Beer as Currency?

This needs to be discussed. Thanks for bringing it up. I trade for beer so I can drink it. It seems to me that many of the hardcore traders are trading for beer that they can trade with other trading partners in exchange for more trade-bait beer. Is it for the sake of a collection? Where does it end?

 

It may not be legal tender, but as far as I'm concerned beer on the outside world is the same as cigs in prison.

 

The problem is IPAs don't improve any with time. If you don't make your trade quick, the value of something like Heady falls fast.

Beers that can be aged, maybe.

EDIT: And your currency is worthless to people like me who don't bother with beer trading

 

No, not likely.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it per se, but I prefer to think of trading as getting good beer to people who can't get it in exchange for the favor returned. There are times that means I go above $4$ -- if I am turning something that is rare and was a hassle to get into something I can't easily access but isn't exactly Westvleteren -- but all told I trade just to help people get good beer, and I certainly don't grab extras for the purpose of treating them as currency.

I think that people who grab expressly to trade -- not because they want to cellar but maybe along the way make a swap for something they prefer -- are generally being disrespectful to others who would have been able to get it off the shelf but now cannot, and that's not a great thing for our community. (And I do think that conceptualizing beer as currency leads more toward the less positive thought process/behavior toward grabbing expressly to trade.)

 

Why not? So you know how many herbs and seeds used to be used as currency?

 

Its like turning a paperclip into a car through a series of trades. Or a recent post I read that made me laugh out loud "I turned a miller chill into a black tuesday in 7 trades" haha.

 

I trade to drink the beers I am getting... If I run into a great find... might I buy a couple extra with the intention of drinking some and trading others??? yes... but people who trade simply to trade and hoard the beer I just don't get... It is made to be consumed IMO..

 

You could say the same about anything that people trade. For the most part I trade to try new beers or to just get what I like that is out of reach, but I also will do trades for the sake of getting beers I can't get to acquire beers that I want and can not get. It's just a simple supply and demand, but on private level.

 

/thread

 

I knew a pub landlord who paid his gardener in beer. Although strictly illegal it suited both parties , the gardener got more beer than his wages could buy and the landlord got the beer at wholesale price.

 

Heady Topper can't be the next Bitcoin, it has actual value.

 

So when phrased that way, yes, it's a great currency in the beer world but no so much outside of it unless you find a beer lover who will paint your house for it or something along those lines. haha

PS...I will paint your house for enough of it.

PSS....The paint job will probably suck because I'm not a painter and I'll be drunk on Heady Topper.

 

Your first paragraph was completely unnecessary and made me lose interest. Did not read.

 

Maybe the gardeners wages would have afforded him more beer had he been paid with actual money?

 

I volunteer to be our lobbyist on Capital Hill.

 

Sweet humblebrag, bro.

If I were to invent a new currency, "rapid expiration" and "arbitrarily biased towards Vermonters" are two qualities I would avoid.

 

not unless he was using his wages an buying wholesale priced beer.

 

It might be more stable than many countries' current currency.