This Boise brewery ‘upset a lot of people.’ Then it publicly backpedaled

Operating a restaurant or brewery has gotten costlier lately.

Eating or drinking at one has, too, right?

It’s enough to cause some Idahoans to balk. And at least one local brewery to backpedal.

I sympathize with both sides. Beer makes me friendly.

After raising prices this spring — by $1 per pint — Clairvoyant Brewing Co. recently reversed course. In a social-media post titled “Price Adjustment,” the dog-friendly brewery, tail between its legs, explained that it “had heard the community’s concern.”

“We are excited to announce some companywide changes to our pricing strategy to portray a more accurate representation for each beer style,” Clairvoyant wrote. “We want to make the availability of our beers affordable for our patrons. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for continuing to support Clairvoyant.”

Saving face or not, Clairvoyant is taking one for the team.

Prices have been reconfigured yet again at both taprooms: 2800 W. Idaho St. in Boise and 9115 W. Chinden Blvd. in Garden City.

Instead of $7 for all pints — up from $6 — prices have been diversified.

In some cases, they’re lower than they were before the bump.

‘Adjusted’ prices

Gone is the eyebrow-raising $7 tab for Curandero, a Mexican lager that’s 3.8% alcohol by volume. And the $7 hit for Sundance Seltzer.

Instead, Clairvoyant now charges $5 for those.

It’s $6 for a pint of Oracle Amber Ale, Manifest German Hefeweizen, Psychic Pale Ale and Dark Arts Stout.

IPAs? Like Transcendence and Nostradamus? Those remain at the new $7 level. Good luck finding any IPA for less, almost anywhere you go. It happens. But it’s getting rarer.

Opened in 2017, Clairvoyant had a good run with its longtime, single-price pint strategy. “We were trying to keep it simple,” explains Cameron Crooks, taproom manager at the Boise location.

Now the brewery charges using the same general concept that most places do. Beers that are less ingredient- and labor-intensive cost customers less. Spendier beers to create (IPAs) will be spendier to buy.

Most of the backlash for the $1 increase came at the Garden City location, Crooks says. Clairvoyant bought that spot from now-defunct County Line Brewing last year. Some longtime regulars frowned at nothing but $7 pints, hurting business. “We upset a lot of people,” he says.

Still, it’s expensive to run a brewery. Crooks supported the decision to raise across-the-board pint prices to $7.

“I’ll save you the whole spiel, man, with the inflation and all that — you know as well as I do,” he says. “As hard as it was to swallow for some of our guests, it was what we needed to do as a business, just like every other business across the nation has needed to do.”

Costly pints

Two weeks ago in Austin, Texas, I flinched paying $9 a pint for a local West Coast-style IPA and a hazy IPA. When I got the bill, at least. The prices were not listed on the neighborhood pizza joint’s beer menu.

Similar mystery-cost tactics in Boise make me grimace. Beer isn’t fresh-caught seafood. Show us the freaking prices, please. Out of principle, I tend to avoid places that don’t.

Kudos to Clairvoyant for being transparent about what it charges. And about a business decision that backfired as a public-relations move.

And for finding a way to adapt. Even when the cost of ingredients, equipment, labor — of everything — keeps inching upward.

At first, Crooks wasn’t sure his employer should bow to the negative feedback. He candidly admits it. “My initial thought was, ‘Listen, we gotta stick to our guns.’ … My sympathy wasn’t as high as others in the group here.

“But we do value our customers. If we don’t have them, we don’t have anybody or anything. We needed to make an adjustment, so that’s what happened.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2023 at 4:00 AM.