Noob needs advice on beer trading (So. Cal)

Stop by Alpine brewing and you should be able to trade pretty regularly. I live in Denver and I'll be glad to trade with you for Alpine.

I'm also sure you can get RR to trade with the Northeast.

 

I would suggest making a few "locals for locals" trades to get your feet wet. Trade away $20 or so of what you can get off the shelf at your local for the same that someone else has access to, and you want to try. No need to go huge for your first time out.

 

It depends on what you are trying to trade for. Russian River IPAs and sours are a good start, there are a few stores in the area that should get both regularly. The Bruery Provisions has a number of beers available that should trade decently. If you want bigger name items you need to start going to beer releases.

 

You can go to San Diego, namely Pizza Port and pick up all kinds of nice things. IE. RR of all sorts, PtE, HotD, Sculpin, the list goes on. You should have plenty of trading ammo for the East Coast and Midwest. Even the La area has options, just check what people are asking for from the West Coast. But I agree, start trading at a low comfort level and go $4$ with off the shelf items. Get your feet wet and just increasing your comfort level as you go.

 

If you like IPA's I would get some very fresh Pliny the Elder and offer it for IPA's you are interested in. Those trades almost always get done. I would try for Zombie Dust (Pale Ale) or Heady Topper personally as they are my favorites of their styles. RR stuff and Bruery beers as others have recommended are always desireable in the midwest and on the east coast.

 

A lot of people from other states are recommending things like go to Pizza Port or Alpine or San Diego... those are nice places to visit but as far as trading alone it is pretty bad advice. Driving hundreds of miles just to get beer to trade is ridiculous when there are plenty of items you can get in LA or OC.

 

True, but he said in the OP:

 

Fair enough, but I'm just saying not to go too far out of your way here. Do you know how far Alpine is from San Diego? Pizza Port is a cool place to go to, but you're not going to find anything to trade there unless you want to trade growlers, which can be a hassle. Furthermore, if OP has never had Alpine beers before I'm going to recommend that OP drinks them rather than trades them.

 

theres

RR Sours
FW Bal aged stuff
Bruery/Provision releases
Deschutes
Kern River

 

Alpine's about an hour out, right? Worth the trip (for drinking sake, not necessarily trading I suppose), from what I've tried of theirs. And it looks like we actually agree on that!

Additionally, yes, for your first few trades, you probably don't want to go far out of your way. However, many people on this site regularly trade beers that they've traveled more than a couple hours round trip to get. Just gotta know which bottle releases to go to.

 

The bottle shop is top notch. And Texas Liquors a block up the street offers additional choices.

 

If you know of a specific state that you want beers from, you can check this distribution map (http://www.seekabrew.com/ ) to find out which California breweries are not available in and around that region.

 

Point the Way is suitable as an extra

 

Quick and easy advice...
check the top 100 list, find Out which of those are available to you and pick up some of those. Try them if you haven't already. And see if you can find anyone willing to trade for what you have left. Parabola is probably available. And while it's not gonna get you anything too crazy, it does carry some weight in areas it's not distributed. And off the shelf $4$ trades are always a nice way to start. At this point, anything that doesn't come to Cali is new and interesting.

 

Extras are basically fillers. Most people agree on a trade, pack those in a box and also throw in a few extras. Basically not part of the original trade, but something that doesn't get out to the destination state and the other guy might like. If there's an off the shelf local beer that you love, throw a bottle of it in with the trade and let others know what they are missing.

 

When you set up a trade it is customary to include a few extra beers (usually locals) that were not part of the trade agreement as "extras." When I said Point the Way was suitable as an extra, I meant it was likely nobody would actually trade specifically for that beer, but it is a good example of a local beer to use as an extra.

 

Also take a look at this. It helped me when I started trading recently

http://alewatcher.blogspot.com/
and
http://www.seekabrew.com/ to find out what you can get and what others can get.