I think I'm done trading

Say it aint so Phil!!! Well thanks for being an outstanding trading partner. Let me know if you make it back for GABF this year I will buy you a beer.

you are one of the beer bros I was talking about in my original post. From one Phil to another, it's all good, and YES believe it or not I have a few stout troopers for you and you only.

I've heard a lot of that lately. I'll respond to an ISO with exactly what the guy asked for, and he'll say, "What else are you willing to offer?" I'll say, "Just what you asked for." Then they say, "I'll pass."

I've noticed this as well, and from some prestigious members.

I have one more big trade coming up, then I think I will be hanging my hat. Who knows, tickers gotta tick....

My goal over the last 8 months has been to build up a cellar that I have to jump into when I get home. There are still a few choice bottles that I'd like to snag, but I'm mostly in this to meet new people when I travel and develop a handful of traders with whom I regularly want to make trades. As of now, I feel like I have 2 or 3 that are in that category, along with a few local people that I know to do tastings with once I move back to the states. (I am still taking applications for westcoasters!) I like tossing in extras, fun bottles, or glassware to people, but it seems like the trading market is going in a different direction. People asking for silly bottles to trade away a Beatification, a bottle of Cantillon losing value because "you can buy it on a website but just have to split the shipping with 17,000 people in your area to make it worth it," or people wanting highly regarded beers because they got lucky with a scratchoff ticket on DLD and their bro said this whale is awesome. Soon, someone will be tazing someone at a beer release and the bros will win.

I've cut way down and am probably in the neighborhood of 6 trades a year now instead of 6 a month. It has gotten way too expensive and what people expect now a days for their beer has turned it into an auction. I think I could save myself time, money, and hassle by just buying something I really want on an auction site.

With the exception of a few, extras seems to be a way for folks to get crappy beer out of their fridge lately.

I'll keep doing a few trades a year to keep some verticals going and get bcbs but other than that Denver has just as good if not better beer than I can trade for.

I can't stop until everyone sends me their Splinter Blue's.

people made fun of me when i announced this back in 2010. i guess it pays to be a big, bootin' drunkard. makes ya popular or something.

but really: trading. makes. no. financial. sense. glad to see others coming around.

srsly tho, hope you'll still hang out and post.

Oh, I ain't going nowhere. But yeah, a lot of slain bottles lay in my wake.

He lives!

i'm only hanging out here for 40 days before ascending to heaven and being seated at the right hand of jean van roy.

interesting post indeed. over the past 3+ years I have had similar trading numbers and have recently said I think the insanity needs to stop. I am limiting to an occasional BIF or LIF and a few regular trading pals across the states. For me it is not the money (although the wife will be happy not to see all the FedEx charges) but more of a change in attitude. The forums have certainly changed and the what's in it for me attitude certainly doesn't help. But as with everything else in life, you need to change and adapt or get out of the way. I am choosing to get out of the way, and that's ok. Regardless, it has all been a fun ride.

I love this one. It's like, well, yes, you could go buy them online by dropping $300, but then why did you put up an ISO? And then these same people want you to give them up for half their cost because you were able to buy so many when they only landed 3 bottles of their 50,000 bottle count beer. Makes my head spin...

I see a battle to the death in our future!

Couple things I feel like adding:

1. I trade exclusively for the beer I want. I have zero interest in whatever ho hum ale whichever brewery put out. I go by the ratings on this website because I don't have a better metric, and I am ok with expanding if the trade includes beers that are rated solid. So I don't necessarily subscribe to, "I'd try any beer" when it comes to trading.
2. Related to above, if it's a small trade, I always ask if the other guy wants to do extras and have zero problem if he doesn't. In fact I stress on no extras sometimes.

This wasn't always the case but now I have trusted trading partners and local BAs that I can count on. Thanks guys!

PS: I hate hating on new traders.

I've just lost interest. If I see a good deal for a Darkness(!) I'm in. Or a Victor Frankenstein.

With the way traders are factoring in EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR, it's become a headache.

Besides, I've had everything I've really wanted, I'll let the newbies fight over a King Henry.

And while this thread is being discussed, another bad trader post is being discussed....
And people wonder why people are quitting. This is the reason thats keeping me from biting the bullet on ISOs that I have. I quit ebay/forum buying atv parts for this exact reason.

I can count on one hand the number of trades I've done in the past 6 years. Because each time I spend 25 minutes packing up a box, then looking at the shipping costs, I say to myself "I am never doing this again".

To clarify: I don't like the hatred directed towards new traders. I consider myself new depending upon the level of beers we're talking.

Also, there is no shortage of shitty self proclaimed veterans on here. Get off your high horse and do it like a business transaction: fair, responsible and on time.

There are a lot of things that make no financial sense...that fact doesn't mean its an effective deterrent. People do lots of idiotic things that make no financial sense week in and week out. Its more about whether you get any satisfaction that makes it worth it for you than whether it makes sense or not financially.

I've done stupid expensive crap that I've told myself never again and there's been others that when I think about the financial side I just facepalm but when I think about what I got out of it I find myself thinking hell yea I would do it again. I don't trade for random shit anymore but there's some beers that if I can't get at an online store then I'll go the trading partner route.

Quitting trading altogether is much easier said than done unless you live in Cali, Portland or any of the other awesome beer cities. If I could get Hunahpu's on shelves and FB Maple Bacon and berliners as well as Wakefield's berliners then I could quit trading in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, all these great beers have severe supply/demand issues and I don't see any other breweries around here producing top notch IPAs/stouts/sours in quantities where they will grace our shelves for some months so I'm stuck with trying to get them from elsewhere.

You are one of the people I plan to keep trading with Al.

