{"id":993,"date":"2012-10-30T08:22:34","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T12:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam-jackson.net\/beer\/?p=993"},"modified":"2012-10-30T08:22:34","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T12:22:34","slug":"trading-vermont-beers-and-my-personal-ethics-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/10\/30\/trading-vermont-beers-and-my-personal-ethics-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 Trading Vermont Beers and my Personal Ethics Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:9642,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/44048128@N00\\\/7354711928&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/44048128@N00\\\/7354711928&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p><a title=\"View &#039;Lawson&#039;s Beer Haul 6-9-2012&#039; on Flickr.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/44048128@N00\/7354711928\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img  loading=\"lazy\"  decoding=\"async\"  style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"  src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABAQMAAAAl21bKAAAAA1BMVEUAAP+KeNJXAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAAAlwSFlzAAAOxAAADsQBlSsOGwAAAApJREFUCNdjYAAAAAIAAeIhvDMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"  alt=\"Lawson&#039;s Beer Haul 6-9-2012\"  width=\"640\"  height=\"480\"  border=\"0\"  class=\" pk-lazyload\"  data-pk-sizes=\"auto\"  data-pk-src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7086\/7354711928_ef60696153_z.jpg\" ><\/a><\/p>\n<p>More misinformation on how I handle trading. Clarification on<strong> how I trade <\/strong>almost 100% of the time:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Half of my trades aren&#8217;t trades. They&#8217;re muling for friends and strangers. All I ask for is $5 for gas and packing materials and I do this regularly for anyone that asks. If you ask and I say no, just ask again in a few months. Sometimes, I&#8217;m just &#8220;muled out&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Almost all of my trades are $4$. If we do a 1st trade, I&#8217;ll ask that we keep things at that and under $30. That&#8217;s why I am not trading for King Henry. I won&#8217;t send $70 in beer for a bottle that cost $20 or less.<\/li>\n<li>I often underquote how much shipping costs me when muling. This is a problem I should resolve by using online shipping calculators.<\/li>\n<li>I only do non $4$ trades with regular trading partners that I trust and know. If you think an $8 Lawson&#8217;s IPA is worth the same as a $20 Crooked Stave beer, I&#8217;ll offer extras and try to balance it out. Uneven dollar value trades weigh on me and I try to trade with those people again to make it up to them. Some traders get random boxes from me because I like sharing beer.<\/li>\n<li>The majority of my trades to others are for shelf beers that I can get in my area. White Birch, Hill Farmstead, Lawson&#8217;s, Alchemist and other less-known breweries and off-the-shelf beers from my local Co-Op from Founder&#8217;s, Cantillon,\u00a0Mikkeller.<\/li>\n<li>I have &#8220;mules&#8221; (I hate that term) near a lot of breweries. When you see my &#8220;haul&#8221; photos. I have So-Cal, Nor-Cal, Chicago, Indiana, NYC, Boston, Tampa, Atlanta, Austin, Portland and Phoenix covered. These are each 1 person per city who have 6 bottle shippers from me and when beers come out, I ask if they mind picking it up for me and, when the shipper is full, they send it to me. A lot of my hauls aren&#8217;t trades but these friends sending me my boxes on my dime.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Who I trade with:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Regular trading partners. There are about 12 of you. I send each of you a box at an average of once every 2 months.<\/li>\n<li>Blog Readers \/ Facebook Friends. There are a lot of you. I LOVE the Locals 4 Locals trades from guys who aren&#8217;t on RateBeer or Beer Advocate that find my blog and email me randomly asking to do a trade. I generally send shelf IPAs and they do the same. It is a lot of fun and low stress aside from the fact anyone could scam me using this method. I sometimes ask them to ship first if they aren&#8217;t a user on a beer community site.<\/li>\n<li>People who message me on RateBeer asking me for Vermont beers. These are a small group but I still get them quite often but don&#8217;t do a lot of them or offer to mule for them instead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What I don&#8217;t do<\/strong>: <em>Things I&#8217;ve heard that I do that is simply not true.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Respond to FT \/ ISO threads on RateBeer or BeerAdvocate. I&#8217;m not even a user on BA so that point is moot. I think I&#8217;ve responded to 4 threads all summer that are ISO and most are when I have a beer in the cellar I got in a trade that I don&#8217;t plan on drinking so I respond to these. I don&#8217;t think any of these have worked out. Also, sometimes I know someone who has the beer you&#8217;re looking for so I try to connect traders that could work something out.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Ransom Vermont Beers. Lawson&#8217;s Farmhouse Rye is $30. Cantillon Saint Lamvinus is $30. That&#8217;s a $4$ trade that I got done last month. I don&#8217;t put a value on these beers beyond what I paid for them. If a beer is limit 1 per person, I simply don&#8217;t trade it because, usually, I want to try it myself. You won&#8217;t see me trading special release Hill Farmstead beers.<\/li>\n<li>Buy beer from Vermont for the sole purpose of trading it.