What do you consider "off-the-shelf?"

I hear Rare is still on shelves in Kentucky. Thus, a shelf beer.

 

Exactly...I mean, if you don't like what the OP is offering, don't you come back with a counter-offer? That's simply what I did...I mean, KH for Black Albert, Beer Geek Brunch and I was offering to grow in other beers...I don't think I was way off $4$...in fact, I was probably over $4$ just not in Rarity...oh well...

Cheers!

 

and just because we "got" it, means we are willing to trade for it.
I always thought ISO:FT meant "In Search Of", and FT meant "For Trade". Meaning, this is what I want, and this is what Im willing to trade for it
Not "ISO - xyz : FT- zbc (but if you dont like that, take a look at my wants/gots and offer something else)

OP did say other things, but that doesnt mean chase after what some may call a "whale". If you look at a lot of user's they have loons, rare, BT, or abc listed under gots. But that does not mean they want to trade those when they are doing a local for local trade.

 

My favorite "off shelf beer" has got to be Citra. This beer has been bottled 4 times, each time 1000-1200 bottle runs. Two of those runs had approximately 600 bottles sent into "distribution" for all of Southern California. Now you get awesome shelf beer requests to make a solid 320 mile drive (from LA, almost 590 miles roundtrip from SD) with offers for Finch's Cutthroat Pale, 8 bit pale ale, Robert the Bruce and other inimitable gems.

offshelf4offshelf.

Amorphous terms up in the cut like what.

 

Shelf turds are the opposite of wales.

 

None of this shit even matters. If 2 people agree on value, then a trade will happen and vice versa. Some beers are hard to get depending where you are so people might sit on them. I know in my entire area of a few hundred thousand people there were a few cases of KBS, and if the distributor didn't hook you up with one of like 5 cases (thankfully I got really lucky), you had to get to one shop in 10 minutes or less after the email got sent out to get one bottle. I won't give KBS up for $4$ shelf beer somewhere, because I know I won't be able to get any next year. OTS is so idiotic, because things like Rare are OTS and things like Stone IPA are OTS. It encompasses almost every beer, so why have such a ridiculous generalization?

 

I'm not arguing that your example offers are fair, but the "I have to drive so many miles to get to x remote brewery" argument doesn't work for me. It's a very self-centered mindset. That would be like me complaining about having to drive to New Glarus for their special releases. They don't become more valuable (maybe in my eyes, but not in the trading world's) because I had to travel to get them.

And I get that Kernville only has like 1500 people, but Bakersfield is less than an hour away, and there're over 350,000 people there (same with New Glarus; only 2000 people, but less than an hour away from 230,000 people in Madison). I'm not going to do the research right now, but I bet the same could be said for The Alchemist and Hill Farmstead.

 

And this is why regular trading partners are awesome. You send them the stuff you are able to get, rare or not, and they send you the stuff they are able to get.

 

Indeed.

King Henry/Rare/Vanilla/CBS/Darkness were all on shelves. Call 'em shelf beers, nothing wrong with that. Just don't expect ME* and REASONABLE people I know to trade them to you for Bruery RS/Infected Carolina beers that no one seems to want.
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It seems that there are more shitty brewery only releases these days than shitty shelf turds. Between an average brewery only release and Rochefort, I'd take Rochefort any day of the week.

* As to myself, I wouldn't even trade them for Hill Farmstead limited beers before they prove their worth.

 

Not that I disagree with you on all counts, but if I had to gamble on a -bal beer from THE BRUERY and Goose Island, I'd put my money on Goose Island. Black Tuesday was good, Chocolate Rain was marvelous. In my opinion though, King Henry and Rare exceeded both.

Then you have the luxury of ignoring Goose Island's regular lineup if you want while every RS member and their grammy is trying to trade RS beers away as if they (the beers) were the hottest shit to touch a snifter.

