So a number of weeks back I completed a trade with a fellow BA'er. The trade went off without a hitch and both sides were particularly happy, particularly him as I was far more generous with the extras than him (which is fine with me, generally, I tend to be more generous). Anyway, probably due to my generousity, he mentioned that he and his wife would be going to Vermont in the next few weeks and that they'd be stopping at Hill Farmstead, Lawson's and the Alchemist and that if I wanted anything from any of the breweries to let him know. I told him that I'd really love some Everett (a pre-bottled year round beer from Hill Farmstead) and that I'd like to work out a trade before he went. I explained I didn't want to trade anything to serious and he understood. He said he'd be interested in some FFF behemoth. Based on this, I went out and bought a few bottles as supplies around town were dwindling. Fast forward a few weeks and he's been on his trip and has not responded to any of my messages. So now I'm sitting on $36 (Behemoth is $18/bottle) worth of beer that I wouldn't have bought otherwise (I love the beer but I have my own supply and based on how expensive it is, I wasn't planning on getting more). I'm not sure why he's had this change of heart but I do know that before he left for his trip, he posted on the trading forum offering beers from the three breweries. My guess is that he got some good offers and decided to trade with other people instead. I realized I didn't totally get screwed here, but it just seems like a dick move to me. He offered the trade up to me, unsolicited (probably because he sent me crap for extras and I sent him some great stuff, and a lot of it). I then bought beer he said he would take in trade. Now the guy won't even respond to me (even though he is on the message board daily). Anyway, I'd love to get people's opinions on this.
Situations like these are hard to judge without hearing both sides of the story, and also reading the exact wording of the messages you guys exchanged (which you probably shouldn't post). Generally speaking, pre-trades are a very bad idea for precisely these kinds of reasons. In fact, with Hill Farmstead in particular, people should outright stop it. I've lost track of how many posts like yours that I've seen with HF beer pre-trades that didn't work out - slim bottle counts, shifting allocations, taps constantly changing... It's entirely possible that he was unable to get as much as he hoped, and decided to go another direction with what he did get. Ultimately, it's a dick move to simply not respond to you, no matter who is at fault here. As to whether or not he has any responsibility to the cost of your Behemoths... well, that comes down to how explicitly clear you both were about the trade.
have you ever had the beer before? I have a bottle and am coming back to madison for the night of June 6. I'll gladly open it with you.
http://beeradvocate.com/community/t...uble-sunshine-ipa-headytopper-iso-gots.16414/ PS: You should still be able to get some good beer for your Behemoth.
you say he has been on his trip. Do you mean he has gone and come back or is he currently still on his trip? If he is back, how long has he been back. Has he been on BA frequently since you last sent him a message?
He is back from the trip. I'm not sore for how long exactly but almost two weeks now. He is on the website daily.
If I had a pre-trade set-up and was not able to get the beer in question, I would IMMEDIATELY contact the guy in which I was trading with and see if there was another beer he would want from that brewery. Not even contacting someone back about the trade for 2 weeks is BS. But again, we need to hear both sides of the story. Just curious OP, what were your extras? This kinda adds to the burn if you killed the previous trade.
Even if he got better offers for the beers he got on his trip he owes you what you agreed on. But without seeing the BM chain I can't say that a deal was actually struck or if he knew you were going out and buying beer to fill your side. I only like trading beer in hand, you never know what could happen, you mentioned supply on your end was dwindling, what if you couldn't find what he wanted when you went out to get it?
The thing is though, that, as far as I understand, Everett is a year round HF brew that is pre-bottled. It shouldn't get any easier to get as far as HF is concerned. The extras I provided were a FFF Dreadnaught, a couple New Glarus Thumbprint Beers (Barleywine and IIPA) and I believe a Central Waters BB Stout). He sent me an Ipswitch Oatmeal Stout. I agree with everyone that pre-trades aren't a good idea. I guess in this case I looked at it slightly differently though. He offered the trade up to me and then said he would take a few Behemoth's in trade. Because he said he was interested in Behemoth, and because their availability in town was dwindling, I picked them up. Add on to all this the fact that I was asking for an "off the shelf" HF beer (at least as far as getting it from the brewery is concerned). The only reason that he would have for backing out that I can see is because he just didn't feel like hauling around the beer during his trip because he ended up having to buy more than he originally planned due to the fact that posted a general trade thread on the forum after he spoke with me and got a lot of responses. That all being said, the thing that gets me the most is not replying to me.
Yes and no. It's certainly one of the more attainable HF beers, but I wouldn't call it year-round, especially in bottles. For example, I've been up to HF about 5 times now, and I've never once been there when they had bottles of Everett available. Basically once a batch of bottles are sold out, it can be months before it shows up again. And some of these batches don't take very long to sell out. Thus HF pre-trades are dangerous IMO. Did he post an FT:ISO after he got back from his trip or before he left?
Had a slightly similar thing happen to me last Summer. Agreed to a trade on a Friday, picked up about $40 worth of FFF stuff and never heard from the guy again. I was a little steamed, but ended up just enjoying the beers I bought and making a note not to deal with that BA again. If anything you can put those 3 Behemoth's up FT and probably pull in some tasty things you can't get in WI.