<\/li>\n<li>Make good on trades. If a bottle breaks in a trade I sent you, I always make it right. I&#8217;ve heard I don&#8217;t complete trades or make good on trades. This has never happened.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There&#8217;s one case recently where bullet 2 is a different case. I&#8217;m doing a very large trade with a guy in Chicago. We have exchanged over 175 emails in the last month. He LOVES beers from HFS. He doesn&#8217;t really have a lot of interest in other non-HFS beers. So, I&#8217;ve promised him some beers and he has been very personable and transparent with things as have I. I am sending him 12 bottles of beer all &#8220;shelf&#8221; beers from Vermont and from my cellar over the next 2 months and he&#8217;s sending me beers such as Cigar City Leon, BCBS and Cascade Sours. Naturally, I put more value on his beers and some of these are not $4$. However, the start of this trade was me offering to send a lot of beer to him from my cellar in order to score his Black Raspberry Lambic from Southhampton as a Christmas \/ Birthday gift for my Girlfriend. It&#8217;s the only beer I&#8217;ve actually sought out this year because it means a lot to her and it would make her birthday great to give this to her as a gift.<\/p>\n<p>The primary thing I keep hearing is that I visit Hill Farmstead a lot (almost every 2 weeks) and that I&#8217;m getting all of these growlers and trading for whales. Not true. As I stated earlier, I am muling a lot more now. Regular trading partners ping me about trading but I&#8217;m trying to save money so, most of the time, I have them give me a box of their HFS growlers and I wash them, go up to the Hill, fill them and give them back to my friends. That&#8217;s that is happening almost every time. I have them tell me what they want and get it for them. The &#8220;Go and pick it up for me bro&#8221; is pretty much all this is.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve actually told brewers in Vermont that I do this. I don&#8217;t go to Alchemist and get 10 cases of Heady Topper and pretend it&#8217;s all for me. I get 2 cases a month and tell them &#8220;My buddy in California loves this stuff&#8221;. I&#8217;m transparent about it. When it comes to growlers, I&#8217;m picky. I only send people swing-top growlers and only smaller sizes (1L or 750ML). I usually ship the same day or next day the growlers and, if I don&#8217;t ship for 24 hours, I keep the growler in the fridge and out of sunlight. I&#8217;m very careful about growler shares. Friends say they&#8217;re good for months. I don&#8217;t believe that and, in personal experience, 1-3 day old growlers are never as good as hour old growlers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So, the muling is something that I do for people who ask. It&#8217;s a lot of work and sometimes, I drive 4 hours for beer and get nothing for myself. I don&#8217;t make any money but don&#8217;t mind driving and have a backlog of audio books so it&#8217;s fine for me. Muling is a way of spreading beer love and most of my mule \/ trading partners have indicated many times that I&#8217;m the only person that doesn&#8217;t ransom Vermont beers. I don&#8217;t pretend like going up to a Farmer&#8217;s market in Montpelier and buying some beer and locally raised beef and fresh maple syrup with my girlfriend was some insanely hard experience that warrants &#8220;rare whales&#8221; in exchange for an $8 IPA. A lot of traders in Vermont have extensive cellars because they ransom their state&#8217;s beers. I don&#8217;t do that.<\/p>\n<p>My cellar which isn&#8217;t that extensive compared to a lot of you guys is big because I do a LOT of trading. I do less now than before but I don&#8217;t get &#8220;rare whales&#8221; for my Vermont beers. I get standard beers and sometimes trade those up for better beers and I trade up quite often. I honestly only favor about 3 styles of beers, Stouts, Saisons and Wild ales. The others I&#8217;ll give away to friends, extras or only open when people come to my place for tastings.<\/p>\n<p>==============<\/p>\n<p>The notion that I&#8217;m taking advantage of Vermont brewers to slay rare whales is simply not true. I haven&#8217;t posted any FT threads for Vermont beers. The only FT I ever did has been for a Toronado 25 bottle and didn&#8217;t want anything rare in return, just &#8220;quality wild \/ sour beers&#8221;. I realize now what a mistake that was because I received over 50 messages in 24 hours. I guess for rare beers for trade, you should actually be specific about what you&#8217;re looking for. That was news to me. I have never ISOed any beer other than black raspberry lambic so wasn&#8217;t aware of that.<\/p>\n<p>I guess in short, beer lovers can crash at my house for free and I host someone here every 2 weeks and we open beers and I generally cook a lot and give them beers to take home. I mule a lot for people and $4$ trade with people I trust and locals 4 locals trades with strangers who email me through this site.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, trading is a lot of fun. The misinformation is annoying because it makes me look like I&#8217;m taking advantage of brewers who I actually respect and get along with quite well and would help out any time they needed a favor. This post was written a bit defensively. I realize that now but I hope it clarifies my trading style and how I try to do things. Most people in this community aren&#8217;t as transparent. I do things a bit differently and hope this helps shed light on my personal style for trading.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for reading this blog. I&#8217;ve met a few of my readers lately and everyone has been awesome.