Beat still at RR

Honesty. What the hell were we Cali folks thinking?

 

And quality, don't forget quality. It's really, really difficult for me to trade a beer that I like, like Bourbon County for example, for something I don't already know that I love.

 

Thats the case for everyone except the people that place a higher importance on getting a new beer.

 

For how many?

 

It is mind boggling to me that so few people seem to understand this.

I've said it before, but this time I'll try to say it more clearly. These are the reasons Beat is hard to get:
1) It's really good and it's known to age well. This means people want it for themselves.
2) Every trader has had dozens of requests for it. They can't supply that.
3) Everyone and their brother wants it RIGHT NOW.

You add those together and it's going to be hard to get without any conspiracies or hoarding or what-the-fuck-ever. Like I said upthread, if you haven't gotten it just wait a few weeks.

 

I understand this sentiment, because I too want beatification, but something cannot be ransomed that was never yours.

 

Why don't you fly in and get some? I'm 100% serious. I have better things to do than drive 4 hours a day just to pick up multiple allotments (they hand-stamp, so it's not as simple as getting in line twice). But no one here is standing in your way. I'm sending out plenty as it is.

If I go up there again, I'd use the allotment to send out more to my trading partners or friends, not to pick up all 6 for people I've never interacted with.

 

Yeah, this is me, to a certain extent. I started drinking craft fairly recently (join date says 2010, which sounds about right) but stuck to mostly California beers until last year. I had no idea there was this whole trading scene and ways to get beers from around the country. I started off trading because there were things like GI BCBS that appeared on shelves around here once upon a time but now don't any longer, and I wanted to see if there was a way I could find any more.

Somewhere along the way, I fell into a rabbit hole. I'm not trying to hoard, or build up a cellar, or even trying to get of a bunch of whales from 3-4+ years ago. Basically, I'd like the opportunity to try some of the (current) beers that other BAers are always talking about! I think to this day the most "rare" thing I've ever seriously pursued in a trade was KH; otherwise I do rely on tasting groups to try a lot of the stuff I know I don't have the experience or the cellar to land.

I don't like that all of the problems in ISO:FT are being attributed to new traders because I think it goes both ways more than some of the veterans like to admit. Someone earlier was spot-on when they said that there aren't really whales anymore. Craft brewers are making more to meet higher demand, and this is a GOOD thing! However, people still have to camp out overnight to get the bottles they want. So even though the overall bottle counts are higher, there is still a reasonable amount of effort being exerted there. Remember: 12000 bottles now may very well be equivalent to 2000 bottles a few years ago because those 12000 are being distributed amongst, potentially, a lot more people! The market has grown a lot and the bottle counts reflect that. Should I expect to get, like others have mentioned, M or Wooden Hell for Beatification? Absolutely not! But veteran traders should not automatically jump to "greedy" if I were to attempt to ask for a beer that, at its release, was equally sought after (and roughly equally priced, and equally tasty) even if the bottle counts were less. I'm not trying to pull one over on anyone. I'm trying to get something I have not been able to try before and trying to take my and your overall effort into account. The fact that my release had 12000 bottles (an arbitrary number devoid of context) shouldn't be enough to hold over my head and tell me it's not good enough. There is this mentality amongst some older traders of "nothing will ever be as much of a whale as [x] is now because they only made [y<2000] bottles of it; therefore I am not interested in trading for [z beer I am potentially interested in but has more bottles] with noobs who don't get it" that is pretty unfair to those of us with good intentions.

 

This is where good trading partners come in. They just want what you think is fair and all the regular trading works its self out!
Thanks Aaron! :-)

 

2

 

So... does anyone want to pick me up and trade/sell me some Beatification?

 

something I find funny/sad is that breweries that (IMO) are releasing their limited beers correctly are the ones whose beers are being "devalued" in the trading market. I am sure the brewers couldn't care less about trade value, but it is a little sad to see this happen.

