Thoughts on ISO Edith/Nordic/Florence/Flora

typical over exageration expected on BA. But if you dig you can see that there are mentions of the locals having to pull visitors out of ditches and warning to check if roads have been washed out
I take it you heard of the HF anniversary party in May where it snowed? there are pictures of tents with snow all over them, boy the things we do for beer. For alchemist this year we stood out in sun (minor sunburn), torrential rain (sept) and snow in December, yes we are all crazy.

 

My point was more about the fact that Greensboro Bend, VT is close to, well, nowhere and De Garde, while remote, is a 3-hr round trip drive from Portland.

 

Seriously drive safely and your camry will be fine.

 

I have had Edith, Florence, and Nordic. I really dig HF saisons. I find it extremely difficulty to trade them away for other beer because the price point and the quality is extremely hard for many other beers to match. As others have mentioned...you can throw $4$ out the window when trying to obtain HF beer. You gotta find a reasonable trader with quantity of HF beer that you want to try.

 

$4$ is the only way to trade for HF (shelf) saisons. And, as usual, it's both a supply issue (most folks are picking up 2x cases of Anna/Arthur/Nordic/Edith/etc., so the supply side is there) and a demand issue (how many ISOs do you see for HF saisons? A few, to be sure, but the demand just isn't what it is for the latest flavor-of-the-week BA stout. No reason to lose your mind and go way over $4$.) It may take a little extra legwork finding someone reasonable, as noted above, but $4$ with limited stuff/interesting regional stuff/etc. is the only way to go, IMO.

 

no need to go way over $$ for the "shelf" HF saisons, but something you grabbed off the shelf at your local shop probably ain't gonna cut it either, unless it's a limited local only distro.

that 3rd anni party in may 2013 is the primary reason why I traded in the car I had at the time. my current jetta w/ dsg more than adequately handled the snow roads in late march 2014 when 2+feet fell the prior night up there.

 

Lol. Most people are picking up 2x cases? They are, are they? How many times have you been to HF?

Because I can tell you in the 50 plus times I've been there, very few people are picking up two cases, or even one case. If most people picked up 2 cases each type would sell out in less than a week.

This view of HF as a place where people are walking out with truckloads of beer is a myth. Sure, some people do, very few. The vast majority of,people there aren't beer traders or hoarders, they're tourists who pick up a few bottles, do the IPA tasting and are on their way.

Some,of you would be shocked to hear that for releases like Art, Sue, Aaron, flora, bb flora, etc, many people in line don't bother to get a bottle. many of them wouldn't know one bottle from the next.

 

Hmmm, maybe I was too loose with my language. Let me rephrase: of those who trade, most are walking out with multiple bottles (if not cases). I'm sorry, but it's pretty easy to glean from the FT/ISO threads that those with HF shelf saisons have a lot of them. And, as noted previously, it's also pretty easy to glean that demand for them isn't as high as the latest/greatest BA stout/sour/whatever. You can argue about the semantics of just how much product is being bought and by whom. But, for trading purposes, based on the aforementioned realities, anything more than $4$ is unnecessary. Do you disagree?

 

Well, yes I disagree, ha. I trade, and I don't buy cases. In fact, the few times I have done that it's been to mule cases for regular partners around the country, I've never done it for myself.

The only people I know of, or see, at HF buying cases and then trading are non locals, PA guys, VA guys, etc.

And $4$ only applies to HF regular Saisons when it's for similar limited beers. Would I trade bottles of Arthur for bottles of de Garde bu's? Sure, and I do that frequently.

Would I trade Arthur for anything below something in that class? Maybe for a regular partner, otherwise, probably not.

Someone else already said it, what I would get back in return would be worse than what I sent. In addition,mid had the honor of losing money on shipping.


No, the regular Saisons don't trade as high as the latest greatest BA stout,that's true. But it's also true that I have no trouble, most of the time, trading Arthur and the like $4$ for those same beers. In other words, 3 Arthur can easily get me something like an Assasin, and has. 2 Arthur? People beat down the door to trade a Backyard.

Just the way it is.

 

Appreciate your thoughts/experiences. You seem to have great success turning HF shelf saisons into "bigger fish" like Assassin. I've had great success trading for HF saisons using limited (and in some cases non-limited, non-seasonal) shelf beer in my area. This is a tad simplistic, but trading is about finding things you want and finding things other people want. Then there's an element of supply/demand to consider as well, but, at least in my experience (and this seems to differ from yours) the supply of HF saisons is ample, and the demand isn't especially high, relatively speaking, of course. This has lead, again in my experience, to the ability to find traders who are more than happy to trade HF saisons $4$ for, shall we say, non-Assassin-level beer.

Again, that's quite impressive you've been able to land those sorts of beers with HF shelf saisons. But some of us are having quite different experiences with them, and they're worth sharing, so that folks know they don't necessarily have to give away the moon for them. At the very least, I have to suggest that HF shelf saisons are more of a trading wild card, and the starting point for folks who are considering an ISO shouldn't necessarily be, "Ok, time to unload the whales!"

I don't really want to touch on the quality debate/"trading for beers below a certain class", other than to say that, as with most brewers, I've had HF stuff I found incredibly good, and others that I wouldn't touch again. Obviously folks can turn to the ratings for some sort of guide, but I've personally long dispensed with the idea that a saison, simply by virtue of having come from Hill Farmstead, is automatically in another class.

 

Nobody is asking the moon for anything. I have the good fortune of dealing with reasonable traders who I appreciate appreciate. Nothing unusual about me or that but enjoy your beer!

 

Yes, indeed, a similar experience here -- cheers!

 

Since it seems there are a few people in this thread that trade HF stuff somewhat regularly I'd like to pose this scenario. How close would a b1 Side Project SdF be to trading for the recent Flora release?

 

Flora is trading at Fou level, if that helps

 

Thanks for the info, but unfortunately it doesn't really help that much. I've never had to try to trade for Fou between people/bars that have it. I was just guessing they may be close to the same level. Same style, highly rated, low bottle counts, from highly regarded breweries.

 

Search the forum for trades for your bottle,,should give an idea. Not saying anything I'm sure you don't know, but the problem you face is the right set of eyes. Post it and see what happens. 1 specific bottle for 1 specific bottle is always a very small pool to fish in, added to Flora being somewhat in demand. Post it up and see.

 

I traded a CD10 and Supp for a batch 2 and '13 Abyss if that helps. Some people said I 'lost' the trade but eh, it's only beer right Why concern myself with meager things like that. I was happy, they were happy. Trading is as simple as that. Good luck in your hunt