I am planning on making the trip to 450N with my wife for this Fridays release, and plan to be in line super early. Is it poor form in any way to post trades now, to start lining up trades to ship ASAP after the weekend? Would also be beneficial to figure out how much I need to buy of each type. Thanks!
I don't think its poor form per say, but I would not guarantee anything. Perhaps word is as "if I can get a 4pk of ____ then trade for ____. I would also be aware that the other party could change their mind at anytime and if I were doing this then I would be okay with that. Essentially pre-trade, but then reconfirm once cans are in hand and if it falls thru then be willing to drink em or trade with someone else. Thats typically how I handle pre-trading.
It's not against the rules, but since pre-trading can lend itself to some difficult situations pretty easily, thorough communication is absolutely key. For example, what if they announce the limit beforehand as 12 cans, and you pretrade 4, but the day of the release they cut the limit to 4. Then you'd be locked in to trade away all your cans and get none for yourself. Or if they cut the limit to 4 and you've pretraded 8 cans. Who do you choose to finish the trade with? Someone will walk away disappointed. Establishing expectations and good dialogue is crucial. Having said that, and I'm probably in the minority here, I think pre-trading in its core is slightly crummy. First off, crummy beer geek behavior or "shitlord behavior" is all of varying degrees. While I think nearly everyone would agree that a guy hiring a bunch of mules so that he can turn around to sell his bottles on Craigslist for maxprofits is a shitlord move, how about when you are at a brewery with your significant other and you ask them to buy an allocation of a beer so that you can double up? I would call it slightly crummy (and it is something I will freely admit I have done myself several times). So back to pretrading; you are buying beer with the sole intention of flipping it, that you wouldn't have otherwise bought, and you have no intention of drinking yourself. So yes, I would call pre-trading slightly crummy, but not the worst of behaviors by modern beer geek standards.
Yeah, I would agree with the "slightly crummy" designation. I have made my peace with that, as I feel the whole limited beer trading scene falls into that category to some degree. I dont tend to pull an extra alottment with my wife. Not because I am above it, but because she refuses to take part in this madness. However, she is rather excited about 450N slushy beers so we are on the same page this time. Thanks for the feedback
I tend not to do it just to keep from promising beers and something happens and can’t follow through.... but as others have said I don’t really find it to be completely out of line or anything.