The Bruery has set up a reasonable way to distribute special beers through the RS, they have also majorly increased the production of the most sought after beers. RR did not throw Beat into distribution so that each store got 1/2 a case and caused chaos. Because of this, these releases run smoothly and the beers are easier to obtain for those who put forworth the effort. Bells has done a great job with Hopslam, yeah Black Note is hard to get but it is a 1000 bottle releases, what did you expect. Imagine the chaos/value if they announced the release a week early.

On the other side are breweries like Founders who every release spreads the beer very then and has not increased production, yet seem shocked that the beer sells out quicker. I am glad they will be upping KBS volume next year, hopefully they don't send it to new markets.

Because of this certain beers are deemed "rare" while others with same (or higher) ratings and the same (or smaller) bottle counts are considered lower in trade value.

 

I totally agree and this is something I didn't explicitly address in my post above, but has a lot to do with why, as a new trader, it is frustrating to see the woes of ISO:FT placed on my shoulders. I certainly don't feel entitled to any beer, and I can't force anyone to trade with me who doesn't want to, but people seem to suggest that I should only ask for locals for something like Beatification, beer which I know is pretty universally liked and isn't actually that convenient for a lot of people to get (LA to Santa Rosa is about a 900 mile round trip. Even if there are 6 bottles waiting for me at the end of the rainbow, is that actually easier than chasing the distro truck around to a few local bottle shops?) It's easy to sit around and blame the new traders for being greedy, but there is definitely truth in the suggestion that a lot of old school traders devalue this batch of Beat because RR made the "mistake" of making more of it.

 

as i pointed out here, that's simply cognitive dissonance talking.

 

I don't know how old you have to be to be an 'old school trader' but I certainly don't think I've been around long enough to fit the bill. That said, within threads like this there are still valuable bits of advice to be gleaned. If you're easy to deal with, if you're willing to communicate openly with your trade partner and if you both pack securely and take on the liability for in-transit breakage, you'll be fine. Do trades that make you happy. If you only want to trade your Beat for Budweiser then do those deals. If you would only want to trade it for a full vertical of BCBS then float that ISO.

If you want to build longer trade relationships, work at it. If not, check references and make sure you know what is being traded. Understand that forging longer trade relationships can mean frequent trading or just reaching out to an old partner once in a blue moon. Ignore the rest of the chatter. Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon than bends, it is only yourself.

I haven't read this whole thread so someone else may have mentioned this but this smacks a lot of reminds me of 'why won't VT people trade me Heady Topper?' Even if something is readily or frequently available there are only so many trades that can be done by one population of people at one time.

 

I want to clarify this point -- I am not suggesting that it is only the old school traders that devalue the current RR batches. My feeling is more that both new and older traders do this. I said "old school" specifically because it's taken for granted that new traders don't understand "value" and "worth," so I wanted to point out that I don't think it's just newer traders that do this.

I agree with all of this this and will mention here that I have completed several happy trades, and have been pleased to trade again with some people after the first time. I'm just tired of reading "new traders this and that" when people don't like the way the forum is operating. People from all over the new-old trading spectrum are hoarding.

 

The reason people use that over-generalization is because a majority of the people trying to trade these new releases for the super-rare stuff are "newbies". This doesn't have to do with hoarding as much as it does with people overvaluing every single new limited-release. And no, I'm not singling you out or California breweries out, its all of the breweries, all over. As I said earlier in this thread, its just par for the course at this point with people looking to trade a new limited-release beer for something that is far more sought after, rare and older.

 

Huh? Outside of FfaC 001 and Beat 004, Beatification has been easy to get. Batches 002 and 003 could easily be found at better Bay Area stores 18-20 months after their respective release dates. RR used to ship Beat bottles to CA residents.

 

That's fair and I'll grant that this is true; it is much more likely to be a noob asking for Blaeber or something else silly, but IMO those unreasonable threads have been sparse and easily ignored. BUT, I'll submit, again, that it might not be greed all the time so much as benign ignorance.

 

If anyone is actually thinking about getting more or has more to trade let me know. My pretrade just informed me that he is going to hold his beat ransom, his words, and wants way more than we agreed upon.