$7.50? You freakin’ kidding me?

Expensive beer

I had never seen beer this expensive before going to a Nationals game. Sure I had a good time, but that $7.50 beer stuck in my craw a little. I just got invited to go to another game and will likely go but will likely not buy a beer or even a bottle of water, since the water costs what a beer should cost.

What do you do to enjoy a cool drink at the ball game? Do you bend over and pay the $7.50? Drain a 12-pack on Metro on the way over? Smuggle a flask into the ballpark? I’d love to hear your solutions to this.

Carl Weaver is a writer and brewer for RealHomebrew.com and has been making beer and wine for more than 20 years. He is also an avid photographer and writer and just finished his first book, about a trip he took to Thailand to live in Buddhist monasteries. He considers himself the last of the Renaissance men and the luckiest darned guy in the world. Follow him on Twitter.

9 thoughts on “$7.50? You freakin’ kidding me?”

  1. Yeah, I just cough up the dough. Watching baseball without beer is like…..well, doing anything without beer.

    If I don’t have a beer and a Ben’s chili dog while I’m at a game, there’s really no point in me being there.

  2. Wayan got my extra ticket to the last game I went to, so he bought me a beer. It’s still not a fair trade, though. $9 ticket – $7.50 beer = $2.50 in the hole. Granted it was a second beer, so it was not bad. However, it was a good time and I was glad someone used the ticket rather than having an empty seat and having nobody buy me a beer.

  3. so here’s a tip, if you go to baseline breweries on the first level right near the entrance, you can get specialty beers FOR CHEAPER. that’s right, i got a sam adams summer ale for 6.50 (that’s a whole dollar in saving! woo hoo!) and sam adams summer ale will kick your crappy bud light’s ass any day.

  5. I thought the beer price at Nationals Park was high! I’m not a frequent baseball-goer, so I thought maybe that was par for the course, but I guess not.

  6. I went to a Wizards game and remember spending almost $20 on two draft beers. I think the prices at the Verizon Center are as high.

  7. Are the specialty drafts at Baseline Brews 16oz. pours? I don’t know, but I’d wager that you get less beer for your $6.50.

  8. The rules for Nationals Park say that you can bring in a bottle of water, in a factory sealed container of less than 1 liter, but no booze.

    So either pre-drink or get sneaky if you want to beat the beer prices.

  9. Beer prices at FedEx field are $8 per bottle in the stands, and the same price in the concourse. Someone’s got to finance the Nationals legal battle with the city for an apparently non-functioning stadium.