BEER TRADE NOOB

Hello and welcome! I think you have a good start and have some good beers. Something to keep in mind is that a shelf beer where you are someone else might never come across. My first "big land" in order to make it happen I had to go a little over $4$ but it was worth it. So with heat you have, you might need to put together a more than generous offer but you can land some from your list. Good luck!

 

What Ido a lot is just watch the ISO:ft forum to get a gauge of what I need to do or what is fair. Your rye and hill farmstead are good starts but lots of folks have those since they just came out. The bomb is great and heard great things about pugachev. The hardest ones on your list are the ba speedway, prop, mw, and grey Monday. The others I think you could get with the beers you have. You could maybe get the harder ones but might have to give up a lot and sure that's worth it for one beer.

 

You have some good ammo there. Also, you live in California so you have access to highly desirable stuff. I notice you have some IPAs on your list, drink those or trade them ASAP. IPAs are best fresh and not something you want to sit on.

 

Also, just curious, a bunch of those beers on your list are not distributed to California, how did you get them?

 

Welcome and kudos for taking the time to read forums and ask for advice before embarking on your first trade. First off, trading is fun, but can get out of hand fast. You live in an area that has great beer, drink local as much as possible. As others have said, you could get some of the beers you want with what you have to offer, but a big problem for you is a venn diagram (essentially trying to trade local beers for local beers). I would suggest trying to find a local tasting group. This would allow you to meet other BA's and share some beers.

 

Where in cali are you? there are a lot of great brewerys, many of which distribute pretty widely. Almanac, firestone walker, russian river, alpine,SARA, and some of the less distributed stone, all could be good starts towards what you seek. The RR sours should be able to be obtaianed from a store if you look around, or from an IP trade pretty easily with the beers you listed. Welcome and good luck!

 

Surprised other California traders havent chimed in. Many of these beers you are picking up are being illegally sold at these stores. Heady and FFF are not legal to sell in California.

 

Since you are in SoCal, I would just wait for alesmith to release BA speedway and buy them during their online sale. Look around you should be able to find RR sours when they occasionally land.

 

My $0.02 is to hold off on doing a lot of trading. If you've only been into craft for 5 months I can't imagine how you've exhausted the great things that are from your region (LA and Orange County), distributed there, or are available at breweries in driving distance. You can only drink so many beers and there are literally hundreds of amazing ones available to you without trading. In your "back yard" you've got:

-Beachwood (people will trade for this stuff ... but why trade when you can drink it if you haven't yet?)
-Golden Road
-Taps Fish House (have you seen what their stuff trades for?)
-Alesmith (you should be able to get the barrel stuff no problem)
-Societe
-Alpine
-Lost Abbey
-Kern
-Firestone
-Bruery
-Modern Times

And more. You could roadtrip up to SARA or Russian River, hit Cellarmaker and Rare Barrel while in SF. In the course of exploring the amazing local bounty, you'll naturally come across things that are tradeworthy. Then you can look at the boards and see who wants, say, Kern Citra. Most of my best trades started with something small and then expanded. I find that once a trade is established, people get more generous. I'd also say find some tasting groups or go to events. Considering where you're at, you shouldn't have trouble finding folks with Bruery stuff that would be willing to trade or sell it to you. If you find groups that are doing bottle shares, you'll probably be able to hit a lot of your wants without even trading much.

Something that should be noted for all new traders is that it's A) pretty expensive, B) takes a lot of time, and C) has some risk involved. Assume you're shipping cross country and trading 6 - 12 bottles will easily run you $30 - $40 in packing materials and shipping adding a "tax" of $3 - $5 per bottle. Shorter distance trades may be a bit less, but it's still a factor. And trading for smaller numbers of bottles, unless they're real wales, isn't worth it. Shipping one 750 can cost $8 - $16. That's steep. Add in the time and the botential for breakage or a flakey trader on the other end.

 

Beers you have that carry some trade value - Backyard Rye, Twilight of Idols, and Bomb. The others have much more limited value/interest, But you should have no trouble getting ZD or Heady.

 

The last few release have lasted for a few hours.

 

As I've told others, the best way to start trading is to set up a basic locals for locals trade. Set a dollar amount and let each other know what styles you like and if there is a certain brewery you are interested in. Its a great way to try new stuff and I've actually had people send me some pretty amazing (and rare) beers in these trades. Just use seekabrew for reference