So the other day I bought some Deschutes Black Butte Porter from a grocery store. I go to dig for another and turns out its a Mirror Pond. I am not like super bummed but 2 out of the 6 beers were Mirror Pond and the rest were Black Butte. I am thinking a customer made his own "variety six pack" and I got some of his bottles he placed in a random pack. Has this ever happened to you? Bad etiquette by the guy who switched the bottles?
Haven't had that happen yet but will remember to keep an eye open for that as the number of places where we can buy sixpacks in PA increases. BTW, If its any consolation sometimes those folks do get caught out. Back in the day when BA was on the old servers and before BA started moving along its current redesign and improvement path, there was a thread started by some guy who was bragging both about getting away with buying beer underage and about how much money he was saving by doing that beer swapping between six-packs. Boy was he surprised when folks on this site started raking him over the coals. What was even more of a surprise to him was when, a week or so after his thread, the store where he was doing the swapping and illegal buying found out about it and caught him at it. In large measure they were able to identify and deal with him based on two things. A rep of that store happened to be a BA member, and in his cocky exchanges with some of the folks where were criticising him he revealed enough information about himself and the store to be identifiable. :-)
Mix 6ing is wrong, simple as that. I've never bought one that had been mixed, but I have gotten to the register and found a bottle missing.
PPl who intentionally swap out higher priced bottles for equivalent priced bottles are straight-up committing theft.
I've been to stores that allow taking bottles out of six packs (that's not just wishful thinking on my part, there are six-pack and individual prices listed next to the beers). I'd never occur to me to leave a bottle on the shelf in packaging not designed for it precisely because it might cause the issue you're bringing up. I either pack'em home lose or I bring some empty sleeves to fill. Yep, it's essentially sticker swapping.
This happened to my girlfriend almost a year ago and the one stray beer ended up becoming her absolute favorite. So while that story does have a happy ending, still a dick move.
It's only OK if you have the shop owner's permission. Sometimes if they have a mix-6 cooler they allow you to do this. YMMV.
People in Texas are famous for this. Mainly in the Shiner reunion packs. Before Prickly Pear became packaged in 6 packs along with Kosmos which is only available in this pack
At BevMo there is a singles section where you can grab a six pack holder and do a "mix-your-six". Some of those beers are fairly old or are just leftovers the store is selling at a discount. A friend told me he once grabbed a very old SN Torpedo from the singles section and went over the 6 packs and substituted the old bottle with a fresh one from the pack. Yes, my friend is a dick. Therefore I always check every single bottle before hand.
