The Next "White Whales"?

That said, the ocean is massive, as is the spread of craft beer collectors.

 

All of that said, Berkshire Bourbon Barrel Aged Scotch Ale was a personal whale of mine for some time. That beer was incredible.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/33/39619/?ba=aasher

 

Im going to homer out and say the CCB BA Barleywines are going to be up there cause idk if many know the bottle counts and their ratings are top notch. Leon (my personal fav) and Cognac Church on a Hill are slowly commanding rarer releases and its only a year old. They're the next KH or they're already there but because of the style i cant imagine they'll "drop off". Who knows though, its all speculation

 

They will drop off and KH is a hard get but no white whale.

 

no chance. leon is not better than king henry and there's no way king henry will make the top 100 ranked whales. no matter how good it still is, there's still the 'falling off' chatter and the high bottle count can't be ignored.

then again, from what i've heard about where wooden hell is right now, there isn't always accounting for taste...

 

Eszett, Its a pretty big whale already, but I suspect to see it in the top 10 of the whale list in a year or two.

 

KBE and K13

 

Appreciation was a perfect example for me to continue not falling for the hype. Nice beer but nothing memorable.

 

That's what I've thought of most of Sante Adarius' beers. On the other hand, West Ashley is made of magic.

 

Does De Garde slowly become whales too? Soon you can trade Blauw with bunches of De Garde.

 

Nope. De Garde is good, but I would be surprised if any of their beers become whales. Just like Upright Sole Comps, the batches are too small to generate the kind of hype needed for whale status. The Sole Comps are fantastic beers with sub 200 bottle counts, but they don't trade well because not enough people know about them.

 

Agreed. West Ashley was pretty good. Saison Bernice was good but not great. Hype Train. Toot Toot.

 

I have mixed feelings about this hypothetical future....

 

Why? Should be happy since you have the ammo to go after big whale.

 

It's bad enough that people fly into town and get in line 12 hours early for HOTD releases. I'd rather not every Oregon release looked like that. OTOH, I think most Oregon beers are undervalued in the trading market. Ergo, mixed feelings.

(Besides, I got my Blauw the old fashioned way... by flying to Belgium and buying it.)

 

As a former Midwesterner who bought PVW when it just sat on shelves, I can say that there are a fair number of equally solid/deep/complex/well-crafted bourbons that just sit on shelves due to not being aggressively marketed/made artificially scarce.

That said, bourbon in 2013 is a shitshow.

 

How so? I know nothing about bourbon, but I'm curious.

 

I'm confused by your question. I'm simply saying that PVW is not in a 'class of its own' by any means (despite being marketed as such, successfully I might add).

 

Oh, Andy and I can tell you some tales...

For example, today I tried to negotiate with a guy over a 2013 George T Stagg (these are just hitting shelves around the country in the last week or two, but spread thin). He wanted 3x retail. I offered him 1.5x retail. He told me my offer was absurdly low. I called him out on the forum for his sob story about how his wife was "forcing" him to sell off 8 bottles from his "bunker" (at triple what he paid a week ago, boo hoo). He got all huffy in PM, then deleted his thread.

Wait, that sounds exactly like beer trading in 2013....

 

Replace "George T Stagg" with the latest hyped release and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.