I’m going to write this as a stream of consciousness. There will be no editing or censoring. It’s a better way to share my thoughts. Since everyone loves a good scandal, I will address that first but try to remain short on the subject only to clarify things and provide some insight. The second section, more important in my opinion will be focused on the bigger picture of the beer resale market. I consider resale the act of passing a beer to someone in exchange for goods where neither party are a brewer, distributor or store. Grab a beer and let’s get started!
The Drama
I took some time to respond. A lot of people encouraged me to jump in the conversation early on around my actions but it’s important to listen to the thoughts and opinions of many and come to a solid realization instead of going on the defensive. We’re better than just to react to rumors and unproven stories. I still think 24 hours for a response is pretty good compared to a lot of corporations dealing with crisis management.
There are 300 auctions on eBay for beer as I write this. On average, 2,500 beer sales occur on eBay each month. It’s not a huge number but it’s a big one. Buying beer on eBay is not something I have ever done or condone. I tell people to avoid it because I believe it inflates the value of beer and ruins the very personal craft connection between craft brewers and the men and women who buy their beer. I also believe that beer communities contribute to the same underlying hype around beer. The man who paid $900 dollars for beer was not random. He believes this is the value of that beer based upon reviews, discussions and groups of people in line for its release. The community is fantastic at connecting fans, giving feedback to brewers and helping the advocacy of craft beer which raises awareness and thus grows the market. For this, communities like Beer Advocate are hugely important but, there’s no denying that communities do more to hype eBay sales than those selling the beer on eBay. The seller puts a buy it now price in line with what people are trading for that beer and the buyer pays it because it’s clear everyone thinks highly of it. We are all to blame for this scenario.
I am easily obsessed.
It’s something I’ve been aware of since childhood. We moved a lot when I was a kid so I was in a new school every year. I never had any friends growing up and we never had a home that I spent more than 2 years in so, a lot of my hobbies center around the mindset of “nesting”. Most men are hunters and I am not. I don’t like to wrestle or conflict with others. In school, I’d get beat up and then try to make the bully my friend with gifts and favors. This tactic never worked but, to this day, it still resides within me. I “nest” into my homes and decorate and only have ever been in long-term relationships. I like a constant predictable lifestyle with little change. It’s nice when things stay the same and I’m able to nest.
My first post on BeerAdvocate was “You guys intimidate me.” I still feel that way. When a guy has some awesome collection of beers, has been to Dark Lord Day 5 times or can smell the liquorice in a beer and I cannot, I get a little depressed and go home an drink a lot of beer and setup more trades. I’m driven to find acceptance and, in this community, this need to be accepted drove me to do insane things.
I had a nice savings account at the end of last year, I was debt free and had some plans to go on a month long trip to India at the end of 2012 and was saving like crazy for that. Then, I saw this video on YouTube. I was in awe of it. I went on my first cellarable beer run in mid-December. I picked up Duvel and Chimay and mostly Belgian-Quads. On January 5th, I made my first post on BeerAdvocate and jumped right into the conversation.
A few days later, I was banned for reasons unrelated to what the rumors have said. I wasn’t banned for “being a d-bag”. I was banned for an illegitimate reason that, at the time, others agreed was unfair. I joined a Facebook beer group that a friend invited me to and I took a few weeks away from trading or talking about beer. Then, I went all-in again on a Facebook group. My communication style rubs people the wrong way. I’m well aware of this.
My tone is authoritative. I’ve taken courses to change my writing style to passive and the teachers have always said most people are passive and want the opposite but understood my reasoning. Either way, my responses to every thread on Facebook’s group and my constant buying of beer rubbed people the wrong way. Others have other reasons why they didn’t like me but I think it’s all personal choice. You can’t get along with everybody. I have some great friends still in the beer community but, the in public chatter would have you not believe that. Either way, I left that group. The reason? I was wasting my entire free time in there and it was affecting my daily activities. I was talking about beer more than drinking it. It was time for a change.
Shortly after joining RateBeer, something came up. I needed money fast and had depleted my savings. As of today, from December 20th to April 25th, I’ve spent $11,000 USD on my beer hobby. Gas for road trips, shelf beer buying, trades, shipping, packing materials, shelving and an A/C unit to keep my cellar cool. When life happened and it was time to actually take care of something, I was broke. I thought, a lot of these beers I bought off the shelf. Some were sent to me in trades..most of which I thought were fair trades $4$ and a couple of beers were actually bought from people via Paypal and I paid their markup just below eBay prices for those beers.
