lavender was by Stone Brewing, no "fancy" name, just called Stone Saison.
Saison is a very old style of beer, very nice too. Yes, being brewed with thyme and lavender sounds bizarre but it works, it was lovely. It's not really any different to coriander being used in wheat beers.
My local had a beer in over the Christmas called Creme Caramel. 5.7% but tasted just like John Smiths. Poured straight from the cask. It was gorgeous, sadly, it sold out very quickly.
Only one they've got in at the moment is Doombar, which for reasons said above, I try and avoid.
My local had a beer in over the Christmas called Creme Caramel. 5.7% but tasted just like John Smiths. Poured straight from the cask. It was gorgeous, sadly, it sold out very quickly.
Only one they've got in at the moment is Doombar, which for reasons said above, I try and avoid.
Is this not a contradiction?
I had a pint of Grafton Caramel Stout when we popped into a Wetherspoons on a pub crawl the other week. I find Wetherspoons beers can be very hit and miss but that was very good.
I'm all for innovation and variety, but most of these craft beers are simply ways by which the marketing men manage to push the prices up to ridiculous levels to fleece the gullible and the poseurs. Apart from charging nearly a fiver a bottle, the bottles themselves are nearly always less than 500ml, which itself is less than a pint.
It is known and accepted that pubs have to account for their running costs in the price of a pint of draught beer, so the price of a 500ml bottled beer should be significantly under the price of a pint in a pub.
I was surprised at the price mentioned previously for the bottle of Sam Smith's stout. I'm not a huge fan of their draught bitter, but it has always been on sale for under £2 per pint. I prefer their draught stout, which from what I remember is about £2.20 a pint, although it must be a couple of years since I had one.
If you like the more gimmicky beers, I seem to remember that their own version of kriek vastly undercuts the price of the established brand.
I'm all for innovation and variety, but most of these craft beers are simply ways by which the marketing men manage to push the prices up to ridiculous levels to fleece the gullible and the poseurs. Apart from charging nearly a fiver a bottle, the bottles themselves are nearly always less than 500ml, which itself is less than a pint.
It is known and accepted that pubs have to account for their running costs in the price of a pint of draught beer, so the price of a 500ml bottled beer should be significantly under the price of a pint in a pub.
I was surprised at the price mentioned previously for the bottle of Sam Smith's stout. I'm not a huge fan of their draught bitter, but it has always been on sale for under £2 per pint. I prefer their draught stout, which from what I remember is about £2.20 a pint, although it must be a couple of years since I had one.
If you like the more gimmicky beers, I seem to remember that their own version of kriek vastly undercuts the price of the established brand.
That's just a massive generalisation though, I had 440 different beers last year and probably 70% of them could be classed as craft, the vast majority of them were good. I find craft stuff to be more consistently good than real ales although I do like both, beer is just beer to me I don't care for labels. As I've said previously most bottles are around £3-£4.50 from my local bottle shops. Breweries such as Buxton, Siren Craft, To Øl, The Kernal, Brew By Numbers amongst others produce amazing stuff and I've genuinely not had a bad beer from any of them.
Most beers do come in 330ml bottles but then again a lot are stronger, the same as a lot of beers being served in 2/3 pints, you don't want a pint of an 11% imperial stout or a 9% double IPA. 330ml bottles isn't a new thing though, things such as bottled lagers have come in 330 ml bottles for years.
Why do you keep referring to them as gimmicky? Just because something is different or innovative doesn't make it gimmicky. If it wasn't for craft brewers we'd most certainly not have a resurgence of old styles such as saisons, goses and braggots. Sours are big at the moment and they're one of my favourite styles. How can more beers and more styles ever be a bad thing?
Just because something is more expensive doesn't make it overpriced. I feel the same about food. Whenever I've eaten at a Wetherspoons I've always felt ripped off because I've had something totally average and feel that's money wasted, I'd rather pay a little more and have something I really enjoy.
