Current State of Trading

We do have some good beer joints here, but even if I go as far away as Asheville , Charlotte or Raleigh, I can’t think of any place that’s better than the beers I’ve had from Half Acre, Revolution, and the beers from New Orthodox. Resident Culture is great, and Old Mecklenburg is the best brewer of German style beers I’ve had, but en masse nothing to compare to the Chicago area breweries. Asheville has some fun breweries, some good beers, but I enjoy the food there more than the beer. The beers good, there’s variety which is no big deal for me, but I’m thinking Asheville would be a tickers paradise.

 

I've been trading full steam ahead, but I rarely post wants anymore. I've developed great friends in the hobby and find myself just repeat trading via text message for my favorite breweries from across the country.

All my trades are done $4$, and honestly we all try and LOSE the trade. Seriously, we all try and out do each other. Often times the extras blow the asks out of the water.

Plenty of great traders out there, and on this site in particular. While it may seem like its hit a wall if you go by posts. I'm sure many more like myself have just found great trade partners, and I can only spend so much on beer. I really would not be able to fill any more orders than I currently do. Especially on the limited stuff. So I can definitely see why it seems harder, it likely is harder because someone like me is almost taken out of the fold on the message board side of things.

But the great traders are out there still.

 

Connecticut is very similar. There’s about 15 breweries within 10 minute drive from my house, all of which are amazing, but they’re relatively unknown to people out of state because of how young they are. Whenever I try to set up a trade I want to try the unknown stuff from their area but I always get “can you get Treehouse?” as a response.

 

It's easy man. Distribution is getting so good, too notch bottles are everywhere, shipping is expensive, the old vanguard traders have dropped off and it's just not worth trading.

This is coming from and old vanguard trader who still has a giant cellar of beers and too much to drink.

 

Used to be so simple to do $4$ trades, but as these breweries distro footprints grow, it is getting much harder. We just don’t get things on the shelf that are good enough or unique enough to fetch other beers of interest. In order to have anything of value, you have to wait in a line overnight or score a lotto.

 

In the same note BIFs have been some of the worst beers I have gotten. From expired beers, to beers I can get on my shelf, to the bare minimum box. BIFs are a crapshoot unless they are ran very well with clear communication of the requirements and good participants.

 

Secondary has killed trading. When I first started, it was all about trading a good beer for a good beer. The bottle limit and how much money some shitlord sells it for wasn't even a factor. Since then, it's basically a round table of Florida, STL, Midwest, PNW, and Hill Farm Traders exchanging their beers, with everyone else on the outside looking in, unless you manage to grab beers from those areas. It doesn't even matter if you can get a good local beer that's just as good or better than those breweries in that market.

Additionally this has destroyed craft beer in general. Instead of people enjoying beer, it's all about people muling and hoarding as many low bottle count releases as they can, then rating the beer a 5 on untapped so they can profit.

 

This is a huge chunk of it as well.

As someone who's been trading here and elsewhere now for almost 15 years I would certainly say things have become a bit more rigid. People on either side dig their heels and want what they want at the ratio they want it. Trading, especially here, used to be much more care free or at least less firm. Trading at it's core used to be about both sides being happy regardless of what any outside influence dictated. With the steady rise of a perceived value based secondary market (be it cash, beer, bourbon, air miles, etc.) people more and more simply don't want to let things go. That good ol 'new money' surge of people into the craft beer scene who's sole reason was, and is, to flip. I used to trade IPAs and Hill Farmstead saisons for Casey and de Garde when both breweries first started; those days are long gone. Part of that is the ever growing beer industry in the country and brewery footprints but the other is perceived value of the product. Why trade a bottle of beer for some beer when one could trade it for an trip to Hawaii (I'm looking at you Floodland traders); from the person with that bottles perspective why settle for one when you can have the other? Everyone wants to win now and boast about turning x into y.

For me in my personal experience...I'd say that pendulum swing was around 2012. Back when I was going to Hill and for Alchemist practically every other week and sending out a few dozen boxes a month. Always made sure around Christmas to include a secret something special back then as an extra in my boxes and that year included a bottle of Twilight of the Idols in every box I shipped out mid December (14). One individual freaked out with thank yous at that being tossed in when his box arrived, the other thirteen said nothing and proceeded to flip the bottle. That soured me pretty fast when I saw gift after gift being flipped for 'max profit' and made a note in my spreadsheet about it. Now it's just easier to try and establish trading partners and building up a rapport with them, be it with specific brewery based or regional trading partners...but even those will come and go as breweries grow in value.

The craft beer community itself in general has changed over the years. I think people are somehow both more reserved/distant in how they interact yet at the same time are snarky and entitled. I had a trader screw me over years ago on here for some Angry Chair just as they started to get a following. The head brewer of Angry Chair messaged me and vented about the guy before sending me two growlers of his stouts (German Chocolate Cupcake & Fudgebucket) so I would 'have a positive experience and memory of Angry Chair'. Hell...the first year Funky Buddha was coming to EBF I mentioned in a thread that someone had rear ended my car and had to skip the fest. Head brewer reached out, proceeded to mail me a hand filled bottle of Maple Bacon Coffee Porter with a note telling me to invest in a bicycle so I wouldn't miss them next year. Neither one of those brewers had to do stuff like that but they did. Would they or any other brewer do that now? The community has been infected with so much entitled toxicity I'm not sure if that level of connection is still there anymore and that bleeds into trading interactions.

