Beer prices vs. wine prices

Josh writes to me:

This might not be normal,
but last night I started wondering why beer prices are not listed on
menus, while wine prices are.  My next thought was "Tyler Cowen would
know the exact answer to that".  I know you are busy and it is a rather
trivial question, but I was wondering if you could explain the
differences in wine and beer that lead restaurants to include the price
of one and not the price of the other on their menus.

Only sentence two is foolish but at least on this I am meta-rational and I appeal to you for help.  One possibility is that wine prices don’t have such a tight upper bound so you had better get the customer’s buy-in for a relatively expensive bottle.  Or if fine bottles are being sold relatively cheaply that is worth screaming about but how much can you discount a quality beer?

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