Current State of Trading

I have not had any issues with trading or what is happening on the trade forums. I browse the posts and occasionally respond if something interests me. This works for me.

I do get a lot of random messages requesting trades, not sure why as I don't post on WBAYDK or Hauls threads. I think it is because I post on specific brewery threads in the New England forum and also in the trade talk forum. Some of these end up being trades, so I have to decline due to too much BIF action.

That being said, a large portion of my trading comes from people I have met and/or already traded with. A lot of these people I have met via BIFs. I have had nothing but good experiences with BIFs. All the negative experiences I have witnessed in BIFs have been washed away by other generous members of the BIF (e.g. box received from sender is subpar or assigned target sender participation is low so others send a ton of great beer to make up for it).

There are a wide variety of BIF as well, some perfect for new to BIF people, some for those looking for new beers and some for crazy people wanting to get annihilated by large shipments of whales.

 

interesting topic and discussion. 50+ official trades and honestly never had a bad experience. I traded way more frequently prior to 2019. through that trading, i developed a few repeat partners, and we just sort of swap boxes back and forth occasionally, and that works really well for me. that's probably a big contributing factor in why i trade infrequently with new people now. that and the cost of shipping has gone up significantly, plus i find that i don't have the time to put the effort in as regularly as i used to. local trades and smaller stuff, and currently doing a fantasy hockey BIF league that I got into from BA, that's really the route i stick to nowadays.

 

My last two locals for locals ended up guys fishing for Westbrook Stouts. They’re not here, and they’re a once a year release, and I never mentioned anything remotely like that, just locals. I get it though central NC isn’t VT, Chicago, or Seattle, so it’s not super sexy, but for a simple locals trade we’ve got more than enough. Shrugs, I’ve done probably closer to 100 trades before the format changed, but I’m good with BIFs. I’d still trade with former trade partners though.

 

my guess would be just bad timing. there's obviously not a ton of people clamoring to get in a local4local trade but I've always been able to find someone when I was interested and I don't have anything nationally renowned to offer

 

I love trading, and love meeting new traders, both IP and mail. You can usually tell pretty quickly who is fair to deal with and who is not. That goes for BA as well as other platforms I’ve traded on, but BA has the best and most professional traders in general. I most always stick to $for$. And like @WTCrane said earlier, I’d rather “lose” a trade than win one, and usually try to do it with extras.

One of my challenges is valuation – while I love reading stuff on BA, one thing that can be a real "time suck" is the amount of time it takes figuring out the trading value of beers. I tried recently for some of the Bourbon County variants and just gave up - there just wasn't enough out there, or at least I couldn't find it. My default ends up being $for$, recognizing that I’ll just have to use my best guess on what effects things like ratings, distro, and bottle count will have on what my ISO / FTs are.

I used to trade more but have grown my cellar to an out of control level, and just can’t drink as much as I used to. And as those Chitown folks have said, Boston / New England breweries and bottle shops could keep me busy for more than several lifetimes so bottom line for me – trading is a hobby, an indulgence, and a damn good time!

 

I opened the original box, pulled everything out, and repacked it with bottles and cans standing up, sealed it up, and that eliminated almost all of the sloshing because beer movement and surface area are minimized - at least as long as you keep it oriented that way. I put a rattler in the inside box - a water bottle with washers and nuts, laying down to maximize movement. I double boxed, packed it with some formed cardboard, and a bottom cushion of foam.

End result was that as long as it stayed label-up, there was no sloshing. If you put it on it's side then you could detect sloshing if you knew to listen for it. I see it was just delivered, so now just hoping it didn't freeze.

 

Agree to disagree on the "over generalization" of traders from the regions mentioned above. Why you mad at people that hold great beer from these regions?!? Because they don't trade their highly sought after beer $4$?

While I do agree secondary has ruined trading as I have said before, it's the "current state" of trading.

From what I've seen personally, bourbon is the only thing that trades for whalez. Or it's easier to buy and sell.

And also like I have said before, 1 guy corners the market for whalez trading bourbon (ie BBT, Black Magick, etc.) It's well known among FB groups. While it sucks for mere mortals like myself, you need to adapt if you want acquire these "highly sought after beers".

A common theme in this thread is there are great traders out there. I whole heartedly agree with this. I have made life long friends via BA.

Just my 2 cents

 

There are many reason to ship bottles upright, overall it does get more costly because if you aren't trading numerous bottles you're not going to have a box with equal dimensions and that costs more. That and said boxes are not as abundant compared to ones not made to ship 22oz or 750s. That being said shipping upright not only takes most sloshing away, you lessen the risk of bottles breaking because the base of a bottle has more glass. Writing "this side up" does no harm and yeah even with all these facts I'm still kind of puzzled how many that veteran traders still ship sideways.

