I haven't traded before, and looked at the post 9uns made for new to trading. I love sour beers, and would gladly trade for what I can't find locally... problem is, there's so many beers I'd like to discover, and I don't want to post a vague ISO - what would be the best way to go about getting brews I have yet to discover while still making sure the trade is reasonable for both sides?
I think the first step would be to develop your trading reputation. Even though you have a lot of sours you want to try, you really need to narrow it down to start with. For example, say you want to try Russian River sours, I'd throw out a ISO for Supplication, Temptation, Consecration, etc. Those RR sours while not hard to get, do not sit on the shelves here in SoCal, it generally sells out the day of delivery. So, in exchange, you may want to find and offer beers in your area that are similar in both dollar-for-dollar ($4$) and of similar ilk, in terms of how difficult the beers are to acquire and its desirability. Since you're not going to start with rare sours, $4$ is generally a good guideline to determine fairness, like $50 worth of RR sours for $50 worth of X beers. As stated in the other thread, start small with an experienced trader. A lot of what was said in that thread applies here too. If you live near DC, DC Brau's OTWOA is a good beer to trade with. I think you can work out a fair ratio of that beer for RR sours or any other sours you are looking to trade for.
I live in Richmond, so I have access to Hardywood Park and a few other locals... plus can sometimes snag stuff from the western and eastern parts of VA fairly easily. Thanks for the advice!
A wealth of information and tips regarding beer trading in my thread. I'm already starting up a trade!
Another useful thing is to pick a beer you like, go to it's page, and look at similar examples. You can also do this for styles, such as "American Wild Ale".
I find it easier to trade sours for imperial stouts and vice versa as opposed to trading for the same style.
