Instawhales

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king henry

 

weird how the same groups of people are always trading for/trading out these insta-whales. It's almost like they set the market value through word of mouth. weird.

 

You landed BlÅbÆr for a 6 bottle shipper.

 

Seems as though Adam from the Wood fits from late 2011.

A small number of people actually getting the beer combined with the usual "Well there are not a lot of traders in Portland/rural Vermont"

 

True but weren't the batches ~7 years apart? I guess this is a Framboos situation as opposed to an instawhale.

I think the "There aren't many traders from _____" still works as a factor when calculating instawhale status.

 

'09 Black Tuesday hit insta-whale status before it was even released.

 

Shamu

 

Grey Monday?

 

T25

It seemed like NC tried to make Event Horizon an insta-whale to hilarious results.

 

From what I've been hearing that seems unlikely, but who really knows?

 

King Henry is at least 400-thread count, and that's quality stuff.

 

That's starting to head toward dugong status.

 

There are only two ways it doesn't become an Instawhale:
1. They managed to make enough of it that it's getting distributed (no freaking way)
2. It somehow went so wrong that it's not getting bottled

Any other outcome, including it tasting like Idiot's Drool, would still make it trade for a ton, simply because of pedigree. Every bottled one-off Russian River sour is a whale. I can't imagine why this one wouldn't be.

 

What about the Churchill's Finest Hour releases?

 

much like king henry, i remember when this first hit the taproom, and it wasn't an insta-whale. it was an instant "holy shit, i had this beer and i thought it would be good, but it was GREAT!" beer. [edit: from the posts i read. also had some around that time in boston around EBF, and experienced the same reaction, but this was of course post BT value blow up]

i don't mean to be too naive with what i read, but i saw genuine enthusiasm for both beers that preceded their huge demand (by days if not weeks).

to put it another way, subsequent actions by various cali traders or various goose-island's-giant-footprint traders "may have been" (ie were) exploitative/greedy, but the initial demand grew from good old fashioned enthusiasm/beer love.

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p.s. not to shit on this topic as a whole, but i wrote a long response earlier today and then deleted it after reading it over and thinking quite fervently, "who gives a shit?" (the stuff i wrote about was regarding low bottle count, "ideological commitment," "the fog of manipulative negotiation masquerading as discussion," fundamental market principles transcending opinions, etc)

 

You've just uncovered the BAbor scandal.