Kiwi Herman?

It for sure did, but the thing I don't understand is that every time Side Project releases a beer, it's an instawhale as well and there is no such shitshow going on. I'm not trying to defend any particular behaviors, it just baffles me, that one time this happened with a beer in SoCal there is such a huge issue, but then there is no problem if there are instawhalez from Side Project, HF or TG etc etc.

 

All the Cali traders got excited and went all in on the flop with ambitious (and subject to opinion, greedy) FTs as soon as they got their lucky tickets for bottles.

Other region traders play it cool slow playing their hands, and let the ISO's come flooding in as word organically spreads that (soon to be) en vogue beers are released.

Basically, Cali beer commodity traders suck at poker.

 

The craze for those beers is created on the demand side, while we've seen many so cal peeps attempting to build value on the supply side, tripping over themselves to flood the trade forums with insane FTs before anyone has even tried the beer. This sort of over-eagerness is not rewarded in any context, be it the dating scene, job interviews, or nerdy beer trading forums.

 

Agreed...let the ISOs speak for demand...asking for the world prematurely usually doesn't work, especially when something hasn't even been made before or reviewed. If it's good, people will want it and will make offers accordingly.

 

Yeah, sadly I have to agree with you both of you. The true question is, why does that happen? How are we different from people in other states? I would think that if anything, it would be the complete opposite, because we are spoiled with options so we shouldn't care so much as the others to try the new things...
(sorry for the semi-offtopic)

[edit] or maybe it actually makes sense and people who, for example live near Side Project can truly appreciate what they have, while some of us here in SoCal don't have enough respect for beer and our brewer's work and are just chasing the popular?

 

The California traders in question refuse to acknowledge this fact and they keep stating that everyone else needs to get used to the new way that trading has become

 

I think part of it is, especially with Bruery stuff, so many are used to having to go so over $4$ to get what they want that it's natural to be overeager when the tables are turned in their favor. That's my theory at least.

 

Just sort of thinking out loud...

-(This will be debatable, I'm sure, but...) CA has historically specialized in IPAs. Don't at all mean to minimize the contributions from innovative non-IPA breweries (say, Lost Abbey, RR's sour program, more recently SARA, et. al.), but IPAs are the state's bread and butter. IPAs are also, to be frank, not the sorts of brews that command insane trade bait status these days. Saisons? Sure! BA stouts? Absolutely! Sours? Definitely! IPAs? Very rarely. So, while CA folks, who don't lack for incredible beer options, as you noted, see other parts of the country score instawhale status for their latest sour/saison/etc., and are left to scrounge up CA stuff to try to access said whales, resentment grows. Then, when the opportunity for an instawhale presents itself (such as with Kiwi, and more on this to follow), folks get a little...overeager

-Re: the Kiwi hype, I think it's first worth saying that @3SH33TS hit the nail on the head -- whatever you think of Kiwi, its trade value, etc., a lot of folks showed some pretty terrible poker faces. Their zeal was sure to cause some backlash, and this thread has certainly been witness to that. Now, you could argue that, poor etiquette aside, the damage may have been minimal -- check out some of the ISOs for Kiwi -- they're pretty darn generous. So, the zealous folks might say the ends have justified the means. I won't speak to that, because the trade market in general is so illogical, it's not worth trying to figure out. Suffice it to say, the pre-trade FTs were voluminous and ambitious.

-That said, if you wanted to play devil's advocate for the Kiwi traders, it's not hard to build a case. Alpine is a niche brewery with a cult following; they hit a homerun with Chez, and its current value is still sky high; Alpine doesn't produce these beers frequently (unlike HF, Side Project, etc.); and sours trade at incredibly high values at the moment. Put all that together and it's not hard to see why the traders went in guns blazing. Again, whether that was right or not depends on how "fair" you find the trade circuit these days. There's a piece of me that finds it so illogical, so outside any notion of fairness, that I almost get a bit nihilistic about it and consider any notion of "what's right" irrelevant. I mean, KBBS trades for hundreds of dollars of beer. This is craziness. Seeing folks come bursting into the forums with high-minded demands for Kiwi...I guess it's just not surprising.

