The Epic Crater - King Sue

If this is announced for any other highly sought after beers, say Kern Citra or Triple Sunshine, the result would be exactly the same. It's supply & demand vs. futures. I haven't been in this for too long, but definitely can't think of another example of what happening to KS.

A side note...I'm elated whenever I hear any highly sought after beers being make in much bigger quantities and more readily available, especially for my distro area. I love that I'm able to enjoy more of these great beers and that I can send them out to others to enjoy or get them more easily with giving up arms and legs for them.

 

I think almost every release is going to have a good number of traders out to capitalize on the initial hype and try to maximize their return, but I still like to think there's reasonable and fair traders out there that are the majority. I think you may also continue to see push back from the community as a whole also when there's a ton of trade posts looking to capitalize right out of the gate. We've seen this with releases like Kiwi Herman, most recently the Grrrz set and now King Sue. I'm sure there's others I can't remember. I was talking to someone yesterday about a possible IP trade for some King Sue and he suggested my 3 (Firestone 17th Anny, Stickee Monkee 2014 and Eclipse Evan Williams 2012) should go for 1 King Sue since it was so 'limited'. Some of the posts and ISOs are crazy, but I can just imagine how much this kind of stuff must be going on behind the scenes.

 

Just remember that for every person out there trying to win trades like 2:1 for Vanilla Rye there are people like Brady (@BRClemons) sending a King Sue and a 4pack for Surly to three people for $20 worth of 'whatever' they want. Stay classy Brady!

 

I don't think that ratio is exactly 1:1, but that is awesome of him for sure.

 

What ratio? You don't think a King Sue + a 4 pack of Surly are worth $20 of someone's locals?

 

Sorry, not the beer ratio. The ratio of people trying to cash in on a hyped release to the people hooking others up. Maybe I am wrong, but looking at the trading forum, it sure doesn't seem like it.

 

Social media has had (mostly) a positive impact on craft beer. There is always an exception. I can't personally think of a beer that fell the way Sue has in 24 hours. Without the mentions on social media they would be making more it would have stayed the same. Had they just released it again it would have normalized on its own.

April 2009. Hoppin Frog releases BA Boris and its a brewery only release. That was batch 1. I went to the brewery for the release and bought a case (because brewery only means rare and something trade worthy). No social media going on at that time that I can think of. At least not the way its being utilized today. Pretty sure that this 1st batch was pretty small and sold out at the brewery. I could be wrong on that though.

July 2009. Batch 2 comes out. People weren't clamoring for batch 2 a mere 3 months later. Pretty sure what didn't sell at the brewery this time went into distro.

October 2009. Batch 3 comes out. This brewery only release definitely made it into distro. And to a lot of markets. Tradeability went to pretty much zero within 6 months.

1. Had social media been around in 2009 and it was communicated early on how much an how often the beer would be released I'm pretty sure tradeability would have been sunk the way Sue is now.

2. BA Boris was my first lesson into the commodity of craft beer. And that hasn't changed since then. If anything releases and the beers on the trade forums reinforce that notion.

 

No, the commoditization of beer (via trading or reselling particularly) has been occurring for some time. This is just another overt example of it. I think each state and maybe more generally each region seem to have a need to have that one beer (or perhaps more than one) which gives them their time in the beer trading spotlight. The time where they can ask for the moon and they have that (perceived) leverage. Perusing the trading forums I see frustration from people trying to acquire a beer from another region where those folks seem to be holding their bottles for ransom. And then when these "frustrated" folks have access to a limited release, they go ahead and do the same thing in their FT threads. It's a bit of cycle where everyone wants to have their moment in the sun after having been on the receiving end of others' moments in the sun. I think it's partly born out of frustration. I don't know if I'm describing it well but I see an incredible amount of defensiveness when folks rationalize why they are asking for so much for their state/regional limited releases. It's pretty simple to me. It's basically a reaction to others doing it to them. This cycle will never probably end.

 

Sorry you are no longer able to trade your ipa for top rated limited barrel aged beers. I guess you will have to wait for KBBS to be released again to exact your revenge.

 

I was offered pretty much the same for KS today as I was yesterday. People want $4$ for somewhat limited beers. Cool. That worked yesterday. It does today, too.

There have been more people asking me for KS than available bottles. I hope, & think, they'll get it elsewhere. IF not I've alerted them to the changing status re future releases.

I'm just damned glad it's actually good. The TG releases that weren't brewed by Mike have been mediocre to crappy. King Sue gives me hope that TG will remain a brewery worth seeking out.

Among the worst losses in trade value I've seen has been with the Bullfrog Grrrz set. Apparently this year's release NEEDS additional bottle time before opening. People expecting a finished product have been disappointed. IF in fact it improves following additional bottle conditioning time, we could see a resurgence of interest & a well deserved spike in trade values.

 

Shuggy puh-leeez. Butt hurt much? If you don't like what it trades for then be an adult & DON'T. DuH.

 

Not sure how you came to the conclusion that I'm butt hurt but I WON'T.

 

What's the story on Pseudo Sue? I can't seem to figure out how often that one comes out, would love to get like 6 bottles of it after have a single bottle to myself from the last batch!

 

@mgr78704 mentioned Grrrz too so I wanted to give my sense of this since I know the local trade community pretty well.

While the trade value dropped significantly for Grrrz, the reason wasn't the same as KingSue. There were a ton of new local traders, having heard about how much Grrrz pulled last year, went to the release for the specific purpose of "landing big beers". They flooded the market with Grrrz immediately after, which lead to the "crash". Kriek and Berry were especially hard hit because of the 2/person limit. While there will be additional Grrrz release(s) this year, they won't be the same variants. I'm seeing people starting to pull back now and, unlike KS, you can age Grrrz. I absolutely agree with you, and people are with them are starting to realize, that in 6 months or after when these bottles get to the point where they should be, there will be a lot of people regret having traded away their Grrrz so quickly.

A side note, I didn't go to the release and didn't trade for any Grrrz, but looking forward to a few shares offered up by friends who went. A local bar here will tap some Kriek and Berry to kick off Philly Beer Week. Even if slightly so, I'm definitely loving the fact that Grrrz are more readily available relative to last release.

 

The Grrrz release is just the latest example of the greed that has infected the craft beer trading community. And yeah, Kiwi Herman. It's such a rat race now to get the latest beer release.

 

Nope. It's always been like this. When you first get into craft your love for it blinds you to the dark side of things. Craft can do no wrong. After a while and the puppy love stage is over and you date for a while you start to notice some of its flaws. Now, you stick with craft because you love her. And recognizing her flaws and loving her for them only makes your bond grow stronger over time.

Some people get fed up with her and break up. While others simply get separated for a while to decide if they want to get back together or not. Craft has had these qualities and will always have these qualities. Depends on your tolerance level and how much BS you want to put up with I suppose.

 

I'm seeing "greed" slightly differently. For a lot PA locals, especially those living outside of Philly and closer to Bullfrog, it's hard to have beers that can potential trade well and for more sought after beers. Even Tired Hands have their trade limit. Most people spent 7-8 hours in line for this Grrrz release. Lots of efforts involved. The majority of the trades I saw posted FT Grrrz were fair, IMO. What I know for a fact regarding greed is that there were multiple people backing out of trades after seeing the flood. I know of several trades where people gave up Grrrz below $4$ for LESS desirable beers, doing trades that I would no way personally do if I went through all that trouble and spent all that money to obtain the beers.