Question about Counterfeit Beer Bottlings

Discussion in 'Trade Talk' started by GRG1313, Jan 29, 2015.

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  1. Pecan

    Pecan Initiate (0) Dec 20, 2012 Arizona

    Counterfeit bottles are in the market, as noted by the earlier posts. Unfortunately, we're at the point where faking a waxed or caged bottle isn't even necessarily a difficult thing to do. We have been lucky so far that the counterfeiters are bad at it, as some of the wax jobs are pathetic.

    My experience has been in waxing my own bottles, where after a single session of trying I could not only mimic a decent wax job, but mimic the STYLE of wax jobs. (Edit: Waxing bottles in the cellar that were never waxed in the first place. No sketchy business from this beer nut...) I also played around with recorking bottles... Don't worry, nothing shady, just had a little fun with friends and Strawberrita at a tasting. Again, not terribly hard to do a convincing job. And as the beer world gets more popular, we'll run into more fakes and less detectable methods... Especially if we don't identify the current-use methods and sources and share with the community.

    On one hand, I commend GRG on giving the other trader a chance to not be dragged into false accusations or unwitting participation in an actual fake.

    On the other hand, there are a few problems here.

    First, being so vague is unlikely to get much figured out and the answers that have been given could have easily been found by reading through a thread on the first page of this subsection. This thread, with the minimal details provided, really only serves as fear mongering without any further details.

    Second, sharing details of the bottle itself runs pretty much zero risk of ruining the reputation of a brewery. Not sharing those details, however, puts the community at continued risk of similar deceptions.

    Third, a lot of people are mentioning GRG's generosity (which I am not debating at all)... yet we just came out of the Stogies scandal where his past positive trading history was brought up and, almost unanimously from what I can tell, the community voiced that prior actions don't absolve current actions. To be clear, I'm not saying GRG has acted shady in any way. I am only saying it seems like the right thing to do would be to share bottle information publicly and past generosity doesn't really change that.
     
    #41 Pecan, Jan 30, 2015
    evilcatfish, bonercityUSA, WI-Beer-Man and 5 others like this.
  2. jrnyc

    jrnyc Grand Pooh-Bah (3,012) Mar 21, 2010 New York
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Great that GRG is a benevolent BA but his ambiguous posts serve no purpose other than to "incite" a community even if inadvertent. This community has seen many of these kind of "bad trader" posts turn out to be the real deal. Many people dip their toes in the water first and as time goes by the whole story comes out and a bad trader is exposed. The old saying where there is smoke there is fire applies here.
     
    #42 jrnyc, Jan 30, 2015
    Pecan likes this.
  3. GRG1313

    GRG1313 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,974) Jan 15, 2009 California
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Ok. This is it! Period. I don't know where half of you get this crap! I'd never been on this thread before - my bad! I guess I should have done a little research and I would have noticed the comments and posts on counterfeit bottles. Again, my bad; my apologies.

    However, where do you all get the crap? Someone mentions DDG and Izzy with speculation and now its all about DDG and Izzy! Are you guys 12? What is this, grade school? Kindergarten??

    I'm not responding further after this post. And, you want to go for bragging? Believe me, if I wanted to name drop and brag I could list some credentials that are almost embarrassing in the beer, wine and food world! I didn't go there - I made a proper analogy that made sense to me and I guess at least a few others. But, come at me privately if you'd like to play the credentials game - I welcome it and you'll lose!

    Back to the point of the thread, I apologize for posting; I apologize for wasting your time (of course, no one forced you or put a gun to your head to read what I wrote). But, apologies anyway. This became blown out of proportion and I fully accept all blame. I should have done more homework before I posted. I guess one can never underestimate, however, the depths to which some people will go to pick a fight and be adversarial. So be it. No more posts from me although I welcome private Beermail should anyone want to reach me.

    NOW FOR THE CONCLUSION: (and probably what I should have originally done instead of asking a simple question after laying about as huge a foundation as can be layed - people still didn't get it! So be it). I spoke with my source and I also spoke with a few people last evening who were more informed than me.

    I purchased a bottle of Russian River's Deviation, Bottleworks IX. The cage was not properly affixed. It did not cover both lips of the bottle - something that I've never seen on any Russian River bottle that I own and I have a cellar full of old Russian River, including other bottles of Deviation. Nor have I seen a cage so improperly affixed on any bottle. (HOWEVER, the wire cage was completely taped with black electrical tape which I removed. I now realize after speaking with my source I may have caused this anamoly when I removed the tape - I just don't know and will never know. The cage was/is also too small for the bottle it appears; but, again, may be just appearance from the tape being applied and removed. Equally questionable the cage wire was only twisted 2 times and the label looked like it had never seen the inside of a closet, none the less a cellar.

    BUT I DIDN'T KNOW THAT BOTTLEWORKS HAD RECENTLY RELEASED BOTTLES. Friends told me last night that Bottleworks had recently released bottles. I did not tell my source anything but when I woke up this morning the source had e-mailed and said that he'd recently purchased the bottle right from Bottleworks. So, it all made sense. We discussed it and I now believe that there is no question but that the bottle is real. I apologize; I apologize; I apologize. There is nothing more I can do - period. Call me whatever you want; tell me how wrong I am and how wrong I was. I can do nothing more -it's all my bad - period; end of story.

    THERE IS NO COUNTERFEIT BOTTLE THAT I'M NOW AWARE OF. Of course, had you read the first sentence of my original post I went overboard to indicate I didn't want to make accusations in the first place. I had no idea what I was starting!

    SO THERE YOU HAVE IT. I WAS WRONG. I WAS WRONG FOR PREMATURLY POSTING AND FOR NOT DOING A MORE THOROUGH INVESTIGATION BEFOREHAND. NO MORE SPECULATION. NO COUNTERFEIT BOTTLE. YOU CAN NOW ALL IGNORE THIS THREAD; YOU HAVE MY APOLOGIES - I CAN DO NO MORE.
     
    #43 GRG1313, Jan 31, 2015
    dasmusik and Vivified like this.
  4. F2brewers

    F2brewers Maven (1,432) Mar 12, 2005 Massachusetts
    Society Trader

    locked for now.

    @GRG1313 if you want it reopened or if you want to add info, please contact one of the mods.

    leaving it up for reference.
     
    #44 F2brewers, Jan 31, 2015
    blue-dream likes this.
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