addicted to buying beer...

I still have the buying habit and it's getting worse. For the past year and a half, I've been living off the government while trying to find a real job. I use Brew Vault to track what I've got on hand at home and it hit a high of 290 bottles about six months ago. Since then, I've tried to cut down my purchases as my unemployment started to dry up. From time to time I still would pick up the occasional seasonal or Zombie Dust when it came out, but for the most part, I was simply trying to make due with the stash I had at home.

However, I recently accepted a job offer and will start up in a couple of weeks. I'm already in the process of going on a beer run of epic proportions, simply because I can. I'm seriously considering taking my wife's SUV instead of my car so I can buy more stuff.

I'm about two hours from Louisville and I'm headed there next week. Can't wait.

 

Government funded beer runs.

 

So...what you're saying is that you've learned to do something more productive with your hands...

 

I have never had a hoarding problem. For me, the more of same beer I buy (6 or 12 packs), the more I give away and less I drink. If I buy mixed 6-ers of beers I've never had before, that usually makes me drink more of them in short period of time, harder to take a night off at all as I want to rush through them quickly (due to the unexplored territory of a beer I haven't tasted). I have 1 cellered beer right now...1 12oz bottle of Founders Imp. Stout from a 4 pack...1 I drank fresh and 2 I gave away to friends and 1 I stuck in the cellar. I rarely have more than 3 bottles at any given time in the cellar because I'm always too excited to drink them. Any beer I've bought to cellar is usually something I super-love / its expensive and thus, find it hard to keep for more than a few months tops. Longest wait was a Speedway Stout I bought July 1 and popped open around mid/late October when weather was cold enough and I could coordinate with 2 other guys a good time to meet up to sample it.

 

I have this problem as well. My decision came once I realized that all the IPA's needed to be enjoyed asap. I started giving beers away to my brother and friends just to cut down on my inventory. I also decided to stop buying until I got my fridge down to about 20 beers. It's not going so well. Just made another order on craft shack. Damn this disease!!!!

 

It's even worse when you're broke. I just keep telling myself that I have money coming in so it's OK to continue buying beer, but I know it's not Self-control is not one of my strong suits. One day I'll learn.

 

I had the same problem for a while and decided that enough was enough. I still have about 30-40 bottles on hand but they are mostly stouts that age well. I am not buying any beer right now until Hunahpu's day so that I can save up for my case of Huna. Being a college student it doesn't make the craft beer journey any easier. I have learned however that I don't drink near as much as some of my college counterparts because I enjoy the beer that I drink and I don't drink simply to get wasted I drink to enjoy the flavors of the many different styles of beer. It also helps to not have time to go buy beer. Before this semester I had a lot more time to chase beer as well. Now that I am working 40 hours a week plus at least 15 hours of required overtime and taking 4 classes I simply don't have time to go buy beer. I used to go out every Thursday (craft distro day in my area) And look for the new beers on the shelf but after I realized I didn't have any more room I quickly stopped buying until now when I have a litle more room and subsequently more money from not buying for a while!

 

OP - "addicted to buying beer"

He says that like it's a bad thing?

 

Do you drink it or is the addiction purly buying it? If you don't drink it and need assistance, i'll send you my address.

 

God that sounds like me...my wife hates going to anywhere with me that they sell beer

 

Ugh, I have 450+ 12/22/25oz ageable beers. But that's going to be cut down significantly. I'm planning a beer tasting/auction in partnership with a local craft beer bar/restaurant. I'm providing pretty much all the beer, they provide the venue/apps and patrons provide the $. Every penny will go to March of Dimes.

 

Mike if this in NYC I'd love to come if I can. If you don't mind please keep me in mind once you have a date for the event!

 

I'M NOT ALONE!

 

Completely know where you are coming from, especially living in Vermont.

 

Easy fix....stay out of the bottle shops for a while and drink what you have. Turn off the forum, quit looking for beers and really start to consume what you have stockpiled. You will find that you go back to enjoying as priority 1, and will forget the rat race of trying to buy everything you see.
This type of thing happens in many hobbies.

 

So far, I have been in to craft beer for a little over a year and in that time I have spent a lot of money (and that is just on bottles). I don't spend a fraction of what some of my older beer friends do, but that is because they have careers and I am just out of college (for the most part). I am a mix six kind of guy, but the great bottle shops around me aren't super close (at least 20 minutes away for the better ones). I realize that I am a ticker, but I've been one before I got into beer (I pretty much don't buy any food twice, outside of food staples obviously). The only beer I have ever contemplated getting a case of was Bigfoot (got 2 bottles of each year going back to '09). I love going to bottleshares and always bring the best that I got (but I can't really compete, but luckily there is so much good beer out there that I can bring great stuff that they haven't had). I only do samples at the bars unless I know it is something that I really want to have a full pour of, plus I don't want to drink that much alcohol. I would spend much less money if it weren't for Max's Taphouse, which has introduced me to some great people (@DrBier and @CaptFrothy) and allowed me to sample some phenomenal beer through the generosity of others (many of which aren't even on here). I mean Max's does multiple day fests: Belgian, Hopfest, German, and Rare & Obscure. So far, I don't travel outside my state for beer, go to beer releases or trade (for the most part). Those are mainly because I can't afford to. The only bomber that I have multiples of are Colossus (for trading, because I love it, and since I got it cheap). I will say that I bought more BCBS than I had planned to (4 extra six-packs, only because I found them in the craziest of spots where they had them for super cheap), especially because I wasn't a huge fan of it on tap (too much bourbon for me). So, now I get to try it over the long haul.

tl;dr Just my relationship to craft beer and the money involved.

 

I have way too many beers. Two coolers....1 for cellaring that is slammed full of 250 12 oz bottles and probably 30 bomber/750s.
Then I have another 350 beer cooler that is prinably 80% full of beer I can drink at colder temps. On top of that I have an extra storage space at my bar that is full of probably 70 bomber/750s and 50 12 oz bottles.

It gets out of hand and I am trying to cut down in spending especially larger formats. I typically don't like to drink those solo but it is hard to just get friends together to drink them (Black Tuesday/grey Monday see examples or just a rare beer I wanna share).

 

Stay off of this website

 

I think its the rarity problem. Nobody hoards Bud Light because its always available, not to mention cheap. But when you have to track down a rare beer, go to a release or randomly see it in a store you get this primal instinct to buy as much as possible because you might not see it again.