I don’t believe in the current state of eBay sales. The impossibly high Buy it Now prices or hidden Reserve prices with outrageous Shipping fees like $30 for one bottle to ship via UPS Ground. I chose to do things fairly. I posted 10 bottles on eBay mid-March. I set the starting price at 99 cents with no reserve and no buy it now with a flat rate of $15 shipping which was about $2 more than the most I’ve spent to send a single bottle of beer to California. I love beer so only sold bottles of beer that I already had tasted before. My gross sales were around $900. This was incredible and completely insane considering I started the bidding at under $10 for all 10 bottles. eBay is not as it would seem though. People do pay outrageous prices for beer but, what’s hidden are the fees.
- eBay Listing Fee
- Final Value Fee
- Shipping Value Fee
- Paypal Fee
- Shipping Expenses due to miscalculation of my part
- Packing Materials
- Initial Investment (Price I paid for each bottle)
My net earnings were $250 on 10 bottles. At an average billable rate of $20, I also spent 5 hours in total setting up auctions, taking photos, fielding questions, packing and shipping bottles and then hassling buyers to pay. Deducting $100 for my time, the net was actually only $150. It’s hard to truly measure time expenses but it’s clear that eBay is NOT the right way to offload beer to pay bills and it’s also a royal pain in the ass. The $150 I acquired didn’t make a dent in my bills and I was left still with over 25 pending auctions for March. I asked a lot of people to wait until April for our trades which I didn’t want to do because then people wouldn’t like me. I tapped into my savings more to do trades for people that I had promised. Some still carried on into April.
Up until Monday, I was receiving 2 trade requests each day. Half of the people who requested to trade with me via BeerAdvocate, RateBeer, Facebook, Messages based on my YouTube videos of my cellar and via strangers texting and calling me. I’ve started getting weird voicemails from strangers asking me to send them things. I traded so much, I began feeling like I was a prisoner to my own hobby. Every day, boxes of beer arrived at my home and, every day, I visited the store to drop off more boxes.
All of April has been a blur. I come home, open a beer, start packing up beers and fielding questions about trades. I post on the forums a bit, go to tasting groups, buy tickets to beer events and hosted 3 people at my cabin who were just passing through. People in the beer community can stay with me for free and nothing in my cellar is off-limits.
Aside from my failure at eBay, I participated in tons of non-reciprocal beer trades and, everytime someone asked for what I wanted in return, I’d respond, “I want local and tasty. Love wilds and sours. Send what you want.” I never told someone “I’ll trade you a Heady Topper for your Kate the Great”. I got a lot of great beers in return but I never asked for great beers. I asked for $4$ trades and went broke doing it.
After 4 months in the beer world, my openness and transparency got the best of me but I think it’s a good thing. A lot of people laughed at my inability to cover up my actions of trading and what I was trading. I use my name and profile pic on every site and don’t hide what I buy or trade. My ebay profile I’ve had since 2003 so that name is not the one I use now but you can search Adamjackson on any site and find me. I like transparency. No one is catching me as a fraud just for their ability to use Google. I live transparently and don’t hide who I am to anyone. I wasn’t abused as a child but, if I was, I wouldn’t mind talking about it. What’s the point in hiding from people? Anonymity is wrong. I can’t change how people behave online but it does bother me that everyone on beer sites uses aliases and rarely has profile pics of themselves. People on Xbox live wonder why I use my real name. Why not? If I piss you off or screw up, you should be able to google me and write me an email. I believe in transparency and everyone that has publicly called me a fraud hides behind fake names.
Despite how people perceived me, those that traded with me (aside from 2 people who’s beers ended up on eBay) and those who stayed at my home and those who received beer from me and the people who invited me to their tastings know who I really am. The guy who got a 4-Pack of Heady Topper from me last time I was at hill Farmstead randomly because I heard he may not be able to get any on this trip to Vermont knows that I have been generous and open to everyone. It’s a shame the only support I’ve received has been in private via calls and emails because a lot of people will continue to trade with me and I’m happy to call them my friends.
This is the truth in everything. It’s the story of how a love of beer paired with a savings account and an obsessive personality and desire to be accepted completely changed my life with the outcome being I alienated my friends who don’t like craft beer and pissed the people off who do like craft beer. I’ll keep drinking craft beer, continue to cellar beer and buy beer and review it. Nothing will stop that because it’s a hobby that I truly enjoy. I’ve reached out to people like Shaun Hill with similar thoughts as above but with more personal correspondence. No one has to forgive me but everyone should know the truth.
Also, I didn’t get help from Shaun of Hill Farmstead and then sell a beer he gave me. I bought Damon on launch day in person and sold that bottle for 5 times what I thought I’d get for it before I even knew Shaun. I was just trying to recoup some of my costs and pay bills. I wasn’t trying to get rich or alienate anyone. Now that I know Shaun, that selling of his bottle has been a weight on my shoulders for the last month. That’s what really happened.
