Although I'm newly a registered user, I have been referring to BA for ratings for my new beer selections for a while. I want to arrange my first trade soon and was hoping to get some tips from seasoned traders in how to get things done, make good trades and what to expect during the process.
Trade with a vet, send a box you would be happy to receive, communicate throughout the process, just be a good BA really just be a good person and it will be fine. Trading well can build relationships that make worrying about getting hard to get beers obsolete.
Do it to share beer and expand your experience more than for any kind of profit. Ask yourself what you motive is in trading. Do you really want to try any and all beer that you can or do you have some need to one-up your friends? Other than that, alewatchers blog post is about all you need.
Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. The reason I want to start trading is so that I can not only get stuff that isn't in my area but also to share what I can get with other people like me. My local friends will probably be pretty happy when I can show up with stuff none of us has been able to try yet. I I live in Chicago so I don't have access to alot of things but there are so many beers that I would love to get my hands on. I just figure it's a good way to get things I want and help other people get things they want too.
Yeah maybe a little, I do have access to some pretty good brews especially since I'm all of 15 minutes from fff. I should clarify as Chicago suburbs but it's easier to just say Chicago, nobody knows the town I love in. There are so many brews and breweries out there to try, I have my local favorites but branching out means I can try offerings from all over the country.
Do everything this guy said. AND, pack the bottles as if your 1st born is inside and you're going to punt it across your patio and you want him/her to come out alive! COMMUNICATE & PACK WELL!
Most people who love good beer would gladly change locations with you to live 15 min from FFF. You won't have any problem at all finding people interested to the brews accessible to you. Good luck!
Plenty of good tips here so I won't repeat, but here's a useful site for both proposing trades and picking extras... www.seekabrew.com I allows you to quickly see what breweries you have access to that the other guy doesn't. For example, anyone in NY would happily trade for FFF.
