impromptu bottle shares at MN bars

Been to the Brickstore a few times. One of my best friends used to live outside of Atlanta, but now lives in Athens. From your post, I can tell that you are understanding exactly what I am saying. And even though it is "impromptu," at certain bars with certain regulars who maintain somewhat regular schedules of coming in; then certain days can become more of a regular night just because the people inclined to be doing this are generally coming in on the same days. Thursdays at Beachwood in Seal Beach became like this for a while, but as schedules changed, so did the idea of a regular night. Sometimes just one person has something to open, sometimes two, three four, five, sometimes the bar would throw in a bottle or even the bartenders would bring in bottles from their private stash's to share if others stopped by with bottles.

And like you concluded, I also have never seen anybody criticized for what they brought to a bottle share. Who the hell would criticize what somebody brings for free to share with others? But then again, I have never seen anybody intentionally bring any obvious crap. The rules that I usually go by is not to bring in anything that the bar normally has or would have on tap (if the local scene has it covered, there is no need to bring it in) or that drops below the quality threshold of what the bar would carry.

 

OK, so here is what we have concluded so far...

1) What I was asking about does not seem to happen in MN...so far
2) There doesn't appear to be any legal reason that it does not happen
3) In a general sense, I think that everybody seems to understand the difference between offering a bottle to be shared at a bar versus an organized bottle share at somebody's house.
4) I think that everybody understands that any bottles being brought in, should not be with the intent of simply duplicating readily available beer that you might find on tap or on a bottle list.
5) Bottles are mainly meant to be shared across several people in small quantities (usually anywhere from 1.5 to 4 oz pours, depending on bottle size and number of people sharing)
6) My recommendation is that this is at beer bars that are run and/or staffed with knowledgable beer people and not just places that happen to have a good beer list. Nothing against the latter, except that a like minded bartender/manager is going to be more receptive to such sharing that they would also partake in, than somebody who simply wants to collect their tips and then goes to meet their buddies at the PBR bar afterwards.

So given that this apparently hasn't been happening in MN and there seems to be no reason why that I can see, can anybody who sits/stands on either side of the local beer bars tell me if this somehow insults their sensibilities about what is appropriate, in any other way? Because if this is fine with everybody, may I recommend that some people should start throwing some interesting (not whales, just things not normally seen) beers in their trunk before heading out. Then if you find yourself down in the corner of the bar chatting with the bartender and a couple of friends on a slow day/night, then maybe it is time to offer to share a bottle.

And expect that reactions may vary from being told no, to confusion over the suggestion, to somebody being ecstatic over the offer. I travel a bit and always bring beer with me and have frequently made such offers to bartenders and people I just met on the spot at such beer bars and I have seen every type of response. But when my GF and I can walk into Ebenezer's on a slow afternoon, have a sandwich, chat up the owner and a couple of locals and then walk out to my car and come in with a Mexican barleywine (not likely to have been seen in Maine), then that becomes a well appreciated, impromptu share.

 

I agree 100%, even though that is exactly what I just did. Even as I typed that, it was going around in my head that I had never put much thought into the process before, but given that what I was describing seemed like a foreign concept here and there was so much confusion in this thread, I didn't know what else to do except lay it out that way. In fact, in one of my posts from yesterday, when I jumped back in after that whole discussion had happened, the first thing that I asked was if it was a joke, because I couldn't believe that something so simple that anybody should inherently understand if they have reached the point of being on a site like this, actually needed to be detailed to death like that. I understand maybe the confusion between what I was talking about and organized bottle shares, because apparently what I was talking about hasn't normally taken place out here, but the nit picking over laying down parameters for bottle sharing in general seems a little obsessive to me.

 

Sorry, I wasn't talking about packing the trunk and driving around for days until you find yourself at a place, I meant that if people were on their way to what became share friendly bars, that they could then throw a bottle in the trunk in case they needed it. And trust me, if places do catch on to this, it becomes a lot easier. I used to throw something in the back of my car and just bring it in and ask them to throw it on the ice, before I even knew who may be around. Then after a few people would show up, I'd ask to pull it (especially something that may even now need to warm from the ice temp) and then share it. My neighbors used to laugh, because they would always see me walking to the car with beer and knew that I was bringing it to a bar.

And for any bar owners, managers or bartenders reading this in MN, trust me and everybody else talking about their trips out to CA. There is a good reason why some of those places have become so well known in the beer community. This is a win/win thing. It draws some of your best customers in more frequently and adds to the sense of community at the bar amongst the regulars. And as long as nobody is abusing the privilege by using this as a way to dodge buying beer (which is really hard with sample size pours), it isn't a ding to sales. I am very much a business minded person, being a business owner myself. In fact, I have refrained from popping beers sometimes when I noticed that coincidentally almost too many people had come in with bottles at the same time (which rarely happens), if it seems like it is impeding sales. Likewise, I have tried to steer certain organized groups to interweave some level of purchasing from the bar, when I have noticed a generous venue allowing groups to organize large bottle shares that can sometimes draw some people who never want to open their wallets once they are there.

For it to work, people just need to be cognitive that they are doing this in a business. The point is to have fun and share opportunities, while complimenting what that business offers and not to c-block how they generate revenue.