I'd rather pay £10 for a thimble of something truely nice that makes me think, that makes me sit up and go "wow, that's good" than pay £2 for a pint of something that's just an average best bitter. The value for money for me is in the experience and the enjoyment. I try to have as many different beers as possible, as I've said my new years resolution is to do another 500 different new beers this year, when I get a delivery and open a bottle I've not had before I get a genuine excitement about trying something new.
Comments
Really? I've had that and I enjoyed it, gave it a 4.5 out of 5 on UnTappd. Hoppy with lots of tropical, citrusy flavours if I recall. Oakham do some nice stuff. The worst thing I've had recently was from Waen and called Chocolate Limes. I'm not sure if it was badly kept (it shouldn't have been, decent pub and everything else was OK) but it wasn't nice at all.
Just ordered a new selection of things I've not had before:
Siren Uncle Zester - Looking forward to trying this. It's a Braggot, an old 12th century style that is being brought back by some breweries. It's basically half beer, half mead. Not cheap though at £7 a bottle!
To Ol Gose To Hollywood
To Ol Raid Beer
To Ol Stalins Organ
To Ol Nelson Survin
To Ol Garden of Eden
To Ol Baltic Frontier
Mikeller Wheat Is The New Hop
Mikeller Arh Hvad!?
Evil Twin Hipster Ale
Loving the stuff I've had from To Ol up to now so hoping these live up to the others.
Fantastic shaped bottle, too.
I had the St Peter's Organic ale and the Golden ale at a mates house and wasn't a massive fan, drinkable enough but nothing special. I agree about the bottles though, very old fashioned looking (in a good way).
My other Christmas highlights were:
Some great Siren Craft stuff including "Mums The Word" a milk porter with cherry and chipotle chilli, "Blue Sky Blue Sea" a Cloudberry and seaweed gose and "Carribean Chocolate Cake". I've got their Calypso (Kumquat edition) at home to try too.
Oscar Blues "Death By Coconut" was a great porter with coconut.
Mad Hatter Blueberry Pancake and Maple Syrup, sounds crazy but it was lovely a nice sourness from the blueberry and just a hint of maple in the aftertaste.
I had quite a selection from Cloudwater too and all of them were lovely, particularly the AUS and NZ Hopfen Weisse and their IPA.
I'm sure the actual beers taste nice, though.
One of my favourite breweries used to be Roosters, along with Outlaw, which I think was actually the experimental brewing arm of the same brewery. The pub changed hands and I haven't come across them for years now. Dancing Duck of Derby produces some current favourites and although I rarely drink bottled beers, Sadlers and McMullens seem to produce some that are quite palatable.
I go out of my way to avoid some of the ones mentioned at the start, particularly Old Speckled Hen, which I think must be one of the most over-rated beers of all time.
When it was actually made by Sharp it was excellent.
Now, not so much.
Just read the thread from the beginning, nice to see quite a bit of love for Jennings' Sneck Lifter
I've really got into the craft stuff over the last year and I love a trip to my local Brewdog bar. Born to Die 27.11.15 and Hop Fiction were two of the nicest beers of last year, they have some great guest breweries too.
The names don't bother me to be honest, why is "Mum's The Word" or "Yeastus Christ Supersour" (one of my favourite names of last year) any different to "Sneck Lifter" or "Fursty Ferret"? It's just a bit of fun. I like the label art too, you do get some genuinely great bottles.
Gimmicky or just different? I'm happy that there are breweries experimenting with different things, not just different flavours but different styles, it's great to see so many goses, sours and braggots around these days, I love these styles.
I'm not totally sure where you draw the line between "craft beer" and "real ale" anyway, there are definitions about but most have blurred lines.
Essentially beer is beer and I just want to try as many different things as possible.
That's not actually a dictionary definition.
I've not got a beard, waistcoat or hiking boots. I'll claim I'm still young though at 34!
As far as I'm concerned all good beer should be drunk from a glass, I've rarely seen craft beer drunk from the bottle (or can) and a very large amount of it is bottle conditioned so should be poured into a glass as a matter of course. All the decent craft beer bars near me pour everything into a glass.