Moving on, there’s a bigger picture to all of this and I’d like to talk about it.
The Big Picture
There is no way to ignore the bigger picture and it’s one only rare mentioned by the beer community. Beer that changes hands for profit or trade is no different than that of the eBay Market. My hatred as a beer buyer for services like eBay is equivalent to my hatred of unfair trades or sales that don’t take place on eBay. They come in a few forms:
- Trade requests from guys asking for whales or rare beers in exchange for a local and easy to get beer that’s popular at the moment. Men who trade Pliny, Heady or Hill Farmstead for “all the whales!” are crooks. $4$ or rare for rare is fine. Heady Topper is popular. I trade it a lot but I’ve never gotten some insanely amazing beer for one as a request. I have gotten great beers for Heady but the conversation always starts with “local and tasty” is what i want. When I trade a Vermont beer, i say, “I can get it easily and it’s local. No matter what you think of it, in return I want something that’s local and easy to get for you.” That’s how trades should work.
- In person sales of beer. “I have some Cantillon I need to get rid of. Message me and we can meet in person.” Then, the person wants $50 a bottle. Remember, this is illegal. Selling beer is illegal but we have all done it. Trades are still an exchange of goods. Just because the sale doesn’t take place on eBay doesn’t mean it’s okay.
- Cellar Cleaning Sales are the worst. I’ve been in on a few of these. I’ve always talked the person down to just over retail pricing and I always pay the shipping myself. Either way, every single person who has offered to sell 20+ beers to me, I hear them out and the pricing is 2-5X retail pricing aka eBay prices. This happens a lot and these forum posts are not scrutinized like eBay sales.
- Muling. I’ve muled for people but never had someone mule for me. The best part about beer is camping out at a brewery, meeting great people and then buying beer and enjoying it at home or at a tasting with friends. It’s a great feeling. I know everyone can’t with kids and jobs and money but it is a lot of fun. Muling is bad because it decreases what’s on the shelf for others who did make the trip. The beer isn’t the reward but it sure is a nice finish line for a great beer-cation.
- Shelf Hoarders. I’ve never bought EVERY beer on the shelf of something rare. I buy what I can drink which is one or two bottles or packs. if there are 2 bottles left, I only grab one. There’s always ONE person behind me that will be looking for the same bottle. To steal that from them is wrong and the shelf hoarders don’t get called out enough. Guys say, “bought the last case of Hopslam” and no one says, “did you really need a case? Why didn’t you just take half a case and leave it for someone else?” Nope, these shelf hoarders are cheered on from the side-lines with hoorahs and jealousy.
Of the 650 beers I bought since January 1st, I traded / gave away 150 of them, cellared 400 and sold 10 of them. As a percentage of my total beer purchases this year, I sold 1.5% of my beer. There are 300 auctions going at any time on eBay so it is a big market. I barely penetrated the top eBay sellers. In fact, my auctions were one-off and there are auctions going for beer 24/7 every single day of the year. Who are these people? I’ve messaged a few of them and they are among you. I know you don’t want to admit it. A lot of people blamed me for making the beer community look bad. I was a face to the eBay phenomenon but there are hundreds of people just like me doing eBay in a far more corrupt way. They don’t start their auctions at 99 cents. They start them at $100 or $900 and a guy comes along and buys beer at those prices. I let the market decide what my beers were worth. These guys set the market price with their auctions and pay their rent from these beer sales. This is wrong and, these salesmen are all around you. You trade with them, interact with them and send them kudos and extras in your trades. Some guys go to these events and buy the max bottles only to sell them online later. A man I spoke to on eBay bought 4 bottles of Lawson’s at $9 a piece and sold them for $100 a piece on eBay.
It’s very clear that there is outrage in this community about eBay. I think it’s misdirected outrage because no one is voicing the same anger for those trading Heady Topper for a King Henry or trying to sell a $15 Dark Lord Day ticket for $200 or “will trade for whales”. I would like to put forward a suggestion. We should out the guys who use eBay and bar them from the community. I will still get a paycheck every two weeks but these guys will suffer greater and should for the massive fraud they are committing by doing $200 Buy it Now prices on beers that someone else bought and traded to them or sold to them at cost and paying their bills with eBay sales of beer. I recently discovered someone I sent a beer to put my beer on eBay. I paid $15 + $12 in shipping and asked for “something local and tasty” and got a standard IPA from California. Then, my beer was on eBay for $75 on a 30 day auction as a buy it now only. In the next 30 days, someone will pay it. I don’t know his username because we did everything through text message but, when I find out, I’ll publish it in the comments.