-As ever, though supply remains an issue, so many of the issues we're discussing, whether they be Kiwi, KBBS, or otherwise, boil down to the skyrocketing demand for craft beer, generally, and niche releases, specifically. There's a crap ton of people who want limited releases -- for a variety of motives, I'm sure, some of which we might find more palatable than others. The only way to access them, outside of extra-legal means like auction sites, is through trading similar limited releases, and it's therefore not hard to understand why things get so extreme in the trade forum. The easy solution? Find a good trade partner who will treat you right. Or, get out of the game and be content with the reality that you probably just won't be able to try certain beers. (Or, maybe join a tasting group, although I find that my distinct lack of proper neckbeard length always makes me feel out of place... )

 

Slow clap for @breadwinner !

 

Interesting because I would consider Cali one of the leaders in the sour market myself although their IPAs are very good as well.

Regarding KBBS...its been made before so not the first rodeo there. If Alpine had made Chez batch 2 I doubt you would have seen anyone bat an eye at some of the trade requests.

I feel like Side Project, HF etc are bad comparisons. I feel like these breweries have hit multiple homeruns so they have built a lot more trust up in the community. Alpine has made one good sour prior to this one that I know of and I think that's one of the reasons people are hesitant to move it to instawhale status....it could have easily been the next Monieux.

Lastly, and I have nothing to base this on but the trade forums, but I wonder if trading is more popular in California? It was one of the leaders in craft beer and I wonder if that has lead to more people being involved in trading than in other areas? For example, I feel like a lot of TG, Side Project beer etc goes to locals who aren't in the trading game at all and leads to less bottles being available FT. In CA, I'm curious if there are more traders hitting a lot of these releases which leads to much more availability on the supply side?

Personally at the end of the day I really didn't have a problem with all the trade requests out there...more so just some of the general douchery I was seeing from certain traders in California beyond one particular bottle release. Know that most of us aren't judging everyone from cali based on the action of a few...we all pretty much have our regions represented by both good and bad BA's and it comes with the territory.

Well thought out and level headed post...hopefully I can buy you a beer someday!

 

Lots of good stuff here. I'll just touch upon a few of your points.

Re: CA sours, there's certainly no lack of them here, but a lot of the heavy hitters (and I'm thinking specifically about Russian River) have ample distribution. Supplication, wonderful beer though it may be, ain't commanding much when whale hunting, or so I gather. That's what, IMO, CA tends to lack, at least if you're concerned with generating consistent high level tradebait. (And this is a generalization -- I'm sure we could think of many CA sours/other brews that are limited enough to command, if not instawhale status, at least competitive tradebait)

BTW, re: Chez Batch 2, the rumor is that Kiwi's base is a blend of 1/2/3-year old Chez base. Take that rumor for whatever it's worth

Definitely think you're onto something re: trade volume being higher in CA, whether that's on account of popularity or just the sheer volume of people in the state. That can certainly make the FT/ISO forum appear more easily inundated, compared than releases elsewhere in the country.

In any case, appreciate the thoughts. And, should the day ever come, second round is on me!

 

Fair enough on the sours...I guess I was thinking of it more from the perspective of the number of quality sours available in the state. It's tough sledding here in Ohio with the number of quality sours pretty limited!

The NorCal guys have their own HF, Side Project in SARA though . Kind of a good in state example...they pump bottles out at smaller release numbers, multiple batches etc but they trade pretty well because they have built up that rep with a lot of good releases across multiple beers. No one has ever really batted an eye at what their stuff has traded at from what I've seen. But I think that is also another brewery where the locals get a lot of the bottles and a ton either don't see the trade forum or just get sent out to regulars.