Ever since getting into trading I look at my beer entirely different now. Before I would come home after work and couldn't wait to drink down the latest beer I picked up. Now I open my beer fridge and just stare at my collection. I think things like, "If I drink that I'll never be able to trade it." or "I had to trade a LOT to get that one maybe I should wait for a really special occasion". I tell my friends it's like if baseball cards were edible. If they were, would you eat part of your collection? That said I definitely do drink the beer I trade for, it's just a little harder to do it sometimes. Am I a hoarder? Do you guys think like this as well or am I crazy?
Sounds like you need to find some new friends who would appreciate the consumption of your collection with you. Or, your friends now need to become beer-appreciating alcoholics. Also, looking at it like "a collection" and looking at it as "a bunch of trade bait" are different. I'd say that the collection part implies that you'll either drink it at some point when the time is right, or you'll die one day and your kids will end up with a bunch of old-ass bottles of beer. The trade bait part implies that you're trying to diversify your bottles enough to be able to have a high trade-market value in them so that you can consistently obtain other bottles that you perceive as being more valuable. Most people don't have a problem with the first. Most people perceive the 2nd as greed (though potentially hypocritical, as we all have "rare" bottles in our cellar/closet that we'd happily trade for one reason or another). I'm somewhat indifferent, as I have friends across the world who do both, though people who are just trying to leverage everything out of a trade annoy me. Personally, I like to drink good and/or rare beer with people who share the common interest, and to introduce others to things like Black Tuesday, St. Lamvinus and Oude Geuze. So, I'm somewhere between normal and a collector and a drunk.
The fridge in my avatar has been cleared and refilled since that pic. I do actually drink the stuff. It just has a different sentimental value now. Before it was "BEER!! DRINK!!". Now it's.."hmmm..hard to replace, maybe should save it for a special occasion." And claaark hit it on the head. I've moved to a new area so the only beer geeks I really know are hours away. I do need to network more. No doubt about that.
You can collect baseball cards, records, books, comics, plates with faces painted on them etc.. because those things can be enjoyed without drinking/destroying them. You can't collect beer because you only get to enjoy it once and then it is gone for good. Anybody thinking otherwise if just fooling themselves. You can collect empty beer bottles though so maybe that can be your new thing
well sometimes a beer can taste like a baseball card, all cardboardy and all, so it's not far from the truth
I think having the bottles that were really hard to get, or that are super .RAR makes it better because as OP said, he wants to save them for a special occasion. I'll open a beer that i've been cellaring/hoarding/keeping for trade bait on a special occasion and guess what, it makes that occasion more special. I can then say 'Oh the night i found out about my promotion was also the night I opened a bottle of *Insert Your Whale Here". In the end it will be consumed or traded for other things to consume. I support the notion that special beers are for special occasions. That's the same reason i have a case of BCBS, for the little victories in life!
I have to say I had about 10 guys over last Saturday and just said, you name it we'll drink it. It was great. They appreciated it and I know they'd do the same. It's more relieving and exciting than you think to just start cracking a bunch of rare beers like it is no big deal. There will be something to replace it within a month or two and many will be brewed next year.
I hang onto some of the bottles I drink. I don't keep that many, but I have a couple dozen. Definitely have to drink the beer, but if you have a free shelf lying around like I did with nothing on it or something, it's a cool way to fill it if you want to check out your bottles from time to time. I pretty much save bottles I opened on special occasions, so they always remind me of whatever occasion too, which is the main reason I keep the bottles I do.
I view my "collection" as my reviews/hads/"ticks". Beer you've never tasted with a cap on it is still a mystery waiting to be had.
You are not a horder, or crazy. You are proud of what you have aquired. The harder it is to aquire a beer (or baseball card) the harder it is to drink (get rid of) it. I was there one day. Not any more. I have found that I don't care much for trading or cellaring anymore. Don't over think it. It's just beer.
Life IS a special occasion, so drink your best beer while you can. A piano could fall on your head at any moment. And though science indicates that the existence of heaven is extremely unlikely, the odds that there would be high ABV beer in a such place is even more unlikely.