Over-priced? I guess it depends, I'll generally pay between £2.80 and £5 for a bottle. I don't class that as overpriced if the beer is good. I'll quite happily pay more if it's an exceptional beer. The Buxton Brewery (a great brewery, I've not tasted a bad beer of theirs) Yellow Belly was £6.75 a bottle from my local bottle shop but it is one of the best beers I've ever tasted, I'd happily pay the same again.
I pay £3.20 a bottle in my local Sam Smiths pub for their Oatmeal Stout and that's one of the greatest stouts in the world.
And I'm not being argumentative, but there's a massive difference between naming a beer "Sneck Lifter" (which actually means something, a Sneck is a word used up North for latch, usually on a backdoor. A Sneck Lifter is someone who sneaks home after having one too many in the pub!) than Born to Die 27.11.15 (Seriously, how is that NOT a pretentious hipster name?)
Finally, you see so many young people drinking their precious Brewdog straight from the bottle and that's just plain wrong.
Brewdog can go F themselves, the attention seeking tits.
Who cares what it's called though? Surely all that matters is the taste.
There are some real ales that I like and some craft beer that I like.
For me, when it comes to food and drink, all that matters is the taste. You don't "have" to pay £6.75, there are plenty of good craft beers and real ales cheaper but for me it's worth it if the product is good. The same way that you don't "have" to pay £150 to eat in a Michelin star restaurant but when I have it's been bloody amazing so every now and then it's very enjoyable.
I've had a bottle of Sam Smiths Oatmeal Stout and I gave it 3* on Untappd, I just found it a bit pedestrian, there was nothing interesting about it, Yellow Belly was a firm 5*, a wonderful imperial stout, at 11% you wouldn't drink it in a session but it's amazing. Worth the price, plus often stronger beer is more expensive anyway (one of my local real ale pubs prices on ABV).
The other week I paid £3 for a bottle of Siren Craft "Mum's The Word", a wonderful stout with cherry and smoked chipotle. So that was actually cheaper than the Sam Smiths. I also paid £2.80 for Beavertowns Gamma Ray, a lovely pale.
It's all about taste. I'd never shun something that I'd not tasted though just because of the name. You obviously have some kind of dislike of Brewdog, they make some bloody lovely beers though (for the record the Born To Die 27.11.15 was a beer designed to be drunk as fresh as possible, only produced for a very short while the date was an indicator of when it should be drunk by and it was taken off tap on that date, so the name actually just does what it says on the tin.).
Forget about the hipsters, forget about the names, just focus on the beers and quit worrying about definitions and image.
One of the best was a Sadlers light ale of about 4.3%, which was on sale at B&M Discounts for £1.19 for a 500ml bottle. McMullen's Hertford Castle was another beauty, this time at Morrissons for £1.49.
Exactly, I think if I was forced to make a definition of the difference between real ale and craft beer it'd possibly come down to one being more experimental and innovative than the other although even that's not strictly true.
I genuinely don't understand these people who hate stuff despite never even trying it. How can more breweries brewing different styles and experimenting with different flavours ever be a bad thing?
I'm just happy to drink different beers, I've been logging them on the Untappd app and have had 640 different beers so far (440 of them were in 2015), I've made it my new years resolution to have 500 different new ones in 2016. Amongst the 640 there have been some good real ales and some good craft beers and some poor real ales and some poor craft beers. It's all beer at the end of the day and is there to be enjoyed!
That's your perogative but you're missing out on some great beer. As I say it's all about taste but for me I like to try as many different things as possible. For certain things you have to pay more. For less than £2 I'm not going to be able to get a sour citrus braggot or an imperial stout with brett, aged on Shiraz grapes or a saison with thyme and lavendar, all of which I've had recently which have been fantastic.
No, you'd get a proper drink of a decent real ale
But the point is that it's all beer, it's not a competition, if you put your prejudices aside you might actually find some great stuff you enjoy.
