"Whale" is an overused and misused term

It's subjective, bro.

I don't even know what Tornado 20 is, but two years ago BCBS was MY whale. Caught it, drank it, and by then I had new whalez on my radar. CBS and Mexican cake come to mind. Obviously some whalez are bigger than others. One man's whale is another man's salmon.

Cheers.

 

To-mae-to, to-mah-to. Quite honestly, the term has been misappropriated and perverted from its literary derivation by this bunch. What is or is not a whale is singularly dependent on a given individual's perspective. Neither you nor I can determine what is a whale for another person. Only their experiences, desires, and motivations can make that determination.

Oh, and by the way...never, never, ever, ever, ever support your claim by suggesting what a Chicago chaser might be willing to do. Some rabbit holes are better left alone...

 

Well, strictly speaking none of these are whales. They're bottles of beer.

 

Going by usage in the year or two I've been on here, I thought a "whale" was supposed to be basically any beer that's either very limited in quantity or otherwise hard to find (especially if it's expensive and doesn't get released often... Bourbon County or similar, yes; cheap light lagers from other countries that are hard to find just because don't get exported here, not so much.)

And then a "white whale" (a la Moby Dick) was the sort of thing you're referring to -- either insanely limited or no longer being made at all, and unless you get it when it's first released, it's pretty much impossible to find except by tracking down one of the handful of people who still has a bottle and either trading other super-rare beers for it, paying a ton of money to buy it, or just convincing them to share when they open that bottle up.

 

There is no whale database. There is no EPA or FWS or FBI or Constitution of The United States of Whalez (,Bro). It's a personal and subjective term that changes based on availability and time. Just let it be whatever it happens to be.

 

Neither me, this site, nor untappd know what Tornado 20 is

 

But people who have been around more than a couple years know what Toronado 20 is, and probably didn't even notice OPs typo.

 

It's all subjective, what your average craft beer drinker considers a whale is probably a minnow to the guy that's been trading before craft beer was cool and has a cellar full of trade bait. When I first got into craft beer I really wanted to get my hands on Sexual Chocolate, Dark Lord and KBS. Not whales at all to the vast majority on this site; but to me starting out at the time, they might as well have been KBBS.

 

Here is the list (or one of them) that started this nonsense:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EEl4jjZEtqPaQ-lE_AD155GKHLMd2XJeZ1wKTvD2GBk/edit#gid=1

 

There's this one too...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aX2Bo6odEgdMgzpyHNvgEwy-nA-TDtBl3T-9j3idSzA/edit?pli=1

Oh, and pretty much what Pantalones said. Interesting how everyone who has joined in the past year or two thinks it's subjective and the others with actual informative information are in the 5-10 year range... Which brings up the OP.

The answer to the OP is "YES and NO", depending on your use of whale or white whale. Older users generally (myself included) jump to whale as being said "white" whale. I which case, all y'all ************s are wrong in using whale. As it's come to just generally mean something high up on your want list, technically whale in the new sense is correct. But wrong.

 

As a semi-retired grammar **** myself, I would love to agree with the OP on the strictness of using certain words. I have, however, learned the importance of picking one's battles wisely, and defending the strict usage of 'whalez' on BA is not one of those battles. You gotta at least offer a substitute for the 'almost-whalez'! Suggestions: Almost-Whalez, Squatchez, Restricted-sectionz, Too-Much-of-a -Life-to-Truck-Chase'z, Ratebeer-Perfectz, Initiate-baitz, Ghostz, Behind-the-Counterz.

 

Call me Ishmael....

A whale is what you make it. And it's all about the pursuit.

 

A whale is defined as a EXTREMELY LIMITED or HIGHLY SOUGHT AFTER BEER that transcends all ISO:FT forums and/or but not limited to, a rising value on secondary markets.

Example: OLD BEER that typically, has not been remade again but everyone wants still.

A white whale is a beer you badly want and for some reason or another, you can't seem to get your hands on it or obtain it, even though there is plenty to go around.