 

You know, I'm humbled. You make all valid points here. I've become quite jaded and it doesn't help the amount of disposable income some traders have in So Cal. I've come to pick ups and Modern Times and seen people pick up somewhere in the realm of $2k on a single monthly pickup, and they will gladly shovel off $200 of beer for a $30 in your neck of the woods.

That being said you're right letting go of something like side project stouts $4$ for something from San Diego will rarely happen. I've had a few side project sours/wilds and have been thoroughly impressed but never have had a stout from side project namely because of the demand in the forums.

Regarding your conclusion I echo that. There are a lot of great traders and great people on here. That's the most important thing far more importantly than the hunt: the fun of trading and meeting cool people.

 

To be honest, the trading forums here just don't move as much as other places like Instagram and Facebook. Doesn't help that most of the posts on BA are asking for the same handful of beers and breweries over and over.

While I've done a couple of trades here and the people I've traded with have been great, there's just not that much movement or interest for local trades and stuff that's not hyped or lesser known.

That said, here's a shameless plug for some local Caribbean brews:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/ft-caribbean-locals-iso-your-locals.629367/

If someone's interested, let me know.

 

my absolute most hated thread on this forum is the “trade value thread”. There’s good ppl there I’m sure... involved in my least favorite part of the craft beer hobby. As I said earlier... too much fetishization of labels, brands, and scarcity

 

Yeah - that's what I mean by the "time suck" on beer values, but I take a slightly different approach. While I don't have much interest in spending half a day researching the value of a beer I have, it fascinates me that others do, and that it has gotten down to such an art and science. To each his or her own, but with my beer time, I'd rather be reading other stuff, especially given what others have said - there's so much good beer available in my local area, and for me, I'd rather keep trading a fun hobby rather than a laborious effort.

 

I remember stumbling across a detailed discussion of the relative values of several years and variants of some cult stout, it was pretty remarkable in its subtlety but god it wasn't an appealing face of the hobby

 

Sincerely curious why people think it's a "time suck" to figure out beer values. There's a variety of resources one can use to reliably determine value for the vast majority of beers. I typically use a Facebook group where users will comment with what the beer has been traded/sold for. This process takes all of 30 seconds. If people don't have Facebook, they can search BA (or similar) for recent trade listings. This isn't quite as reliable but takes, what, a minute? Not quite a "half a day," lol... a bit overdramatic.

I assure you that nobody is spending a half a day on this... and if they are, they're doing something very, very wrong.

 

With all due respect - and of course in my opinion - researching beer values just does take quite a bit of time. And while when I refer to "half a day" - yes I was being overdramatic, but in all seriousness, people do spend "days" doing this. Maybe not all at once (!), but some serious time goes into this!

Take several examples for the last several one-off Voodoo stout releases from Pennsylvania, or the same for Bottle Logic in CA or Aslin in VA... Beer Advocate will have good resources, but its search function is not very reliable, which means everything else here breaks down - but this site technically will have some of the best data available. Facebook, meanwhile, will have more data - but I wouldn't trust it as much, for many reasons, and I can't find that data as easily. In my mentioned brewery / beer examples - Bottle Logic has some FB sites but I'm not sure about Voodoo, and I have searched for Aslin to no avail. Latching on to the Tired Hands site can sometimes work. Finding those particular beers and that relevant valuation data is entirely another question.

Anyway, that's a little more background into at least my perspective on this. If you can help out here or have any additional perspective or specific sites you have in mind, please chime in, cheers!

 

Respectfully, I think this is a case of user error more than anything else. These tasks shouldn't take anyone more than 30 seconds if they know where to look. I don't know why BeerAdvocate would have "the best data available." The Completed Trades forum is terribly underused, and many of the ISOs are (understandably) skewed in the asker's favor.

However, there are reliable groups on Facebook where sales and trades are documented. Not merely trade groups (where, once again, trades tend to be skewed in favor of the brewery page). That being said, there are active and well-curated Voodoo trade groups, active and well-curated Aslin groups, and so on for the broad majority of breweries. But in my experience the SBVG page is much more accurate than these given its insistence on uniformity and a more neutral approach. I hope that helps!

 

It seems worth noting,given the direction of this conversation, that for some people estimating and negotiating the value of an item is a treasured hobby. I have a gamer friend that absolutely loves interacting with the marketplaces in multi-player online games. Makes no sense to me but it's all the fun for some folks

 

As mentioned above there is a pretty active Aslin FB group, and for a majority of their beers (some limited BA exceptions) it is not difficult at all to close a trade.
If you want the name PM me, it is not exclusive or anything, I am just not sure if BA allows posting of fb groups.

 

Thanks, appreciate it - I'll PM you, just what I was looking for!