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More misinformation on how I handle trading. Clarification on how I trade almost 100% of the time: Half&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2018-12-07T16:46:52Z","apple_news_api_id":"b7fe68a5-b287-4b1a-b100-73747cca98ed","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2018-12-07T16:46:55Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/At_5opbKHSxqxAHN0fMqY7Q","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-my-thoughts","7":"cs-entry","8":"cs-video-wrap"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-g1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1212,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/12\/27\/how-to-slay-whales-daily\/","url_meta":{"origin":993,"position":0},"title":"\u2605 How to slay whales daily","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"December 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I got an email from a reader. It was actually more of a conversation and he said, looking at my Flickr page, there's no way I am getting great beers legitimately. Meaning, I must be \"winning trades\" or trading away a lot of beer for one or two whales. His\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Thoughts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hill Farmstead Brewery in Greensboro Vermont","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7187\/6899535265_888d8607b3_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7187\/6899535265_888d8607b3_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7187\/6899535265_888d8607b3_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7655,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/04\/25\/ebay\/","url_meta":{"origin":993,"position":1},"title":"\u2605 How to piss people off by selling 1.5% of your beer.","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Thoughts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"This week's beer trades","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8156\/6959968096_3a83523d6a_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7753,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2014\/05\/15\/trades-falc0n2600-is-right\/","url_meta":{"origin":993,"position":2},"title":"\u2605 Trades: falc0n2600 is right","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"May 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"via: Trades are ridiculous everywhere. Someone offered 2 West Ashley's and TWELVE Beats for a BVDL! And it looks like it didn't get done?! The \"inflation of trade value\" or whatever is due to a VERY SMALL number of people, like, one person, who really wants a fucking beer, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Thoughts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1237,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2013\/01\/03\/tutorial-how-the-ups-billing-system-works\/","url_meta":{"origin":993,"position":3},"title":"\u2605 Tutorial: How the UPS Billing System Works","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Shipping and packing is a big part of beer trading. Most of the beer world uses FedEx for their shipments. I use UPS. It's just a preference of mine. Last night, I received an email from a reader asking me about last year's eBay debacle and how the stats posted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Thoughts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screen Shot 2013 01 02 at 9 50 22 AM","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/adam-jackson.net\/beer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Screen-Shot-2013-01-02-at-9.50.22-AM.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3000,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/10\/02\/a-few-recent-hauls-trades-october-2015\/","url_meta":{"origin":993,"position":4},"title":"\u2605 A few recent hauls \/ trades (October, 2015)","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"October 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"With all of the car things going on lately, I\u2019ve been really limiting my beer purchases to local stuff and zero trading other than I guess the regular box of Bruery beers from my trustee who splits Hoarders with me. Anyway, I did a random reddit post about having more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Beer Haul&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Beer Haul","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/beer\/beer-haul\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Beer Trade, 10-2-2015","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5687\/21707908979_a3454d0ea8_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5687\/21707908979_a3454d0ea8_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5687\/21707908979_a3454d0ea8_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2500,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2014\/11\/29\/linked-vav-of-lp-binnys-in-chicago-on-the-2014-goose-island-bcs-release\/","url_meta":{"origin":993,"position":5},"title":"\u2605 Linked: Vav of LP Binny&#8217;s in Chicago on the 2014 Goose Island BCS Release","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"November 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"via BeerAdvocate (ugh): I got about 14 hours of sleep so i'm all bright eyed and bushy tailed today. Thanks to all the Goose\/Lakeshore Bev people on hand to help out, super extra thanks to all the Binny's employees, and mondo amazing thanks to all of you for coming out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Beer News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Beer News","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/beer\/beer-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}