Closing
I’m new to craft beer. I spent all of my free time and money over the last 4 months but I’m still new to it. I have never told anyone I’m an expert but, the fact that I’m so public about my life makes people think I’m arrogant. Those that know me know this isn’t true but there’s no way I can meet everyone and buy them all a beer. Those that read this are welcome to setup trades with me, stay at my cabin or ping me and we can chat. I’m not too hard to reach and consider this my very open and honest message to everyone in the community. I’m going to head home at 5, open a beer and review it. I love craft beer and will continue to be involved. I’ll still be lurking online and am open and receptive to everyone’s thoughts. Personal attacks, cursing and hate mail won’t be responded to. I don’t curse in conversation and won’t deal with it. if you comment, please do so in a civilized manner.
I would like to be friends with everyone. I realize more each day that is just not possible. This is the last time I’ll write on the subject. Have a great day! Thanks for reading.
Oh and because I’m a Millennial who is “emo and self-centered and insecure”, this song had some nice lyrics that I think encompass the entire ordeal very well.
There are so many horseshit things in this post I cannot even begin to get started.
If you’re wondering, not all of us have sold beer on ebay either. Just please find a new hobby and quit throwing goddamn pity parties for yourself. You’ve completely destroyed any credibility you have. In the end you blatantly lied to people and tried to make yourself look cool. I hope you get your stuff together because you really need to slow down and realize that this is more than just a game to some people.
Can you tell us moar about your raging cheese addiction?
All this has done is illustrated just how broken of a person you are. The level of self deception you employ is staggering, and your account of the incident goes beyond deceptive and straight into pathological. You need a psychoanalyst. Immediately. Get off of your computer and seek professional help, because if you don’t, you’re never going to have the kind of personal relationships you’re desperately clawing for.
so how did it feel to sell al asher, steve kim, and Shawn Hill’s beer for profit?
you waited that long and that’s the best spin you could come up with?
those were nacho beers to sell
Manchego up and admit you screwed some gouda people
^ “this is more than just a game to some people.”
OMG BEER SRS BIZNESS
This is just shit-stirring across multiple beer websites. Beer people love a good shitshow.
To some people beer actually is their life. Its how a lot of us make money and make it our careers
Perhaps, but the huge following of people taking pleasure in this obviously damaged individual’s misery is a completely disproportionate response. It’s a bit sickening to watch. He’s a douche, but this is internet bullying all the way.
people don’t think you’re arrogant because you’re ‘so public’. People think you’re arrogant because you are… well… arrogant!
Adam this is unrelated but do you sell any merch? I’d love to get an Adam Jackson hoodie or pint glass.
Would buy!
The title of this is actually perfect. It puts your crazy perspective of things in one sentence. you just made a huge asiago of yourself, congrats.
So have you talked to Hill Farmstead yet? Think they’ll sell to you ever again?
Hi Adam,
I’ll admit, I was surprised to see that you had gotten into the Ebay-ing of craft beers. While there are 300 or so auctions and handfuls of people in the beer community who participate in this, the vast majority of us do not condone it however tempting it may be. Obviously beers have perceived value due to quality and rarity and can be exchanged for like. When I trade beer, however, I impart value in the knowledge that the person receiving it will be drinking and enjoying it. I also only trade for beers where I will be doing likewise. In other words, beer trading is personal, not just business. Taking that beer received in trade and turning is over for profit is offensive to a lot of us, and I don’t speak for all of us. It is especially offensive to the brewer of a small batch of limited beer who specifically chose the price point not to reflect the actual value, but to allow a certain group of people to afford it. You might see, then, why a lot of people are up in arms about this regardless of the percentage of total beers that were involved.
I think this anti-Adam fervor has been compounded by your self-admitted obsession and lack of addressing it. Regardless of how you were interpreted on various beer community websites, many people responded nicely and not-so-nicely to your posts advising you to slow down, cut back, make better investments. That you are at this point makes me feel like you must have ignored most of what you heard. We were all at some point in time just getting in to the hobby. Many of us reached where we realized we were spending more on the acquisition of beer than we wanted to… but none that I have seen were as profoundly deeply in it as you. It seemed like a lot of folks saw where you were headed and gave you notice. You’ve come this far in a short period if time, sure, but it was avoidable.
