To quote meek mill, there's levels to this shit ...

Yea, i agree with everything you said. But if you are one of these breweries like toppling goliath, tree house, jester king, alchemist etc. You enjoy massive demand for your beers, yet the brewers refuse to or have yet to expand in order to meet this demand. Maybe this is a temporary thing and in the next few years they will buy a larger brewery or second brewery and distribute nationally, but until then, the lack of supply vs demand is at the very least, a known problem. Other breweries such as GI, Firestone, Deschutes etc are larger breweries with mainstream beers that also produce amazing craft beer. The difference is, parabola, bcbs or the abyss are amazing yet attainable beers. Others beers from smaller breweries like abraxas, prarie bomb, lost abby, cascade etc still pump out excellent beers but ones that can be found at bevmo or the right liquor store nationally. I think that the difference in quality between a parabola and an kbbs is a lot less than people think. The scarcity just makes it a rare treat for the lucky few who are able to get their hands it and it is perceived to be better as a result. Do you really think that kbbs is magically better than any other stout? While I've never had kbbs, I'm willing to bet it is only marginally better, on par, or worse than other stouts I've already had. The difference? An inflated perceived value due to hype and scarcity. Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing beers from small breweries that would be impractical or impossible for larger ones to produce at scale. But don't think that breweries don't also focus on making whales in small batches to drive up demand which in turn creates hype for their brand to sell the non whales they make.