 

Stopped trading due to the impact on my budget. Never used any trading forums for most reasons mentioned above. Found a few trusted trading partners in other cities and we would do can 4 can, unless something was way more expensive. No trading 8 cans for a single bottle or that shit. It was fun, no pressure, and enjoyed having my consistent and trustable partners. One day may start again but wouldn’t use any Facebook groups I have seen or really any forums where you have to negotiate and bid. Don’t need that stress to drink good beer

 

actually, I think that values are down overall. But I agree with the OP that trading is much harder. People are holding onto stuff bc they think it has more value than it does. Months later, value has dropped significantly (not always but very often). A lot of new traders don't realize this.

 

I used to trade a fair amount but gave it up a couple years ago for multiple reasons. Too many people trying to “win” trades. Too much emphasis on the extras, it used to be you’d throw in some nice locals but it turned into something more. Too many trading threads where people just quit responding. Shipping was a pain and expensive.

And as others have said there are a lot of good beers available now. I get into Chicago pretty frequently and there’s so much good stuff there.

 

Atho I haven't traded i
Recently on BA, I have always had good experiences trading on BA with fair and equal and usually a $4$ understanding going in.
I also try to trade with people I have already traded with in the past to cut down of risk and worry of dealing with someone new.
I also did an around the country motorhome trip last year and visited over 100 breweries and built relationships with some beerfiles across the that I trade with on a regular basis. If you travel I would suggest talking to peeps at the breweries you go to (customers or employees) and you may be surprised how many are more than welcome to start a trading relationship.
Cheers. Mitch

 

Weird. I don't think that's my experience. People have always lorded over the best and demanding the most respect for their low count stand in line for 3 hours beer, but honestly the same favors have applied, if it's good people will get it and good beers are easier to get no matter where you live.

 

If you think Chicago is world class for beer, you need to head out west and hit San Diego. It's insane.

 

Hmmm, not the two I was in, but yes it’s a crap shoot, but I really look for out of the way things where even in NC the footprint is very small. The only thing I’m not sure of if Weed, I know they go out of state but not sure exactly where. The thing is I’m not a ticker, and I hope I’m not sending out shit beers, but I’m sure most are off anyone radar.

 

I traded 10 times, & most were good experiences. I pulled the plug after a BA from OH tried to change the terms of a deal, which would have meant $12 of Fat Head's for $25 of Tree House = pass.

There is just so much good brew in NE, I just don't feel the need to seek out stuff elsewhere. Glad that I did trade for Pliny though.... That being said, I have easy access to Trillium & Lawson's, & fairly easy access to Tree House, if anyone wants to propose a trade.

 

Some recurring themes here - find good trading partners, use the $4$ thread, don't be a shitlord. Based on my interactions (all IP trades, basically $4$, and mostly small potatoes, relatively speaking) BA members aren't trying to squeeze everything out of the trade. I know that's not always the case.
I've found a number of people locally that like to share beers, and that makes it much easier to try new beers that otherwise I wouldn't have had a chance to. I'm surprised that there aren't really any posts about Midwest (Twin Cities for me) shares on BA, outside of the ones I see for STL and Toppling Goliath releases. Gotta get me to STL one of these days...

 

It makes me sad to hear that so many people have had bad experiences trading. I have actually found the beer culture to be very welcoming and everyone I trade with very easy to talk to. I have made good friends just by waiting in line at Perennial. I always try to bring a can or a bottle of something fun that I probably can't drink solo and offer it to whoever is around. Bruery beers are great for this because when the hell am I gonna drink a 20% bomber solo, and I know people in line at a brewery will appreciate it more than if I open it with my non beer friends. Some of those people are now regular traders who I get stuff for when they can't go to a release or vice versa. Others I have met their families and had dinner with and now we have relationships that extend outside of beer.

With all that wholesome stuff out of the way if I trade a whale type of bottle I still trade with some attention given to secondary values, which I feel sometimes is like mentioning Voldemort on BA. I think as long as everyone is friendly and both parties are happy with a trade and not being dicks about it it's ok to acknowledge that secondary value is just a proxy for a quality+rarity.

 

I dunno; I don't do a heck of a lot of trading anymore for a variety of reasons. I'm an old fogey, still with dreams of having everything from the top 250, so I'm usually targeting trades for those, and the fewer of them left on the list the less I need to trade. I'm also doing a lot more traveling for work these days, so I can often just buy the stuff I want; I usually bring back a bag filled with stuff. I brought back 16 different beers with me from my last trip to Denver and Seattle.

Most of the trading I do these days is around Black Friday with the BCBS stuff. We get great distro here in NYC area. I was able to agree on 4 trades (got 9 new beers from the top 250, including a few I've chased for a long time) in just a few days. I did not notice anything different between this year and previous years.

It is interesting to hear this feedback to the OP, actually.