I respect your opinions on the greater and lesser evils of beer acquisition and trading. At our tastings, you have only ever been perceived as nice and generous if not a novice participant. As far as personal credibility goes, in person you show up well. The beer community largely feeds on its online presence, though, and by rushing through the process of getting into craft beer you seem to have systematically alienated yourself from this system. I don’t know what happens from here, but I hope you understand why all that has happened occurred and are able to learn from it.Cheers,Jen
The problem isn’t that you sold a beer on Ebay. The problem is you sold a beer on Ebay that someone generously traded to you. As in you sent him easily acquired stuff and he sent you a highly limited beer like the Sexual Chocolate that was sold. Anyone who thinks that trading is just a straight up transaction obviously has no idea what the craft beer community is all about.
The problem that I see is that he is selling beer for a profit, and in turn, completely disregarding everything that the craft beer community is based on. I make my living busting my ass every single day in a small craft brewery, that produces less than 15,000 bbl per year. When we occasionally can release a small batch of handle bottled beer as a one time event, we always end up with the guys that will buy every single bottle they can get their dirty hands on, and put them on eBay the next day. It aggravates me, and many others I’m sure, that people are robbing the beer loving public of the small chance to even taste one of these sought after beers. The craft beer community is incredibly giving, and I have yet to meet another brewer that does not believe that sharing their beer with people is the most rewarding aspect of brewing. Sharing beer. Not selling rare beer to make a few bucks. I would say that I love beer just as much as the next guy, and perhaps even more than most people, but at the end of the day, everyone has a different taste, and I can’t honestly say that there is a single beer on the planet worth all the high price black market shit, or the “trading” or whatever you want to call it. There are some incredible beers out there, and I hope everyone that wants to try them, will have that opportunity, but most likely that won’t happen because of guys like this. I guess he fails to see the beauty that drives the entire craft beer industry, and since it isn’t hard to see, I feel bad for the guy. Maybe once he isn’t so “new” to the community, he might get it. I would like to personally say “you’re welcome” to Adam. Maybe Adam doesn’t think about ALL of the people involved in making that beer that he is hoarding and turning a profit on. The breweries would be quite lucky to make as much profit on their legal sales as he does with his sneaking tactics. I gladly will continue to put in 12+ hour days at the brewery to keep cranking out some great beer. All I need to keep going is to hear comments from consumers about how much they love what we are doing. It never gets old. We don’t do what we do for people like Adam. We do it for the rest of the community that has respect for the craft, not some idea of a new business venture.
Thanks for the insight Adam. You (and people like you) are the reason more and more breweries are starting to release special beers draft only. Keep it up, you won’t have many friends in this community.
Perhaps if it hit a little closer to home to you, you might understand. No worries though, I didn’t really want to spend time with my wife or my family. I didn’t really want to do anything but lean into that kettle for the 12th hour of the day, in hundred degree temps inside the brewhouse, just so you could turn a bigger profit on that beer than we did. It is a labor of love for me. For you, I’m not sure what it is…….
ISO: Roquefort 10, FT: Westvelveeta 12
You forgot Cigar City’s Good Gouda
#occupyadamjackson!!
The ironic part of all of this is Adam is most likely sitting at his computer furiously masturbating while crying at the same time. Giving him attention on his world class blog is only feeding more cheese to his ego.
“Don’t buy beer on eBay*.” Deep Thoughts by Adam Jackson
I once had a good ~100 beer collection. It was too much so I turned to my homebrew club and sold it to them at cost, even though most of it was vintage and had been properly stored in a wine controled warehouse. Then I took my local rarez and ebayed them. Took the profit and dumped it directly into my homebrewing and woodworking hobbies. Difference is: I don’t care what other people think and I certainly never told people not to buy beer off ebay.
Nor do I trade.
Fact is, trading is beyond stupid. How much of the $11k did you spend was on shipping? How many trips could you have taken and had beer At the brewery?! Met locals in person, done trades in person?
Or, if you really do love craft beer, that $11k could have bought you a TON of VERY nice stainless brewing hardware. Check out morebeer.com and look at their sculptures and conicals. You could have bought a 10 gallon stainless fully decked out tippy + 2 fully temp controlled 14gal conicals for $8,200 and still had $2k+ grand left to brew and really learn what beer is about. Plus, if you ever needed to sell it in a pinch you would have made back a ton more cash than on beer since you can’t drink stainless.
Most people are mad due to how you made trades, the fact you’re a hypocrit and then you spend many paragraphs rationalizing away your actions. It’s a fickle crowd and beer is addicting, trading is stupid and beyond expensive and in the end…you’ve got what? Drink local and save and travel to beery cities and tick the beers in person, it’s much more rewarding.
I already own my house (well I pay the bank), but $11k would have been a good start on a downpayment…what are your priorities? What’s your girlfriend think you blew that much dough on booze? What do you want your future to be?