Example: KBS, BA Bomb, Hunahpu, Heady Topper, BCBCS

Here are a couple whale examples that I see nowadays ISO:

Westbrook: AB Cake / Pappy Cake / Coconut Cake
CCB: DBH / Apple Brandy Hunahpu / Apple Brandy Marshal Zhukov w/ Vanilla
JWB: DFPF / Miami Madness
Funky Buddha: Snowed In / Morning Wood
Creature Comforts: See the Stars
Cycle: Pallet 1 / Thursday / Nooner 8
Cantillon: Don Quijote / Blabaer / Most vintages 2012 - prior / 504NE
Toppling Goliath: KBBS / Assassin / SR71 / Mornin' Delight
Goose Island: Vanilla Rye / Proprietors 13 / Proprietors 14 / Bramble Rye / Cherry Rye / Rare 2010 / Vanilla 2010 / Nutulhu
Three Floyds: Brandy Vanilla Dark Lord / Vanilla Bean Dark Lord / Pappy Dark Lord / Cherry Cocoa Dark Lord
deGarde: Broken Truck
SARA: Westly
Sam Adams: Millennium
Lost Abbey: Veritas 001 / Duck Duck Geuze / Cable Car
The Bruery: A Patridge in a Pear Tree / (BA Version)
Jester King: Sherry Barrel Atrial
South Hampton: SHBRL
Drie Fonteinen: Framboos / Hommage / Zenne
50/50: Eclipse Masterpiece
Hair of the Dog: Dave
Hill Farmstead: Art / Ann / Damon (BA) / Flora Plum / Flora Cuvee
New Glarus: VSB
Mikkeller: Vanilla Shake b1 & b2
Green Man Brewing: Snozzberry
Fonta Flora: Rhythm Rug
Alesmith: Velvet Speedway
Perrennial Brewing: Abraxas BA
Side Project: Derivation 1, 2, 3, 4
Bottle Logic: Fundamental Observation
Thomas Hardy Ales: All vintages

 

Not quite...

 

Well you know, terms take on a life of their own. It's like when someone gets in an auto accident they tend to say their car was totalled but it's not totalled because the insurance co repaired it. If it's a beer you've been trying to get but are having some difficulty you might say it's a whale even though I might have a cellar full of it.

 

There are a lot of folks who are saying a whale is subjective. So by that logic Jai Alai can be someone's Whale? I can trade for it and have it within a week. There has to be some ratio of demand/persuit and value. I would agree with the OP in that some people's idea of a whale is closer to tuna.

 

Back in the day, the term "whale" had real meaning. There was about as much vagueness in the term as there is in the term "furniture." Yeah, you might call a plastic crate "furniture" if you treat it as such, but most people understand what furniture is and would get the joke.

Today people call plastic crates "furniture" so often that it's become mainstream. Us old farts think it's ridiculous but language evolves really fast nowadays...

There are levels of whaledom:

Whale (JCN, Brandy Vanilla DL, Närke Kaggen, MG, Eszett)
White Whale (Dave, M, DQ, SdM, '99 Framboos,)
Ghost Whale (unheard of things from highly sought after breweries - think Cantillon / 3f from the 1970's.)

Things like BCBS, Hunah and Mexican Cake are hard beers to come by, but for $50 you can get one. They don't cost $1,000 on the secondary market. There's lots of them, and even if you don't have the ammo to trade for one, you could simply just pay the money and get one for yourself. You may not like paying that much money, but you could. The option is there. With whales, and especially white whales, it's hard enough to simply find a seller let alone to want to pay the money for it.

A lot of people don't know this level of trading/selling/secondary market even exists, since they've never heard of or tried to seek out the beers in question. These beers don't have release dates coming up, lines to wait in, or raffles to enter, as they were released a long time ago and are no longer available.

Funny, actually. Back in, I think it was 2011 or so, there was a term called "insta-whale." These were for beers that were just released in such small quantity by some kind of highly praised brewery that everyone wanted them and people would only trade them for other highly sought after beers. BA Huna, Churchill's Finest Hour, Kate the Great, etc., were beers on this list. Oddly enough, insta-whales only traded for other insta-whales, as even this new breed couldn't land a whale (traditional usage). Often people would load up on 4-6 insta-whales and try to go 6:1 for a whale (traditional usage).

In any case, I'm not a fan of the term either. It's become rather meaningless in the last couple years anyway.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading!
Jeff

 

Yeah, there is a specific genesis for all terms, and I can understand that for the veterans it might be frustrating.

But I live in Mexico, where craft breweries are just starting to bloom, and I feel like Captain Ahab just for getting two precious bottles of BCBS.

Can't help it, being an aficionado.

 

One of the most annoying terms in relation to this hobby. And that's saying a lot.