If ipa's had the shelf life of ba stouts, bw's, and sours, would the trade value be different? I've recently trades a stockpile of stouts to get triple sunshine, dinner, David and ... If ipa's had a shelf life longer than 2 months would they trade for more? I only thought about this because of how rur d'floyd trades. If this beer would last longer than 3 months it would be gold.
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay. Personally, I would think that, logically, "old" IPA's should gather more value because of their relative rarity to fresher versions. Any beer n00b can merely obtain a fresh container of PtE, HT, HS, 3FD (or whatever the alphabet soup IPA of the now is) but it takes a real man to hold onto a bottle for 2 years.
Well, that;s where logic fails. Because of the time frame where the most coveted part of the IPA fades out, (the bright vibrancy of the hop aroma and flavor,) the perceived value of the beer goes down very quickly. Would you pay more (or the same) for old chicken versus fresh? I'm not one that believes that IPAs have to be comsumed directly from the bright tank to be good, but more than a few months and even the best and longest lasting are drastically different.
ipas dont have much value to me because a great ipa can be bought off the shelf. the ipa im buying off the shelf likely isnt much different from what I could trade for. high end stouts and sours however are usually leaps and bounds better than a good shelf beer of the same style. being able to cellar something is also part of it but to a smaller degree.
