We've already heard how millenials are so egocentric that they're ruining the nation. And we've seen how cute their Brooklyn-inspired lifestyles are.
But these whippersnappers may have finally crossed the line. A new report finds that the price of cheap beer is rising at a faster clip than that of more expensive, craft beers. The culprit? Pabst Blue Ribbon and its resurgent popularity with young hipsters, say the report's authors.
According to the study from Restaurant Sciences, a research group that tracks changes in the food and beverage industry, the cost of lower-priced beers has gone up a whopping 6.8 percent since October. By contrast, craft beer prices have gone up just 1.8 percent over that same period.
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"While all the attention has been on Craft (Ultra-Premium) beers, the price of mainstay brands in the mid-price (Premium) tier have risen more dramatically," Chuck Ellis, head of the research firm, said in the report. "And traditionally lower-priced beers such as Pabst Blue Ribbon have seen sizeable double-digit price increases in both restaurants and bars and nightclubs."
Ellis went into greater detail with the New York Daily News, calling out PBR by name once again as the "biggest driver in sub-premium beer price increases."
"It has become quite fashionable," he said.
Hear that, bar-hopping Brooklynites and cool kids everywhere? All those PBR tall boys are driving up the cost of other low-cost, watered-down, mass-marketed brews.
While it's easy to blame PBR's popularity on all "these alternative people," it's also simply a better beer than its cheap rivals, at least according to beer-ranking site Beer Advocate. While the site's reviewers have given PBR an average score of 70, they've given worse marks to the likes of Miller High Life, Budweiser, and Coors, as well as frat beer of choice, Natural Ice.
This all raises one pressing question: What will happen to beer prices when hipsters realize PBR is so cool and widely enjoyed that they're forced to abandon it in favor of a less mainstream beer?
