Bottle Share Unspoken Tips, Hints & Rules

It sort of depends. In my bottle share group, it's not considered necessary to bring a bottle because the guy running it has quite the quantity of beer and he has no problems sharing his stock. That said, we all endevor to bring bottles.

The one thing that you as a host should do is make sure it's on a day that is convenient for most of your group, if not everyone.

 

Have lots of water to rinse glasses and drink. My best tip is to encourage as much water drinking as possible. At our tastings everyone either brings beer, or food, and there is always too much of both.

 

Don't open beers that you feel are important to try if you've already had too much.

 

Everyone should bring an amount of beer equal to what they plan on drinking. Plus maybe a couple bottles/cans of shelf beer for palate cleansers.

 

Don't do dabs after that Black Tuesday vertical like I did.

 

Calculate the resale/secondary market value for every bottle and then make people chip in $ to even it out. Allows you to establish the BSDs in the room from the start.

 

Don't open bottles you didn't bring. Etc.

 

Lots of snacks and water. Also let people know the level of beer being brought so its even as far as costs go, this way no one feels hosed, otherwise enjoy and have fun.

 

Here's a few of mine:

Rule 1. Try best to provide to others as much beer as you consume of theirs.
Rule 2. Its perfectly fine and accepted (in my circles) to take back home your high-end beers if the bottle share doesn't get around to opening them. (i.e. no one really expects you to leave your 2014 Dark Lord or Cantillon 2012 Lou Pepe bottle in the fridge for the host as a gift. Leave a few SNPA's or Sam Adams variety singles etc. in the fridge and you're good to go.
Rule 3. Don't worry about exact contributions. Some people like to be more generous and some people tend to not contribute as much. Don't be petty and hold grudges, just enjoy.
Rule 4. If you do have a perpetual "moocher" stop offering them the top shelf/good stuff. They'll hopefully get the hint and step up their contributions a little. Quantity donations can suffice for quality if certain people love great beer but just don't go whale hunting like others in the group.
Rule 5. If you have a person who notoriously doesn't finish their beer samplings. Learn to give them very tiny pours. No high-end beers should have even 1oz wasted.
Rule 6 Try to know your crowd attending and what styles they like and bring those if you have them.
Rule 7 Always try to bring a variety of ABVs and styles if possible. It's always a nice change of pace to try a new pilsener or pale ale after hammering down pours of a Quad, BA Stout and Barleywine sampling or 3 double dry hopped DIPAs etc.

 

This is a very good one and novices should take note.

 

I've gone to shares where someone makes a google spreadsheet before hand for everyone to add what they plan on bringing. That really helped create a balance of beer styles and helped people gauge what they were comfortable bringing.

 

Just enjoy sharing bottles with friends. It's not rocket science as long as no one there is concerned about getting more than they bring. you will have people who bring things they bought on the way to the share, and others who brought something they had to trade a nice bottle for. I'd just make sure nobody brings anything they're not okay with losing. I personally love to share and my goal is to bring the best bottle there every time, or to find a beer none of them have hear of, the last one was BA el Gordo from good people, that will blow their minds. I'd just make sure everyone there comes from that mindset so no one gets pissed off. Other than that have tons of water and some snack on hand, I usually do pretzels.

 

Okay rule 7 is important, I've had a few shares where I stumbled out of there and the next day wasn't fun. I'd definitely try to make sure not everyone brings multiple 10+% bombers.

 

On the topic of whales, my suggestion is that you tell your group not to advertise if they're bringing them. I had purchased, at great expense, a Dark Star November horizontal and advertised that fact on my group's Facebook page. All if a sudden, fifteen people popped up who had never been to a meeting who were interested in coming. Naturally, I wasn't pleased, but none of them ended up showing.

 

The first rule of unspoken bottle-share rules is never talk about bottle-share rules.

 

Another tip or two not mentioned:

1. don't comment on (rate) a beer before the guy who brought that bottle says something.
2. wait to check everything thing in on your apps. IT sucks to try to talk to people and they are too busy rating and commenting while still sampling. I'll take a photo of the bottle maybe but I'll wait until later to check everything in.

 

When I go to a bottle share it helps if I have some idea of what to bring. It sucks bringing something real rare and valuable to a bottle share where everyone is drinking shelf beers, and it sucks showing up at a bottle share with shelf beers and feeling guilty because everyone else brought whales.

 

Lots of good stuff in this thread already. I'd add:

Limit the total number of attendees to prevent Midwest thimble pours (lol) and,

Don't palate cleanse with pilseners, just drink some damn water already. Some may actually have to drive themselves home or go to work in the morning or god forbid, both.