You're under arrest for counterfit beer.

The values of rare beers doesn't approach the values of rare wine, so there is little payback for the effort. I'm limiting my counterfeiting efforts to wine.

 

The wine saga involved multimillion/billionaires and extraordinarily expensive wine--talking the likes of burgundies in the 1000s$ and up range. Folks were dirty all the way from what was thought to be reputable auction houses to sleazy counterfeiters. It kept getting press in some ways because some swindled billionaires (Koch) made it a mission to try to root some of them out. Rudy probably has some new friends and using soap on a rope.

I just don't see it making its way to beer--at least not in any significant amount.

 

What about strong tea in place of 30 year old scotch.....

 

Nice gift giving idea for the family members you can't stand

 

Not sure if it the one you were seeing on the magazine, but there is one around a trader (Hardy Rodenstock) in Europe that had duped people out of a reportedly millions of dollars. I think they could never build up a case against him. Google Jefferson Bottles and you will find some abbreviated stories. There is a whole book about this. Koch (oil not beer dude) and the Forbes family were the major people duped in this.

 

no upwards of the 50K would be my guess and it would have to be rampant

 

I think it does happen already. You can fill and cap a bottle with any beer. I wonder how many people who have gotten their westies from disreputable trades actually had that beer. Since there is no money involved in trading though this would just be a personal lesson. live and learn.

 

Wine has an inbuilt market history of prestige, and desirability among monied suckers and it also has a modicum of pedigree and provenance that goes with it and the infamous terroir factor and also harvest years that make the rarity factor that much more worth the price of taking advantage of people for.
We're getting there. But first. We good beer sorts need to embrace, and also to exploit the market of the stupid (newly monied) rich with money to blow up front in the marketing of beer, which if people are still complaining about the price point is a long ways away.
We need an even bigger suckers market then the one that exists currently, and then, there has to be the willingness to invest a lot of capital upfront to take advantage of them.

 

Not the FBI or counter fitting but still took an investigation to find this guy and all the beer he stole.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ature-leads-police-theft-stolen-beer/2002923/

 

I have several cases of 'Teady Hopper' if anyones interested.

 

As others have noted, there is some degree now on small scale but it would need to be on a much, much bigger scale and just don't see the market for it....yet. Not just beer for 500$ but lots of it. Now when Christies and Sothebys start auctioning beer, well, then beer has reached a new level.

 

Wait, this could be hilariously, artistically, FUN! Have you ever heard of the artists who would counterfeit stamps, usually in some comical, creative, or exceptionally colorful way, put them on a letter and see if they would be accepted by the Post Office? What if you did this with a craft beer? Not only could you counterfeit the label, but you could counterfeit the beer too? Then, you could see if it would sell in your local bottle shop? What fun!

 

i believe i saw a person trade a fraudulent, resealed Assassin not too long ago. If it gets up to wine counterfeiting, i dont know if that will happen.

 

Well you can engage the authorities at any time for any perceived theft, but to get the FBI involved it has to be some law broken which would require them to get involved, i.e. shipping across state lines, theft by mail(escapes me what this is called). So I guess the question here is for the blatant examples where individuals traded counterfeit bottles of Assassin and others, not really going to be able to get the law involved because these trades fall into somewhat a grey area. But when you have auction houses start auctioning off beer.... I am guessing the only way you would see someone having the law after them is if a distributer pulled some crap and distributed counterfeit product and they were found out. Not a lawyer and reading this, it is quite evident

 

In order -
never,no,no,no,no,no
English translation -
not worthwhile for the strumpets to bother

 

I think it would be pretty hard to "forge beer". From what i read the wine scammers blend wine to try to make into a certain vintage. For some reason i don't see that working with beer...