 

eh, bruery regular line-up and provisions one-offs are a lot more unique and creative than GI's regular line-up, save maybe sofie. quality-wise, i'm in the minority in preferring bruery.

that said, re: barrel aging, i don't think any brewery can really touch goose island. i think firestone walker, and maybe a couple others (would have to try more individual beers from 50/50, midnight sun, etc, and a lot more to really make an argument of "X > goose island for BA beers,"), but GI leaves breweries like founders and bruery in the dust in terms of barrel magic.

 

This subforum gets more and more entertaining.

 

The thing about shelf beer is that someone *could* go to all the local stores and get a bunch of bottles.

KBS was gone within minutes of arrival at every store in the area. My friend called stores, found out when deliveries were expected, etc. He was able to land 20 bottles. That may not have been the norm, but he said he saw several of the same people at the stores getting KBS, so he wasn't the only person who hauled a bunch of bottles. The concept behind the hate for shelf beers is that anyone in a well populated area that is willing to put in the effort can potentially get a bunch of bottles. As craft beer becomes more popular getting a large number of bottles like that is more of a pain in the ass, plus it doesn't help that brewers distribute so widely and thinly.

 

Yeah, King Henry is an "off the shelf" beer.

But it's also no longer on shelves, limited, extremely in demand and never to be made again.

 

For what it's worth, this practice is exactly why I cleared out my Wants and Gots. I may be in the minority here, but I usually put some thought into my ISO:FT posts, and have a very clear idea in my mind of what I have/want to trade for a certain beer, or what I will trade a certain beer for. For an extended period of time, every time I posted an ISO, I would get a bunch of messages with things like "I'm not interested in that Abyss (just an example) you're trading, but would you want to trade your Double Black?" or "I don't have the Hunahpu's (again, example) you're looking for, but how much FBS do you want?". I didn't find it offensive or anything, but it was definitely annoying to try and wade through those messages without coming across as a dick when telling them no.

 

I found my bottles of King Henry sitting on the floor in their cases at my bottle shop - mine were off the floor beers (let's call them floories) and I only traded these rarities for beers that were purchased from obscure locations like authentic taco trucks or from the roof of bottle shops (roofies).....this way my bottles of King Henry never went for PATHETIC shelf beers and I utilized all the "rarity" that I could out of them.

 

Seems like a legit proposal to me. You know KH, though - they more hovered over and then flew off the shelves as opposed to actually resting upon them. I keep repeating this because I continue finding it to be the case - brews like KH and every other under- and overhyped beer come easy once you start a relationship with a real BA and trader. I recently sent out two KHs for some KBS and then ended up receiving one as an extra.

Back to the topic, we're lucky here in NM to not have the "off the shelf" problem; all of our beer comes out of giant steel tubs filled with ice.

 

You're right.
Some one could also bring 5 mules to darkness day and leave with 3 dozen bottles, but it's crazy to expect ALL people to trade it for "shelf beers" as if everyone had 36 bottles.

As some one that frequents many different shops, drives around a lot, and stops into random places to check for beers,
Here's my recap for recent releases;
KBS 2012-- 0 bottles
CBS-- 0 bottles
Curmudgeon better half-- 0 bottles
King Henry-- 5 bottles
Brmble Rye-- 4 bottles
Coffee BCS-- 6 bottles

(Goose keeps more cases in the Chicago area than Founders.)

All of those beers saw distribution-- but not all "hit shelves."
Most were spoken before they even arrived thanks to lists. The rest were bought when the delivery was made or else held in back for the "regular customers."

I'm against hype as much as anyone-- it should be done away with completely, but I still can't stand to see trade requests in which a person hypes their beer while simultaneously de-hyping the beer they want... Example;
Ft- white chocolate (a reserve society only release)
ISO- king Henry (a shelf beer).

 

I have had a few people tell me my bottle is just a "shelf beer", and so i told them "then stop talking to me and go pick one up".

Most limited releases in chicago sell out faster then the duration of brewery only parties.