Addicted to buying

I used to be addicted to this, but not anymore. You probably couldn't even call it addiction. I just wanted.

 

I don't buy much beer, maybe a 12 pack a month...but I brew around 20 gallons a month for personal (me/wife/friends). Buying beer is kinda boring to me after having so many different beers over the years and it's tough to find anything new in my area that is actually worth buying. When I travel, I always pick up local beers, but only enough for my trip unless there's something rare and worth packing.

I DO have an addiction to homebrewing though! I brew about 5 gallons every week and am in the process of setting up my 2nd kegerator for sours, brett beers, wild yeast brews and meads/ciders. I get so much more satisfaction brewing and drinking killer brews that I actually want to drink or clones of hard to get brews, instead of whatever shelf turds the local shops carry. And I can brew 5 gallons for less than $25 instead of 1 whale bomber for $25!

 

Yearned? I crave, I crave all the time. But I don't think I've ever yearned?

 

Hi. I am BozoDogBreath. I have a beer buying problem. It started out slowly... I used to just have it stacked up in a closet. Now I have a "basement cellar." It sounds better that way.

 

Drive to Tulsa last week
1. plan trip around liquor store in North Dallas that has 4 beers I want. Stop and buy 3 of the 4 in 4 packs plus a bomber, now stuck in traffic trying to get out of Dallas, daughter bitching at me
2. hit up bottle store in Tulsa, show great restraint, only get a bottle of Prairie Christmas Bomb, Aun Mas Chili Jesus and a 4 pack of wooden rooster (which I already have a ton of at home), call it a day
3. next night it is 22 degrees, walking thru downtown tulsa and it is drizzling, go back to bottle store and grab a 4 pack of Roughtail Hoptometrist, because I just had it at a bar and said, man I need to take that home with me
4. Arrive in Louisiana and buy a 6 pack of Abita Grapefruit IPA to drink over the weekend. Wife is like what is all that beer in the box for if you can't drink it now. I said it is for special occasions, I would be hammered in less than an hour if I got into that box and started drinking.
So 6 months later and my behaviour hasn't changed....

 

I def over-buy. If I see something I really like or that's hard to find I pick it up no matter how many beers I already have. I just took a 45 minute trip to a bottle shop over the weekend even though my fridge ( both of them ) are stuffed to the point that I had to put a few on my front porch until I make room. One reason I do this is I believe the " you must drink it fresh " thing is totally over blown so letting beers sit - yes even IPA's - is fine with me. I keep telling myself I'm going to stop and drink my stash down but then something new or interesting comes out and forget that.

 

I am right there with you guys. I hit the beer section, pull out my phone and check out everything for ratings. If its a good one I buy 2 or 3. I can spend an hour and a half in a good beer store. My beer shelves are so jammed I can't tell whats there anymore. I looked through the back and found 2 bottles of Hill Farmstead from 2 years ago that I had totally forgotten about. My son and I are planning a New England run in April so I need to do something. Better start drinking. I guess I could have worse problems :-)

 

I buy more than I need all the time, so if that is addiction, i'm in!

 

Guilty....... I work at a bottle shop and I have the beer buyers at a couple close stores email me lists of new arrivals so I can cherry pick what I want before it hits the shelves, including seasonal allocations. Even though I may have a fridge full of beer and cases aging in my wine cellar I just can't seem to stop buying the new fresh IPAs or the rare BA Stouts.

 

I was under 300 bottles. Now well over 400. Damn you stout season.

 

I've been trying to do this more lately too. When I buy bombers and singles, I have a tendency to burn through them more quickly because I'm like "Ooh, new flavor." When I buy packs of things I tend to drink slower and relax on the same flavor rather than rush on to the next thing.

 

Well, I totally went over the edge and back since my first post. By the first of August, after my trip out west, I was up to 522 bottles, with a lot of multiples. I realized that I'd never have time to drink everything I'd hoarded, so I took a proactive approach. Over the next month, I tried all of the new beers I had purchased on my trip, plus I've had/went to fourteen bottle shares during the last few months. During August and September, I also started to part out the extras that I wasn't as fond of, and quit buying so many multiples. I still buy, but I've just curbed the buying of so many multiples. I have drank one heck of a lot, too. I'm happy to say that I'm currently down to 'just' 185 bottles. Since I'm off until the 4th, I plan on knocking that total down to under 150.

 

Since I have to save money for my upcoming wedding I have made a valiant attempt to curb my beer purchasing/hoarding. I have failed so far.

 

I think my biggest problem is not necessarily that I have too much beer. It's that the beer I'm buying is expensive. Case in point, I bought 9 bottles of beer this past weekend, but the average price per bottle was close to $17.

 

in the words of former president Bill Clinton
"i feel your pain, i really do"
i hit my local bottle shop after work on friday
i was there for over an hour scouring the shelves
i am finding i dont like to buy 4pks or 6 pks anymore because i quickly get bored(unless it is something really stellar)
and i am always on the hunt for new beers
as such i am buying a lot of bombers and single 12 and 16 oz bottles and cans
i have a new beer fridge arriving tomorrow so i suspect this will only feed the shopping habit even more
cant wait!

 

Guilty, I love scanning the shelves.

Even though I don't have many beers at home. When I have more than 10 bottles at home I start to feel I'm hoarding too much and I drink most of them during the next week before any other purchases (I know, I'm sure many of you are laughing at that amount).

 

I love shopping for beer, but I think I'm gonna drink down most of my stash before I go out again to purchase a bunch. Here or there I may pick up 2-3 bottles, but making room feels good.

 

I keep 30 beers on hand at a low and between 70-80 after stocking up. Most of the 30 are the ones I am cellaring. I usually drink 5-7 beers per week and will buy between 4-10 at a time so I'm typically always buying as much or more than I consume.

 

I over bought initially to build up a cellar and to play around with again, verticals, etc. Now that I have a respectable cellar, I buy less and enjoy the fruits of my investments. Also a space issue has made me slow down.

 

I have been trying to limit consumption for calorie reasons mostly. The problem I have is that when I come across something I am not going to find again soon, I have to get it then. This happens whenever I go to Vermont for example. But if I see Wormtown Be Hoppy I grab it, because I might miss the next run. Really Old Brown Dog aged in bourbon barrels? Gotta grab that. Grimm Artisan bourbon barrel stout in MA stores? Buy. Apine Nelson? Never seen that here before...buy. Kiwi Rising is out!...buy, drink buy again. Night Shift Whirpool and Awake I can only find at one distant store and then rarely...three four packs bought.

I have no problem passing up anything that is generally available. But I've passed up too many limited releases and hard to find beers to make that mistake again. If I need to give it away, I do that.