Anyone else getting bombarded with Heady Topper messages?

I heard they don't have any rare beer there.

 

While Rare and King Henry are ludicrous, HT is a bitch to get right now. Between its rising popularity, the growth of craft, and the busy winter season, it is selling out immediately. I was up there a couple of weeks ago and went on a Friday at 2pm and it was already sold out with people apparently waiting in line for the place to open on Friday morning. And that's with a one case per person limit. In the past I've rolled in there at my leisure on a Saturday and bought 2 cases with no problem.

Unless you're a true local or can go up midweek, it's getting very hard to acquire. Expansion plans are in the works so hopefully that will rectify the problem, but we'll see. It's just a particularly bad time to trade for HT... Not to mention, nobody should be shipping out of Waterbury right now anyway. It gets below zero at night these days...

As for blind offers... I'm extremely skeptical of them, and I purposefully only keep an assortment of locals in my gots.

 

New Hampshire, sure....

However, stating that New England (as you had in your original statement) is lacking in great beers and pin-pointing Hill Farmstead or The Alchemist the only trade-able options is a bit near-sighted, don't you think?

 

HT and HF have comprised maybe 10% of the beers I have traded. There are tons of great stuff to trade in New England - you have to realize that the stuff you take for granted like Dogfish Head, Allagash, or Goose Island don't get sent to half the country. Jack's Abby alone has been hot trade shit for the last few months for me...

 

well then don't say new england when you mean new hampshire

 

Yes Jack's Abbey is awesome, but again not in NH.

 

You are correct. My Bad

 

Yes, you are 100% correct.

 

Where in NH do you live? You're never really more than 2 hours from MA, and most people are within an hour. Not so far that you can't make the occasional weekend day trip for a beer run...

 

You may not have much, but ONLY having HF and HT is not a terrible problem to have. Most would kill to have access to HF offerings.

 

This is truth, unfortunately as I posted above, not so easy anymore. I was able to get the usual trunk full of HF on my last trip, but zero HT.

 

I'm in Portsmouth, within walking distance to Portsmouth Brewery, which has plenty of good beer on tap.
We have lots of great beer available in the area, however, it is limited by state regulators. That's why I've started to trade. Only 4 trades under my belt, but looking to do more.

 

Psh, everyone knows the city of Indianapolis got like 20 cases of Zombie Dust, bro! Stop acting like it's not just sitting on shelves getting stale since they don't bottle date!

 

This is one of the reasons I've stopped posting my cellar link in ISO's. While I like being able to offer my cellar for trades and see if people want something that I have that I'm willing to part with; every trade ends up being the typical "I see you have blabaer and mimosa, I'm happy to trade you some bcbs/pliny/heady for those". Even when several beers have *'s next to them and a note saying don't ask about them.

 

The word is out on Heady.

Six months ago I used to be able to cross the street from my office and pick up a case after work if I wanted to...any day of the week. Now, I have to drive to Waterbury (a little over an hour away) on Monday or Thursday night if I want to get any. I went on a Friday night and a Saturday to get some at different points in the last couple months and I struck out both times. I haven't even had a can of Heady since November. HF has been easier for me to get lately.

I will never understand people saying 99% percentile IPAs like Heady aren't worth giving up good stuff for.

I just landed a Rare for a case of Heady (part of a slightly larger trade) and in the past I've gotten Black Tuesday, CBS, Better Half, more Bruery stuff, a Rose de Gambrinus, BCBS, Bramble and a bunch of CCB stuff mainly just for Heady. In every one of these trades, both sides are very happy. (Someone receiveing like 12-20 cans of Heady Topper in the mail is not going to be someone lacking joy in their life.) And if I made a trade without involving Heady, I sure as heck included it as extras....back when I could even get it

If I lived close to Russian River and had easy access to their sours, to Beat, etc. then I'd be trading them for beers I want to try. If I lived near HotD, I'd do the same with beers I could get there. If I lived in Tampa, I'd pick up a case of Imperial Sweet Stout or BA Big Sound or MZ at release and use that.

Enjoy the beers brewed in your local area, and then, if you trade, hopefully you'll find people who enjoy your locals.

 

I'm kind of puzzled then, because you can drive into MA in 20 minutes and it opens up a giant world of awesome and trade-able beer.

 

There are many great stores in Massachusetts and Maine within an hour of you. I'd make a day trip every month and just stock up on awesomeness.

 

I joined recently and also live in New England. Headies are delicious and much easier to come by than Hill Farmstead or the Lawsons Finest beers. With the current ranking and all it is easy for me to drive 2 hrs to VT and grab a few cases thinking that it shouldn't be too tough to work out a trade for most things I'm looking to try. Went up yesterday, grabbed a couple of cases and am going to trade for some hopslams and maybe plinys/zombie dust if I can find a partner.
The individual batches of headies are all subtlety different and having varying degrees of hop explosion. Mondays batch was probably the most smooth and creamy of all the ones(30ish batches) I've tried. That being said, I prefer the hoppier batches that almost have a hop sting before rolling off into quenchability.
If you haven't been able to swill 8-12 super fresh headies with the powerhop taste its difficult to really judge them. Personally have killed dozens of cases and didnt completely fall in love with it until having a few days with a case and really getting to know them. After only drinking them for a few weeks it was tough to go back to Firestone or whatever ipa/ double ipa that you were drinking before. They just weren't measuring up.
This week marked the first batches that are being brewed since tripling their capacity. Sometime in mid feb the first cans will be ready and you should be able to go up anytime for cases instead of just on Mondays and Thursdays. Niiiice!