Good luck.
Put your finger in your butt!!!
Adam, in all seriousness, I’m not here to to pummel you more than you already have been with dumb cheese jokes or swearing at you. However, you could not have got off to a worse start than you did with the title of your blog post. You knew/know the whole ebay thing is taboo in the “beer community,” but you did it anyways…while SIMULTANEOUSLY stating that you thought it was wrong in the ratebeer forums. OK, sucks to be you, but own up to it. Throwing out the whole “1.5% of Your Beer” immediately in the title makes it look like you are trivializing your actions based on the amount of beer you sold compared to the amount of beer you own.
A few things to consider:1. Realize that’s the amount of beer you SOLD and not the amount of beer you INTENDED TO SELL. 2. Realize that’s the amount of beer you tried to sell before you got caught. You got caught on April 24th. Your last beer sold on April 23rd…maybe that was that date your last beer posted for auction…I forget. Either way, people aren’t going to believe you coincidentally intended to quit the day you got caught.3. Realize that if the most experienced BA/RB member or the most senior “beer community” member even sold ONE beer in the manner you did (ultimately a significantly smaller percentage than your own), he’d be getting hammered on too…although there would be a few more cutting a “veteran” some slack…but not much more.4. You sold beer traded to you. In the “beer community” that’s a flat out a no no…I don’t care how you justify the “exchange of goods.” It is NOT the same as trading.5. For someone who self proclaimed he made six figures, I understand your “work” time may be more valuable than $20/hour. However, you need to realize there very well may have been someone who traded you beer or someone in the “community” witnessing all of this who “only” makes $20/hour (or less) at a real job where they really do work. They are not going to sympathize with your argument that you “worked” 5 hours selling/emailing and packaging the beer. Packaging beer may not be fun, but it is not inherently WORK…especially when beer trading is a part of your hobby. Claiming to knock off $100 of profit because of your tireless “work” is not earning you points with anyone.6. With shipping, you sold the Hill Farmstead beer for around $160, so let’s take out the cost of the beer, the shipping, and packaging expenses. You approximately profited $120-$125 on that beer alone. Do not expect us to believe you only made $25 on the other nine beers.
7. You say ban anyone who ebays beer. Does that include you…or do you consider yourself some sort of special exception?
Ultimately, don’t JUSTIFY it…you can’t. Own up to it and apologize the best you can. For some (maybe even most) that won’t be enough, but don’t continue on with this charade. Very few, if any, are going to sympathize with you and making excuses is only going to make it worse.
I’m a fat piece of shit who rips people off for Beatification.
I an attest to that. Hot and sweaty all the way.
I hate everything and will die alone without ever enjoying anything cool.
That’s a very, very beautiful house for someone who balls as hard as you do. Must be your 5th vacation home that isn’t finished. I remember my first 5th vacation home….
People are still supporting you because they’re hoping you’ll send rare beers to them before you break down. Same reason they “friended” you in the first place. An excited n00b with obsessive issues who they might as well take a shot at taking advantage of.
You need help, Adam. Remember that you were continuing to spend ridiculous amounts on beers and trades while auctioning off your beer. What does this tell us? You didn’t auction beers to take care of a financial emergency… you auctioned beers because you weren’t willing to put a pause on your obsession of beer collection while you had to take care of a financial emergency.
You kept crying for help (starting threads in all caps like the infamous NO MORE TRADES!), admitted the problem, and have done nothing to address it. Own up and take care of yourself.
Adam,
First of all, for the most part I don’t think there are good and bad people, but good and bad actions. I have known people to go out of their way to be generous to me, yet also steal from me personally. I believe that 99% (or maybe 98.5%) of your actions are good, kind, generous, upstanding, courteous, and honorable, but this one was not.
Apologies are not well received when they come with caveats. If you want to mend fences, I would advise you to own your mistake entirely and apologize. Some of what you wrote does make sense, and some does not. NOT everyone has sold beer. The fact that you didn’t profit as much as people may think does NOT make the act any less offensive. It makes it all the more obvious that you made a mistake and should own up to it not partially but completely. It does not sound good when you simultaneously swear that you are against ebaying beers, yet make excuses for doing it yourself.
You must recognize that this “getting in over your head” was no one’s fault but yours. You got plenty of advice to be careful, but you ignored it. I’m sorry that you made the first mistake of overextending yourself. We all make mistakes. That does not excuse the second mistake you made in an attempt to fix the first one. There are also some serious problems with your story, particularly the fact that you clearly continued to pursue the hobby (driving around Vermont 5 days ago to buy a whole lot of beer) while these “bail out” auctions were going on.
