Another beer that trades like Prop

Didn't realize people get this sensitive and abrasive on this site. I'm not the one who originally said it was 30,000 bottles first off. But there 88 barrels which translates to an amount of roughly 25,000 bottles which has been stated on a few other threads. All of that obviously doesn't make it into bottles but i'd say a majority of it does.

Also, my whole argument is saying that beers with 30,000 bottle count aren't rare. Not sure where you are going with that. I was simply pointing out that pretrades were being set up all over the place for darkness, which you said weren't, which is what really is wrong. I'm not sure what any i've said is misinformation. You clearly need to learn how to communicate without getting emotional about it, especially when it comes to beer, and we are going in circles so this is my last post in reference to anything you have to say. Hope you get some prop and it doesn't cost you too much.

 

88 barrels * (53 gal / (bourbon) barrel) * (5 750ml bottles / gallon) = 23320

25,000 is high considering kegs and evaporation, but not wildly so. A bit less than 20,000 seems like a reasonable guess.

 

That's an admitted 20% margin of error ... Which is pretty big, and it's probably more like a 25% margin

 

We're not sending rockets to the moon here... I'm not even sure how reliable that 88 barrel number that people are throwing around it.

The point really isn't whether there's 20000 or 25000 or 30000 bottles. It's still 10-100 times more bottles than most stuff that people seem to think is reasonable to trade 1:1 with Prop.

 

If I would have showed up Saturday afternoon I would have wasted my time because it was sold out, it always sells out, thir year they just increased production maybe 300 bottles to accommodate the growing crowds. Like I said rumors are what they are, doesn't make them a fact, could be the guy is sharing what he heard, but there was no BASC for sale after sat unless guys were selling personal stash, the brewery was out.

 

I digress. It's interesting there are conflicting stories there. Especially with something as objective as when it got sold out.

 

Well, except that it was trading crazy before anyone tasted it ... so there's that. Seems like it traded on hype first, no?

 

Cool - so I'll trade you a MoaS & Fremont Bourbon Abominable for Prop since those are beers that taste REALLY REALLY good and you get 2 for 1? ;-)

My 4.45 and 4.42 beers for your 4.59. That's pretty close to the same differential of BCBS to Assassin and I'm way over on $$s.

 

I guess my response is - since I can buy a lot of BCBS I don't really bother trading for BA stouts anymore. the only stuff I trade for at this point is

- retired BCBS (Bramble, Cherry Rye, etc)
- Gueuze/Lambic (stuff that isn't really replicated in the US IMO)
- sometimes some Heady

if you can avoid being a ticker and have good distro - this stance is actually pretty easy to take. I have world class IPA's around me, awesome lagers, unique breweries like Night Shift, distro from Founders and lots of other great breweries...this is basically all I want

 

Except it doesn't work that way

 

Exactly my point which is why people claiming "finally a beer that trades on taste instead of hype" are absurd. When two beers that are world class and among the best of their styles, are rarer, cost more, and have close to identical ratings .... How does one call that trading on taste?

 

I agree - I have no need to trade when I have easily accessible beers that are as good. Coffee bourbon dark star versus BCBCS? Its a dead heat.

My point was that your comment about no one taking a trade of bcbs for assassin being crazy is equally as applicable to people wanting the moon and stars for bourbon county variants.

 

I guess it depends on ones taste, i love sours and BB stouts, id take any sour over heady or another DIPA….. its all a personal decision.

 

While you're right that taste preferences for drinking are personal, but it's a rare person that TRADES based on that. If you happened to have a King Sue maybe you would trade it for "any sour" but most won't. I doubt anyone would take Caractere Rouge for King Sue. That's really the point I'm making. In trading, it rarely "depends on ones taste" as you claim because it's a market place.

When this thread was started it was with the claim that we finally have a beer that trades on taste, not hype or rarity. That is definitely not the case; there's a lot of hype powering the momentum here.

Cheers!

