Free beer stories

I apparently have 2 bottles of Samuel Adams Triple Bock coming in the mail to me from a generous BA. I'll know for sure on Friday when the package is slated to arrive. I'll have to return the favor to him at some point.

 

I went to my local beer store after getting my doctorate degree this year. I brought my parents and sister. We bought around $100-150 of stuff. After leaving, my sister realizes she wanted her own Espresso RIS. We were only a block away, so we turned around. I ran in and bought another and of course bought a few more singles. The main beer guy said it was on him as a graduation gift. I was beyond excited. It was about $20 worth of beer including the Espresso RIS.

 

I was at Beachwood Brewing and BBQ and mind you, I'm really cool with one of the managers. So I ordered a Denver Jackhammer, a new DIPA from them (I think), and my glass turned out to be the last of it. Well, I got 3/4 of a pint glass and he said it was on the house.

 

I walk back from lunch and get flagged down by a employee of a Food Lion that was closing down...
He proceeded to point out a pile of various beers on the loading dock that were up for grabs...
I didnt believe it and left, but later came back a few hours later to some more employees with the head guy who helped me load a couple of cases of Sam Adams, Sam's seasonal, and some boxes of randoms..Now granted that these were cases with a few broken etc, but i counted at least 38 beers...nice...

 

It wasn't free but for a while I was looking to try Pliny the Elder. I had checked all the mail order sites online and for one reason or another didn't order anything (mainly because they're such a royal a** f***), and living in Phoenix I was starting to wonder if I'd ever get to try Pliny. Then one day I was on Craig's List looking for homebrewing equipment and someone had posted an ad titled "Pliny". I texted the number and came to figure out that the poster had won a trip to N. Cali and brought back a case. They only charged me $7 a bottle for 3 bottles (21 total) and I honestly don't think there's any way I could have gotten it cheaper. It was completely worth it to try it and compare to Ruination, Sculpin, Hop Stoopid, Hopslam, etc etc etc. I now check CL for beer ads weekly.

 

haha, i dont know why but that made me crack up big time. thank you.

 

Well, everyone may think I am a liar, but once a month at our homebrew club meeting there are all kinds of free beers right on the table for anyone to just go and pour into their glasses and drink. Seriously.

And yesterday I couldn't decide whether to get a growler of Bronx Pale ale, or Twisted Pine Hoppy Boy. The man on duty at the store gave me a taster of both of them. Free.

Hard to believe, but true.

 

I used to work in hotel housekeeping years back and... damn did I get a lot of free beer, lol. People would buy beer and just leave it behind when they had to fly home... most of the time crap BMC (which I'd use to stock my fridge for guests), but lots of good stuff as well.

It was instrumental in my craft beer training.

 

I've had to leave beers behind in hotel room fridges many times. I'm glad they are going to good use!

 

No free beer stories...one good free weed story though...

 

A while back I was an intern with ~15 other people who all became good friends/drinking buddies. One of them mentioned that his cousin was starting a brewery in Chicago but couldn't remember the name. I had not heard from him for 6months+ until...A couple weeks ago he calls me to tell me he's at his cousin's wedding and there are 17 kegs and a ton of bombers from his cousin's brewery, Pipeworks, and asks if I would like him to grab me some. Box is on its way, he is not a member of BA but definitely a BeerAdvocate in my book.

 

Not free beer for me, but great to see this post:
http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/free-heady-topper.111050/

 

Not free beer, but so close it might as well have been. New Belgium just rolled out here a few months ago and it happened to coincide with crawfish season. I was at a bar that was doing drink specials on a different NB beer every night and it just so happened to be 'buy a pint get a free lb of crawfish' night. The drink special was Shift for 0.50 a pint. So for .50 I got a Shift (which goes perfectly with crawfish) and a pound of crawfish.

 

Had my favorite shop owner give me a Dark Lord one day just because I mentioned I never tried it. Have had people on this site send me boxes of beer just because, have friends give me bottles all the time because they know I like whatever.."hey, heard you loved FW15, here ya go".

The craft beer community, while having its fair share of douches, is full of some of the nicest and most generous people of any hobby/enthusiast group I've ever been a part of.

 

I think it was CaveDave that sent me Heady Topper also. He sent me two cans. Then I sent one to RBassSFHopit2Me.

True playas for real.

 

My best free beer day

About 8 or nine years ago I helped the Guys from Ommegang with their offices. When they drove down to pick everything up they brought me a full 750 case of brewery rejects. No labels, miss fills etc. I was quite happy. I still drink their beer regularly to this day. Thanks again guys. I will get up to the brewery some day.

Way back in the day at Khyber Pass I used to get many free beers every night. I was in the service industry and tipped too well. Guess the free ones were paid for in the end. Man those days were fun. Bands, Beers and Friends.


Enjoy

 

two stories..

I was hung over as shit pumping gas at 8 in the morning in philly and saw an allagash car on the other side.. because I'm a nerd and was still pretty drunk (wifey was driving) I snapped a few pictures




and shouted to the lady "I love your beer!" to which she replies "you want some?"

O_O

So I got a 6er of some free allagash awesomeness for free for drunkenly yelling at a stranger


Second story is that gklover1 randomly sent me a box with a 2007 Raison D'extra, a 2010 angel's share, a big bottle from Crooked Stave and some other awesomeness when I first got onto the site

moral of the story: yell at strangers and be friends with Aaron

 

This bar in my town used to have fake birthday parties for people where they would have free open bars for people on the list from like 7-9 (cuz obviously it's illegal to give away free alcohol but apparently this was a loophole). So I would go and get shitfaced and my brother would pick me up at 10 to go back home. I guess that was fun...

 

This was so fun that I actually wrote about it at the time. Pasting the relevant parts from my blog:

I continued on my merry way towards class, and since I had some time to kill I popped into Peculier Pub on Bleecker for a beer. Now, as is my custom, I perused the menu for not a short amount of time to find a beer I'd never had before. One would think this would be easy, considering that they have around 300 beers on the menu, but not for this guy! As I'm cruising and perusing, a handful of rowdy, yet friendly gentlemen are going on and on about Beer Lao. I finally make my decision and order a beer from the bartender, and she shyly informs me that they are out of the one I selected. The rowdy, yet friendly gentlemen took pity on me, and one of them said "after all that, you don't even have it? Get this man a Beer Lao, on me!" I repeatedly attempted to pay for my own beer, but the gentleman would have none of it. And then we got to talking, and apparently he had gone to Laos on a trip some years earlier and really enjoyed Beer Lao, and Peculier Pub is the only place he's seen it outside of Southeast Asia. Sweet! Free beer!

 

Went to a BA'rs house to pick up some Jai Alai and meet him for the first time. Ended up with a backseat full of New Glarus and Westbook I had never had. Super excellent guy. Now when I meet new BA'ers who come over I make sure to open up the cellar.