I hope I get a shot to trade with some of you vets that are looking to hang it up before it is official. It would be like getting a shot with the Traci Lords of the beer world.

I'm somewhere north of 100 trades and closing on in 3 years of trading as well and I feel the same way. As much as I love getting a box of cool beer, the rest of it just seems like a chore anymore. I'll probably continue to make a trade here and there throughout the year, but I'll never go back to sending out nearly as many as I had those first two years. I'm on pace to cut my cellar way back by the end of the year as well.

I find extras come in waves for me and often times it's newer traders that maybe don't have the cellar or just don't know exta ettiquette that I'm (relatively) disappointed with. Extras are another thing that seem to get better the more trades someone does.

Most hobbies don't make financial sense. But it is hard to put a dollar amount on personal enjoyment.

I drove nine hours to Charlotte to see Jaguars at Panthers in Week 3 of the 2011 season. That made zero sense to most but it was an unforgettable weekend. Yes we CAM!

Driving nine hours to Minneapolis to Darkness Day didn't make sense either, especially considering we slept in a tent in 35 degree weather.

By reading through these it sounds like a lot of vets are too focused on chasing everything or too focused on trading. When I am on a hiatus I focus more energy on helping people try new things or helping newer BAs with trading. Maybe it's easier for me since I'm in the industry?

You didn't sell that guy any Zombie Dust yesterday while I was in your store. That was disappointing.

Haha, I never said I violated distribution maps. Who am I, Ale Emporium?

I don't understand why folks are so offended by the somewhat irrational noob-proposed trade? Just give it a half-chuckle and move on. It seems some people need to get their RDA of self righteous indignation and be the Arbiters of Fairness and Good Taste in any marginally skewed trade proposal. It's the "ISO:FT Police" that are making me less interested more than anything - the upswing in thread-shit...

This thread is depressing. It seems the only reason we're talking about how much financial sense trading makes is because of beers ending up on Ebay. As soon as profit is in the equation, it will suck the community dry of its good will.

I too will be cutting back on my trades... I'll still head out for beer releases and tastings, but I won't be trading as much. My regular partners will still get the hook up though.

I may pop up for a BIF here or there as well.

Trading was great when I wanted to try a bunch of new beers, but realistically, distribution has grown so immensely that I can try a different beer every day for months before I repeat.

I was never much one for chasing whales, and the hype that surrounds EVERY new release is too much.
I'll focus on homebrewing my own sours and sipping Zombie Dust and BCS for a while. I can hardly imagine how trading will be 5 years from now...

Cheers Phil

Not sure why this bothers you. Beer traders have their own culture like any other group of similar people. Maybe you'd be content to travel to some foreign land and behave like a jackass (in the natives' eyes) until you figured out how to conduct yourself, but I think you'd have a much better time and be more welcomed if you tried to learn the etiquette beforehand.

The problem with the chuckle and move on approach is that when the forum is full of those types of threads and a new trader comes onto the scene, that's all they see. So that becomes the norm to them, and they perpetuate it.

I can certainly understand. I have nowhere as many trades as you (a small handfull), but I stopped and took a break after I noticed the costs escalating. There was also a lot of frustration per usual which I dont have the time for.

Still there were some great trades in all of it.

I am discovering out of state store destinations, buying online,cause the cost is about the same and its less of a hassle (sometimes..)

Nothing feels better than visiting a store far from your home grounds with different product and just going ape in the place for me.

The trading thing I found gets to an apex and it sort of... Declines..

No worries shogo, but I know how you feel/felt.

Perhaps you're right. But fostering elitism and know-it-all-ism in cultures can be destructive to those cultures, usually from the inside out and not the other way around. Why not foster support and friendship instead?

I just returned from Rome with my family. I witnessed my dad speaking to Italians with a fake Italian accent when they didn't understand him the first time he spoke to them. Rather than getting offended, they laughed when they realized what he was unintentionally doing. They saw his intention of trying to communicate better more clearly than the medium of talking with a ridiculous accent. Last year in Belgium, people were friendly, not insulting, in the way they corrected my mispronunciations. They understood that we were trying to speak their language(s), and they appreciated it. My experience is that your point about etiquette is moot. Learning etiquette beforehand is a nice way to prepare for a trip, but learning it while immersed in something is usually more effective because you can tie the ends together for yourself. Plus, not everyone has or will take the time to learn etiquette ahead of a trip/experience. People in Europe didn't expect us to know the fine points of their cultures; instead, they were happy to help us understand in the situations we experienced. When you travel to several places in a week or two, learning all of those cultures' idiosyncrasies can be a daunting task that causes more anxiety than security.

Finally, has anyone else noticed that all the responses to my post have been regarding the negative points, which were fewer in number than my positive ones? Maybe this is the biggest issue: the focus on negativity. I did have mostly nice things to say and I still stick by them as of nearly 2 PM today (also, have another potential trade in the pipeline for a most-wanted beer, so huzzah!).

I've noticed that a lot of people are disheartened by the costs of beer trading, but I really don't understand it. Compared to a lot of other hobbies, beer trading isn't so bad. To those complaining about costs, why is this? Is beer not that high of a priority to you? Do you prefer to spread out your disposable income over a larger set of hobbies? Do you just not make enough money even though beer is important to you?

I have no problem throwing a lot of money at my beer hobby since it's really the only major hobby I have that costs anything (the other main two are weightlifting and raquetball and both of those are provided). I don't have an income as I'm a student, so I try to save money in other ways like rarely going out for food and beer and walking two miles to school instead of paying for parking.

The problem is that shipping isn't fun....add on top of that if you are doing a locals for locals the shipping can be literally as much as the beer in the box or more and it just bums a lot of people out.