Beer Trading

[roundball]

Any of you guys trade on BeerAdvocate, reddit, places like that? What are some good trades you've made? Would there be any interest in making this a trading thread (you post your inventory, people make offers)? I realize most of us are probably in the Midwest, limiting the value of trading, but it still might be fun.

I've got four bottles of TG PseudoSue and two bottles of New Glarus Raspberry Tart that I picked up a couple weeks ago for trading on BeerAdvocate, but I'll entertain offers!

 

[cyhawkdmb]

Was thinking of starting a thread on this.. I will be following. And have to go check in the basement what I have.. I know I have some boulevard rye on rye.

 

[ianoconnor]

I've never really been into it just because I'm cheap & don't want to pay shipping costs. But whenever I travel outside the state, I most certainly stop at a beer store to see what's available.

 

[roundball]

Was thinking of starting a thread on this.. I will be following. And have to go check in the basement what I have.. I know I have some boulevard rye on rye.

Have you had their Bourbon Barrel Quad? If you like Rye-on-Rye, you'll probably love it. It's supposed to be released again in October.

FYI, the "collaboration" that's coming out this month is a saison brewed with Ommegang.

 

[Farnsworth]

This is a great idea, I've done this with liquor in the past.

 

[Cybyassociation]

I'm on BA and trade quite a bit...also quite active in the midwest forums. If any of you live in the Des Moines area and are into bottle sharing, let me know. A group of us usually get together to share. A lot of us travel for work, have spouses that travel, or trade quite extensively...so we usually have some fun stuff at our tastings.

As far as what have I traded for...what haven't I traded for :wink:

I was lucky enough to win the opportunity to buy Bourbon Vanilla Dark Lord...so did my wife. I made sure one of my regular trading partners was taken care of and he returned the favor with a Fou Foune and Bourbon Barrel Aged 17 from Perennial.

I just got a box today from New Mexico with a ton of La Cumbre beers. Elevated is one of the best IPA's out there.

I've got a box tomorrow coming with a bunch of Carton beers from New Jersey.

I've done trades for lots of Tree House beers (Julius, Curiosity 5, David).

We did a trade to get a "horizontal" of Cigar City beers. Marshal Zhukov, Hunahpu's, Double Barrel Hunaupu's.

Just completed a trade to complete my 2010 Lou Pepe set from Cantillon.

My favorite thing to trade for is Crooked Stave's Wild Wild Brett Violet which is getting increasingly more difficult to acquire as less and less are still unopened. Probably my favorite beer that I have ever had.

Just some of the fun beers I've traded for. A lot of people get caught up in trying to tick off every single beer and I admit that when I first started trading I got caught up in chasing whales. Now I more or less try to get beers that I think I will enjoy or that sound fun. If anyone has any questions about trading or wants to just get started, let me know. I've got tons of shipping materials that I have accumulated that I'm sure my wife would absolutely LOVE to get rid of!

*EDIT: Also, if anyone would like to share a beer some time, let me know! I've got way too much beer and need to drink some!

 

[bufante]

I trade on BA. I've gotten a bunch of different stuff. Some of the my favorites that I have traded for are Zombie Dust, Hoponious Union (Jacks Abby), Ghandi Bot, Heady Topper, Pliney. I'm a huge IPA fan.

Living in Iowa we are quite lucky to be able to trade Toppling Goliath. I've made some trips and I always run through Chicago and get what I can from 3 Floyds. I also have a brother in law in Florida that is into trading and he has gotten me some good stuff from Cigar City or from trading Cigar City. Recently he gave me Rapture (Alchemist)...best I've had so far!

If anyone wants to try some different stuff, I have ton right now. I was thinking about making a couple trade offers this weekend on BA. If you have an IPA/DIPA etc...send me a message, if I haven't tried it, I can make an offer.

Going to pop into a War Mullet (3 Floyds) for the first time tonight!

 

[ILikeCy]

I'm on BA and trade quite a bit...also quite active in the midwest forums. If any of you live in the Des Moines area and are into bottle sharing, let me know. A group of us usually get together to share. A lot of us travel for work, have spouses that travel, or trade quite extensively...so we usually have some fun stuff at our tastings.

I'm on BA, but have never traded before. What shipping method do you use, and how much does it usually cost you to send a single, and how much to send a 6-pack? Ever have any problems with shipping?

 

[bufante]

I use FedEx so I can print the labels at home. I usually ship 3 bombers and a couple of extras, it is around 30 bucks depending. Google how to pack the box, there are a lot of good tips out there.

Once you start trading, you can reuse a lot of the packing material. I generally use rubber bands to secure my bubble wrap for this reason. I will also tape the caps and sometimes I put each bottle in a ziploc in case 1 breaks.

I have only had a bottle break once, lucky for me it was to my brother in law...so no big deal. Make sure you send an extra beer or two (something the other party can't get in their area) or more depending on size of the trade. It's kinda of an unwritten rule.

There are few better days then coming home to a box of awesome beer on your front porch!

 

[Cybyassociation]

I'm on BA, but have never traded before. What shipping method do you use, and how much does it usually cost you to send a single, and how much to send a 6-pack? Ever have any problems with shipping?

It really kind of depends. For a long time I just used bubble wrap and boxes. Then I found a company based out of the Quad Cities area that specializes in wine shippers. I ordered 10 shippers + boxes and use that now. It holds only 3 bottles, so that is the down side. Upside, the boxes are freaking tanks and I really don't anticipate losing anything in shipping.

Cost really depends how much you are sending. A couple of bombers + some extra small bottles usually comes out between 20 and 30 bucks. Like bufante said, just print labels at home and drop it off.