 

At the end of the day beer is worth what people are willing to trade for it, regardless of bottles counts, name recognition, etc. Prop is not inflated, whatever people are willing to pay for it then that is what it is worth. Others may disagree but the reality is what it is. No sense in complaining that a bottle shouldn't trade as high as it does based solely on bottles count.

If beer X is a 3000 bottle release with 10,000 people looking for it, it still pales in comparison to beer Y that is a 30,000 bottle release with 100,000 people looking for it. The more people looking for a bottle the higher chance someone else is willing to give up more than you to get it. Prop is kind of a perfect storm. Huge name recognition with certain variants hitting national distribution but one variant is restricted to one state which the entire country wants. On top of that I have heard it is quite good, though I must say I have not had the pleasure of trying it.

You can argue all you want X beer has the same rating and lower bottle count so it should trade 1:1 but it is simply not reality. A ton of people want Prop so people are willing to pay more to get it. Welcome to capitalism.

 

I have no horse in this race. I'm not trying to trade for any BCBS variants nor do I plan to. So I'm not "arguing" to get people to agree with me. I'm just enjoying the show. I did take issue with people saying "it trades based on taste" when, obviously, it does not. That was laughable.

But to address your position; bubbles happen in capitalism. And aggregate behavior is what you want to look at to understand value, not what one person or a small group of people are willing to pay. Which makes the "it's worth whatever people are willing to pay for it" argument kind of a facile. Enron had a $90 stock price and was "worth" over $60 billion at that point. I think we can agree ... it wasn't worth that even though fools were rushing in to buy. This argument is akin to saying "look what some stupid people do (i.e. pay crazy prices for stuff that's not in any way rooted in the underlying value of the asset); that stupid thing is obviously smart (i.e. an accurate representation of value)."

Beer is also a regulated and inefficient market leading to false scarcity in some places, abundance in others. Not the best example of how a market will determine value. Looking at short term prices is also not a good way to determine value. Anyway, that's my nitpicking of the economic argument. I'm a big fan of capitalism; I really wish the beer market was less regulated and more efficient.

I subscribe to the camp that products to have some sort of intrinsic value. That's how I make purchasing decisions. This runs pretty counter to the idea "it's worth what people are willing to pay."

Cheers!

 

Nice post man

 

I do see where you are coming from. I think the problem lies that trading beer is itself a tiny market making it an imperfect comparison to the stock market. For one beer is consumed thus diminishing supply over time. If anyone could just go out and buy more Prop whenever they wanted then maybe the comparison works and prices would adjust but unfortunately that is not the case. Prop may have cost say $30 on the "open" market (which is actually only one state) but it is worth much more than that to the rest of the country who does't even have the opportunity to purchase it.. And you make this point in your post that beer, and especially limited release beer, is an extremely inefficient market.

I guess my point boils down to this: Some people think Prop trades to high which might be the case for them personally but as long as there are enough people willing to pay more for it then that's what it will go for. Since there is a finite amount of this beer I don't think it is likely that price for this will stabilize much over time. The argument mostly made in this thread is but there is so much more of this beer than other limited release beer so what gives... but there is also way more demand due to the national recognition of BCBS that is also way more than other limited releases.

 

That's kinda the crux for me. I mean, I think there's a definite premium being paid for Prop right now, in the same way there's a value bump after any highly anticipated release. Still, these debates often forget the demand side of the equation, and the reality here is that Prop has serious brand recognition, history, and distribution. There is, quite simply, a ton of people looking for this beer, more so than other highly anticipated releases from a lesser known (and I use that term with reference to the non-BA world) brewery, even ones that BAs might adore. Demand matters, and demand is crazy high right now. If I wanted Prop, I'd be waiting at least a month or two before trying for it.

 

This is what my argument comes down to as well. Hopefully over the next few months it may die down a bit but judging from what last years prop is still trading for I don't think it is going to go down that much if anything. The flip side of beer trading is that building good long term relationships with traders in different markets gives people a much more generous shake at these types of beers then the open market. And in my opinion that is the best way to obtain these beers for the "fairest" value.