Question for the Vets

I know nothing about animal medicine.

Though i am not a qualified Vet, i will respond anyway.

If you are only trading for something to retrade, you better be hooking the other dude up like a true gentleman. If someone is a nice guy, hooks you up with a deal, and you are only doing it to maximize returns, you are a boner-fide asshole.

So feel free to retrade bottles, i do, we all do, but make sure you take care of the other party.

 

It's not bad practice, just really expensive.

 

So go for it. Just realize if you trade a 20 dollar bottle for bottle B, then trade bottle B for bottle C you are spending 50-60 on that bottle. If you are cool with that then via con dios.

 

i think it would be a bit laughable to call me a vet, but i'll answer:

it's sort of a gray area. for most beers, it's definitely bad form. if you luck out and trade with someone who isn't just looking to **** you out of bottles, chances are they're trying to hook you up out of generosity. trying to flip whatever they give you for MAXIMUM PROFIT is basically shitting on their kindness.

this kind of leaves gray area into black and white at a certain value, or a certain understanding with your trading partner. surprisingly, the black and white answer becomes "it's not bad form."

when so-and-so hot shot BA trader brings out the big guns to get your rare beer, s/he surely doesn't give a shit what you do with said guns. s/he brought them out for one reason: s/he wants your rare beer. relatedly, if you have a good relationship with a trading partner, you might outright say, "hey man, i can't land X, but i could probably get it done with that Y you have. what do you say to [trade offer]?" not only is that not bad form, but you wouldn't need me to tell you it's not bad form in the first place, because you feel comfortable talking with your beer trader friend without me holding your hand.

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if, however, you're trading X just to trade up for Y, and that's just because you're all about exploiting everyone else to get the most valuable shit to yourself (for some reason... i guess to drink it? or to impress someone you mistakenly think cares?), that might be perceived as bad form. unfortunately, in this situation, the reason it's considered bad form would be intellectually/emotionally inaccessible to you, because you have wrong ideas about value, beer trading, human interaction, etc.

hope that helps.

 

so i could put it up on the auction block and get something amazing? probably not.

because a past trading partner wants it and i want to hook them up? absolutely.

it's saccharine handholding stuff, i know, but what can i say?

 

Maybe? Depends. I am not a huge fan of Dark Lord but went to DLD, but the party is what I showed up for. I doubt I would waste hours of my time and go out of my way just for trade bait though.

 

That pretty much sums up dark lord day... Well for a lot of people at least.

 

honestly, i think reaching out to established traders would get you further anyway. you might find some good stuff for that limited release you grab but aren't interested in, but starting small, expressing interest to people who have been generous in the past, and figuring out how to reward them as you go on is probably going to benefit you more in the long run.

also, not to try to hit the point too hard, but if you're really new and you do something like grab up all the beatification for trade value, i think there's a pretty high probability that 1 of 2 scenarios will occur:

1) someone more savvy than you parts you from that beatification for less than you could have got (mission failed).

2) you set up a fair trade with some cool trader, and end up on the "friendly path" anyway, because unless you live next door to a really in demand brewery, work at a really good but unprincipled bottleshop, or are very wealthy and unemployed, you're not going to be constantly bagging high demand beers that you flip w/o established trading partners anyway.

 

haha, meta-beeradvocate post-script:

in truth, the main argument starter is making a bunch of posts about your intentions and why you trade and this or that. 95% of responders are doing so because they're bored and just waiting for fodder to talk about nothing.

this stuff all works itself out. if you just want to screw people, your trading partners will realize it, and you just won't trade all that often with them. outrageously, none of you end up going to hell for it, or having your beer license revoked. if you made some faux pas on the forum and someone jumped down your throat, that matters like a million times less than your subsequent actions.

tl;dr: nothing worth really asking about. if you're not an asshole and your intentions are good, things will probably work out. remember the stakes involved with the "beer trading game" (low).

 

Want to try a whale and live in a beer wasteland? God forbid you trade up a couple of times to land it...

 

Total gray area. Some people care, others don't.

Personally, if I gave you a hell of a deal out of generosity, and then I saw you trying to trade up for something more, I'd be kind of offended. If, on the other hand, it was a perfectly even deal, then I wouldn't even blink at you trying to re-trade it.

 

This. A BA that was more than generous hooked me up with three Citra's which was a huge want for me. I drank one, brought another to a tasting and threw the final one in as an extra in a trade with a regular partner. I could have easily flipped two of those bottles around in Chicago for some other nice bottles, but that would have just been a dick move and frankly it didn't even cross my mind.

 

I think it depends on the circumstance, and there are def. different schools of thought about it.

Some people like to think they're 'hooking up' traders- IE they're sending beer to you because they want to share it, and want you to drink it.

Other people play a numbers game, and 'flip' beer to climb the wale ladder and get bigger and better things.

I think it's shitty to take a 'hook up' under the pretense of drinking it and then flip it for better beer, but hey, doowhatchalike.