 

[bufante]

Do you have a link for those wine shippers? That would make life easier!!!

Just landed a bunch of different beer from Maine Beer Company (Lunch, Mo, Pepper)-super stoked to try those!

 

[Cybyassociation]

This wasn't it, but this is pretty fairly priced:

http://gorillashipper.com/buy-wine-shipping-boxes-and-accesories/#moldedpulp

This was the site I used:

http://www.winepacks.com/

Like I said, the boxes are like tanks. Super thick and tough. There's very little wiggle room which can be good or bad. Good in that everything stays put. Bad in that You can only fit 3 bottles per box which limits extras.

EDIT: The winepacks site does have beer shippers, but I personally don't like that style. A lot of people prefer to pack their bottles vertically because it "cuts down on sloshing noise". I disagree and only ever ship with bottles laying down...mostly because I use these shippers.

 

[Clone5]

I'm on BA and trade quite a bit...also quite active in the midwest forums. If any of you live in the Des Moines area and are into bottle sharing, let me know. A group of us usually get together to share. A lot of us travel for work, have spouses that travel, or trade quite extensively...so we usually have some fun stuff at our tastings.

As far as what have I traded for...what haven't I traded for :wink:

I was lucky enough to win the opportunity to buy Bourbon Vanilla Dark Lord...so did my wife. I made sure one of my regular trading partners was taken care of and he returned the favor with a Fou Foune and Bourbon Barrel Aged 17 from Perennial.

I just got a box today from New Mexico with a ton of La Cumbre beers. Elevated is one of the best IPA's out there.

I've got a box tomorrow coming with a bunch of Carton beers from New Jersey.

I've done trades for lots of Tree House beers (Julius, Curiosity 5, David).

We did a trade to get a "horizontal" of Cigar City beers. Marshal Zhukov, Hunahpu's, Double Barrel Hunaupu's.

Just completed a trade to complete my 2010 Lou Pepe set from Cantillon.

My favorite thing to trade for is Crooked Stave's Wild Wild Brett Violet which is getting increasingly more difficult to acquire as less and less are still unopened. Probably my favorite beer that I have ever had.

Just some of the fun beers I've traded for. A lot of people get caught up in trying to tick off every single beer and I admit that when I first started trading I got caught up in chasing whales. Now I more or less try to get beers that I think I will enjoy or that sound fun. If anyone has any questions about trading or wants to just get started, let me know. I've got tons of shipping materials that I have accumulated that I'm sure my wife would absolutely LOVE to get rid of!

*EDIT: Also, if anyone would like to share a beer some time, let me know! I've got way too much beer and need to drink some!

I just saw Wild Wild Brett on a list of Sour Beers to try but it isn't available around here. Are there any other sours I can buy in Central Iowa you would recommend? Where do you guys usually get Toppling Goliath beers?

 

[Cybyassociation]

I just saw Wild Wild Brett on a list of Sour Beers to try but it isn't available around here. Are there any other sours I can buy in Central Iowa you would recommend? Where do you guys usually get Toppling Goliath beers?

Sours:

Exile Beatnik is about the only locally made one that I would really consider sour. 515 makes Lil Tart and its pretty darn good. On the shelves you can find a lot of Prairie Artisan beers, 3 Fonteinen is sometimes on the shelves, Schell's Star of the North series is pretty freaking awesome and the Black Forrest Cherry should be hitting shelves this week or next.

TG stuff you just gotta follow twitter, follow BA, know when they usually drop off stuff. They've got a few locations around Des Moines that they drop bottles off: Mills Civic HyVee, Valley West HyVee, WineStyles, Fleur HyVee, Pleasant Hill HyVee. Then you've got Prairie Trails HyVee in Ankeny and Cyclone Liquors in Ames.

 

[bufante]

So Cybyassociation, I just recently had a couple of Boats (Carton) in a trade, they were fantastic. Did you happen to get any 077xx? If so, I'd love to try one of those. I could offer up a unique IPA in exchange (Fat Head/Voodoo/Oskar Blues among others).

As far as TG goes, you hit the nail on the head, Twitter is the best I've come across. I would also add that it pays to follow your local Hy-Vee (or the one you will be going to get it) they have insights. Recently TG has upped it's bottling and that has boded well for us.

If anyone wants to make any trades, I'm an IPA guy, let me know. Even as small as 1 for 1. I'm all about new beers.

 

[dmclone]

I would like to mention that over the last few weeks TG has been a lot easier to find at these locations. It use to be within an hour of delivery it would be gone. Now it's more like 1-2 days. I still don't understand why they waste their time bottling Dorthy.

By following them on twitter it sounds like by getting rid of kegging it's allowed them to bottle more, which is fine with me.

 

[jumbopackage]

I would like to mention that over the last few weeks TG has been a lot easier to find at these locations. It use to be within an hour of delivery it would be gone. Now it's more like 1-2 days. I still don't understand why they waste their time bottling Dorthy.

By following them on twitter it sounds like by getting rid of kegging it's allowed them to bottle more, which is fine with me.

In and around the Decorah area, I bet they sell more Dorothy's than almost anything else. It probably sells at least 2:1 over everything else in their taproom. It's sort of their "fat tire" in the area, as it were.

And it's a pretty good lager, really.

 

[ianoconnor]

We should do a CF beer tasting night in the Des Moines area sometime. Would be fun to meet people & share some good beers.

 

[Cybyassociation]

We should do a CF beer tasting night in the Des Moines area sometime. Would be fun to meet people & share some good beers.

You name the time and place and I'm there.

 

[Numberjuan]

I'm in