I know things can be easier said then done with it comes to problems with insecurity (I speak from experience) but honesty is always the best policy and the best way to make friends. You would have been much better liked in the long run if, when you had overextended yourself with trading, if you were completely honest with pending trading partners. A few people may have been annoyed, and I know that’s painful (again, I’m not being condescending, I’m sympathizing) and some maybe have been complete dicks, but that’s the mature thing to do. You know the saying “the coverup is worse than the crime?” You alienated a lot more people with your second mistake than you possibly could have with being honest about the first one.
I don’t think you are a fraud. I don’t think you are obsessive either. I think you are an insecure guy who overcompensates, and I don’t mean that as an insult. You want people to like you, which is a good quality, and you don’t know exactly how to do it, which is quite common.
Relax. Take a deep breath. Own your mistake. Apologize. Focus on being yourself, not your hobby. People will like you.
BTW, I’m posting with my real name. It’s not what I use for an online handle, but many people will know me by both.
Your whole story doesn’t add up. If as you said “When life happened and it was time to actually take care of something, I was broke” then why did you just return from a VT beer haul with at least $140 at Alchemist, around $130 in Lawsons, and somewhere between $140-$260 at Hill Farmstead? Not to mention 6 hrs worth of gas and your time (which you apparently value at $20/hr for a beer hobby). Those are not the actions of a (sane) person having financial problems and who has resorted to selling beer on eBay.
It is hard not to have suspicions that you aren’t just selling on eBay, but that you’ve hooked up with other people and are selling directly to them for profit as well. In your beer trip post you say you only buy what you can drink in a month, but that means you must be downing 2 HTs, a HF 750, and some
Lawson’s every day without even thinking of touching anything else in your cellar. Again it just doesn’t make sense.
I don’t want to resort to the name calling others have, but it seems either you are still lying to everyone here or you are lying to yourself and need to get checked out medically.
Three questions:
1) Are you going to refund the eBay buyers who purchased the beers you traded to get because they are not “One-Owner,” as you described them in your eBay listing?
2) Do you think anyone in the beer community would have traded with you if you were “transparent” then and said, “I may drink these beers, or I may sell them on eBay.” I don’t think so.
3) Knowing what you know now, will you continue to sell beers on eBay?
I’ll trade with him if he sells my beers on ebay. I don’t give a shit what he does with the beer once ownership transfers to him, and neither should anyone else. This nonsense about being upset over people ebaying traded beers is purely emotion based.
He begged for people to send him hard to get beers by playing the mopey, emotional greenhorn trader card, people felt bad for him and sent him those hard to get beers in trades that were incredibly lopsided in his favor. Those people have every right to be pissed at him.
Logic and Vic Romano pose to entirely different arguments above, yet I agree with both of them. If the brewers don’t want to see beers on eBay, don’t bottle them (simple as that). Draft only at the brewery. There is no need for people to continue to stress and get bent out of shape over something that you cannot possibly put a stop to. If there is an opportunity for a buck to be made, someone is going to step in to make it. I have purchased Heady Topper for what I considered a very fair price on eBay. Once it leaves the brewery, I have every right to attempt to obtain it and come to a fair agreement with another consenting adult.
I personally don’t give a shit about eBaying beers. I just don’t like how he begged and pleaded for people to send him these rare beers for next to nothing in return because “man, I’ll never be able to try that beer :(” and then turned around and sold them on eBay. He says he bought them all off the shelf, but that’s total bullshit, as I know several of the people who gave him the beers he sold in good faith. He conned people, flipped a profit and is playing on the (seemingly) good nature of you people with a fabricated sob story in order to walk away without incident. During the time he was faced with a “financial crisis” and setting up eBay auctions, he was buying up hundreds of dollars of beer (posting pictures of it all to brag about it online) and planning a trip to Belgium in a couple weeks where he plans on buying 150 bottles of Cantillon and 3F and shipping them back to the states. Adam makes a 6 figure salary.
I don’t care about Adam selling beers. It’s like the war on drugs; nobody will ever stop it so we might as well give up on that. I care about Adam willfully manipulating people, fucking people over and refusing to own up to it when irrefutable evidence of all of it is brought out into the open. Thanks to the power of the Internet, most people will have a loud and clear head’s up when it comes to trading with or even talking to this jackwagon.
I didn’t have a full appreciation for this guy’s epic douchebaggery until I read through all of the comments…and since when do hobbyists (of any sort) have an “average billable rate of $20”? The IRS would call that a business…and if it’s a business involving the sale of alcohol, and you don’t have the proper licenses (and are selling beer across state lines taboot), I imagine that both the IRS and the ATF might frown on your activities.
