How would you define a whale?

Bottle count, brewery reputation, release hype, beer style, difficulty of trading over time, quality. Do not open this pandora's box.

 

I think the gist of it goes like this (in order of rareness)

Flagship
Seasonal
Collaboration
Brewery release
Barrel-aged brewery release.

Your whales are basically the last two. Will also likely be higher in alcohol and possibly distributed in limited quantities to stores.

 

Pretty much this.

 

Too fat to have sex with, even if I'm hammered.

 

You get a feel for it by watching the forums, you know which beers are hard as hell to trade for. Its hard to say exactly because for some people with deep cellars they only call "white whales" whales while to other people stuff like Dark Lord may be a whale. Its really subjective and also sometimes shelf beers become semi-whales and eventually whales like King Henry or Bourbon County rare so its hard to know. The only guarantee is if its a very expensive bottle from a reputable European brewery, its probably a whaleish beer here or if its a barrel aged release also from a very repatable brewery and has small bottle counts. But like I said, its hard to define because Look at rare, there were like 12k bottles and everyone made fun of the name because it wasn't actually rare but now it sort of is.

 

It's kind of like a zj.

 

What's a ZJ?

 

If you have to ask....you can't afford.

 

I was playing ping pong in ding dang

 

look at my avatar. those.

 

Nah, those are just insanely expensive.

Whales are the beers you chase. The Moby Dick to your Captain Ahab. They're pretty much legendary retired beers that have long since passed being available to buy. Your personal whale can be something you've always wanted to try but seems to always elude you. For me, Deviation. And it fits into both categories.

 

This ^

 

Didn't you mean wale?

Noobs are gettin wales, whales swim in the water.

 

BA DLs and Hunas were insta-whales. They don't fit into your definition You're gonna have a tough time defining it precisely.

 

You have to have the latest memo from Rarity Incorporated to know what is and isn't a whale.

 

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Lambic and Geueze bottled in or before the decade I was born in.

 

The term whale has been used pretty loosely lately.