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Comment by MomoXenosaga | Hacker News Reader

They made a rule in the Netherlands that stops supermarkets for throwing discounts on alcohol. I'm always amazed just how cheap beer is, even cheaper than some mineral water brands.

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> even cheaper than some mineral water brands.

That seems like a poor comparison to make the point, since bottled mineral water is notoriously overpriced, particularly the "high end" brands.

How does it compare to something with relatively standard prices like milk? In the US, particularly cheap beer for broke alcoholics might be $5 for a sixpack of cans, 2.1 L or approximately $2.5 per liter. Milk is something like $4 per gallon, or about $1.10 per liter. Much cheaper than the cheapest beer.

I usually see milk at ~$2.5/gal fwiw

My dad, born in the 50s in northern France says that near beer was more ubiquitous for kids than water when he was growing up. Part of it was that the ever so slight fermentation of even near beer made it safer to drink than water from who knew where. I never checked the validity of this story, but it's fun to think about. It doesn't really surprise me though that cheap beer would be cheaper than mineral water brands, most of their costs have to be bottling and transport and marketing. The product itself, is probably one of the cheaper parts.

I truly struggle (in the US) to find 12oz glass-bottled sparkling water that's cheaper than some beers sold in 12oz glass bottles. One might think the glass is making it expensive, due to the weight, but then why are some beers in glass cheaper? It seems like, at worst, non-famous sparkling water ought to cost slightly less than the beer does, but it's typically about the same or a little higher, something like $1.15 or $1.20 per bottle purchased in quantities of 15 (and more like $2 or more purchased in singles!)

(why not buy larger bottles? I prefer small ones because I don't always want to drink an entire 750ml of fizzy water in a single day, and it goes flat if left overnight; I do buy plastic sometimes but the discount over glass is so tiny that it's not really meaningful, and I prefer glass, both due to vague uneasiness with plastic and because if I end up drinking out of the bottle rather than a cup, glass bottles feel nicer than plastic)

Bottled water in glass bottles is a luxury good for yuppies in America. Store-brand seltzer water bottled in plastic is about $1 per liter.

What I buy's usually Mexican (hard to find it much cheaper, at least around here) and I don't think they're only putting it in glass for US yuppies.

Seltzer often tastes gross, I'll get canned club soda if I want cheap bubbles and just don't give a fuck about plastic or whatever at the moment (cans are lined in plastic). Trouble is, the bubbly-water fad has made that shit a lot more expensive than it used to be. Could get it for like $0.20/can for a long time, now it's a lot higher and you have to hunt to find the plain version without a bunch of artificial flavor in it.

Seltzer and club soda are different products; club soda has sodium added (if it naturally has a high mineral content, then it is called mineral water instead of club soda.) Seltzer on the other hand is simply carbonated tap water. Personally I used to prefer seltzer but now drink plain tap water. For each their own though.

> Bottled water in glass bottles is a luxury good for yuppies in America. Store-brand seltzer water bottled in plastic is about $1 per liter.

I think in some countries, water in glass bottles not a yuppie luxury product because they actually reuse (not recycle) the bottles. Sort of like what they used to do with milk in the US.

And with seltzer! You can still get it delivered in glass bottles where I live[1].

(It's more expensive than store-bought plastic bottles but about the same price as store-bought glass, with the added advantage that I know they reuse the bottles.)

[1]: https://www.brooklynseltzerboys.com/

Used to do it with soda in the US, too. I remember pint bottles lined up by the door to return to the grocery store to be refilled, which system survived some places at least into the early '90s (I know because some relatives were still doing it that late).

Glass = yuppie... shit, I guess it's because I'm getting old and remember a time when glass was just for everyone, but that's a really weird sentiment to me. Is Coors yuppie if it's in glass bottles? Seems like this is a selective application of that notion.

> Glass = yuppie.

Bottled water in glass specifically.

Light beer and wine have been preferable drinks if not life-savers even for minors in most of Europe since at least medieval times because of the antibiotic/sterilizing effect compared to tap water.

True but not really relevant to this story. Wine was drunk watered down and "short beer" was usually around 1% alcohol.

It's not really that they are sterilizing, but rather that you have to have clean water as a precursor to producing them.

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