I didn’t have a full appreciation for this guy’s epic douchebaggery until I read through all of the comments…and since when do hobbyists (of any sort) have an “average billable rate of $20”? The IRS would call that a business…and if it’s a business involving the sale of alcohol, and you don’t have the proper licenses (and are selling beer across state lines taboot), I imagine that both the IRS and the ATF might frown on your activities.
You should have gone to India.
were you known as jojo in a previous life?
You jumped in the deep end before you learned how to swim.
To help you on your path to enjoying beer as opposed to obsessing, collecting, cellaring, and impressing people with your beer collection (which, you never impressed most, I thought it was incredibly foolish) you need to start over with your beer appreciation, you did it the wrong way.
Have you ever bought a 6 pack of Anchor Steam, relaxed, and drank a few over an afternoon? Have you ever bought a 6 pack of Sierra Nevada Porter?
Do it. You have completely missed the mark on what beer appreciation is.
Grow Up. Be a man. Stop blaming everyone and everything else in life for your problems. Learn self control. Learn to take criticism. Learn how to lighten up. I honestly feel bad for you. I would hate myself if I was you.
You are the poster boy for the “Me Generation” … no one cares about your problems.
The Kim Kardashian of Kraft Beer!
You write too much. Anyway, this reminds me of you …
Balls
it’s your beer once you buy it and you are free to do with it what you want…anyone who says otherwise is a communist.
Hai guise what’s going on in this thrad?
nobody makes anybody do anything they weren’t ready and willing to do in the first place. that argumment of “they made me do it” is bullshit. the “Free Market” rules!
I SELL BEER ON EBAY BUT NO ONE CARES BECAUSE I’M FAMOUS
You ought to have spent the money you spent on beer on therapy to help with your hoarding / obsessive behaviors, which you say you have known for a long while.
Famous? I’ve never heard of Adam Jackson before I saw this post on BeerNews.org. Why the hell is everyone being so mean? It’s just beer, people, fuck….
Do I care that, for example, Beatification is going for $50 /bottle on eBay? No, not a god damn bit because if someone is dumb enough to pay that much for it, and I have a bunch to sell at a significant profit, you bet your ass I would. I love profiting off of morons.
Again, it’s just beer, people, fuck.
”
Famous? I’ve never heard of Adam Jackson before I saw this post…”
Exactly, you don’t know the entire story. Don’t be an ignorant person who reads one thing and thinks it to be the entire truth. Why would you even comment on this if you essentially state you don’t know the whole story. Stop being a lazy fuck and do some research/reading before posting you twat.
Welp, you’re an asshole.
No, he’s been ripping people off in trades as well. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Well, sorry to hear that. I guess Mr Jackson is just a faggot, then, oh well…. after all this he will have issues trading in the future.
Anonymous or not, everyone now knows what kind of egotistical bigot you are, you no class waste of space.
Cheerz.
wow, you certainly have an obsession with “faggots”. is your vocabulary just limited or are you repressing your homosexuality? no worries bro, but i hope for your sake it’s not the latter ’cause no self-respecting “faggot” would go near your uglyass even if with a 50 foot pole.
Well at least I know if I ever met your pudgy ass I could at least kick it after looking at your photos. Perhaps you should put the beer down and hit the gym. And tell your lady friend to put the fork down and hit the gym.
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/31652_538735782289_27801815_31846244_5883434_n.jpg
HOT
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/31652_538735797259_27801815_31846247_1864797_n.jpg
Stay classy, Mr. Advice.
Haha, anonymous faggot threatens to beat someone up on the internet. Go back to XBox Live, champ.
You could have at least photoshopped a dick in my mouth or something.
Anyway, I’m done feeding the troll. Stay classy.
The problem really isn’t people selling beer on ebay. They couldn’t do it unless there were people willing to buy it. If people are willing to pay outrageous prices for certain beers that is their problem. Not the person listing it. If brewers have a problem with their beer being resold on ebay they should raise their prices to what the market will bear.
I really like this post, particularly this: “When I trade a Vermont beer, i say, ‘I can get it easily and it’s local. No matter what you think of it, in return I want something that’s local and easy to get for you.’ That’s how trades should work.” I think that would be cool and I wish people actually did that.
All the people who work at breweries, bottle shops, and beer bars make craft beer a really great experience. The beer advocate community is terrible. Its filled with people like “Mr. Advice” who like being in their little club. They don’t want to help you and don’t want you in it. On the whole spectrum of people involved in the craft beer community, beer advocate forum users are, by far, the worst.