To be honest, I've a mate who buys a lot of the cheap £1.49 stuff from supermarkets and I generally find it pretty bland, drinkable but nothing that makes me sit up and go "ooh wow". He had a Sadlers one, Worcester Saucerer I think it was and it was just a bit boring. I love some real ales though.
I'm not going to sit here and slag stuff off that I've not tried though, it's that I don't understand, you actually said you'd not had a Brewdog beer yet you've slagged them off, open your mind a little. How can more breweries experimenting and innovating and making more beers and more different styles available be a bad thing?
Next time I go to my local, I must remember to ask if I can have a pint of saison with thyme and lavender.
This particular one with thyme and lavender was by Stone Brewing, no "fancy" name, just called Stone Saison.
Saison is a very old style of beer, very nice too. Yes, being brewed with thyme and lavender sounds bizarre but it works, it was lovely. It's not really any different to coriander being used in wheat beers.
The Stone "Go To IPA" is pretty stunning too.
My local had a beer in over the Christmas called Creme Caramel. 5.7% but tasted just like John Smiths. Poured straight from the cask. It was gorgeous, sadly, it sold out very quickly.
Only one they've got in at the moment is Doombar, which for reasons said above, I try and avoid.
Is this not a contradiction?
I had a pint of Grafton Caramel Stout when we popped into a Wetherspoons on a pub crawl the other week. I find Wetherspoons beers can be very hit and miss but that was very good.
I'm all for innovation and variety, but most of these craft beers are simply ways by which the marketing men manage to push the prices up to ridiculous levels to fleece the gullible and the poseurs. Apart from charging nearly a fiver a bottle, the bottles themselves are nearly always less than 500ml, which itself is less than a pint.
It is known and accepted that pubs have to account for their running costs in the price of a pint of draught beer, so the price of a 500ml bottled beer should be significantly under the price of a pint in a pub.
I was surprised at the price mentioned previously for the bottle of Sam Smith's stout. I'm not a huge fan of their draught bitter, but it has always been on sale for under £2 per pint. I prefer their draught stout, which from what I remember is about £2.20 a pint, although it must be a couple of years since I had one.
If you like the more gimmicky beers, I seem to remember that their own version of kriek vastly undercuts the price of the established brand.
That's just a massive generalisation though, I had 440 different beers last year and probably 70% of them could be classed as craft, the vast majority of them were good. I find craft stuff to be more consistently good than real ales although I do like both, beer is just beer to me I don't care for labels. As I've said previously most bottles are around £3-£4.50 from my local bottle shops. Breweries such as Buxton, Siren Craft, To Øl, The Kernal, Brew By Numbers amongst others produce amazing stuff and I've genuinely not had a bad beer from any of them.
Most beers do come in 330ml bottles but then again a lot are stronger, the same as a lot of beers being served in 2/3 pints, you don't want a pint of an 11% imperial stout or a 9% double IPA. 330ml bottles isn't a new thing though, things such as bottled lagers have come in 330 ml bottles for years.
Why do you keep referring to them as gimmicky? Just because something is different or innovative doesn't make it gimmicky. If it wasn't for craft brewers we'd most certainly not have a resurgence of old styles such as saisons, goses and braggots. Sours are big at the moment and they're one of my favourite styles. How can more beers and more styles ever be a bad thing?
Just because something is more expensive doesn't make it overpriced. I feel the same about food. Whenever I've eaten at a Wetherspoons I've always felt ripped off because I've had something totally average and feel that's money wasted, I'd rather pay a little more and have something I really enjoy.
I'd rather pay £10 for a thimble of something truely nice that makes me think, that makes me sit up and go "wow, that's good" than pay £2 for a pint of something that's just an average best bitter. The value for money for me is in the experience and the enjoyment. I try to have as many different beers as possible, as I've said my new years resolution is to do another 500 different new beers this year, when I get a delivery and open a bottle I've not had before I get a genuine excitement about trying something new.