I have a collection of
beer bottles which is made up of the less familiar beer labels, such as Hellbender Beer, as well
as hundred year old bottles from Busch Brewery. The bottles, whether for their
unique glass or colorful labels, make wonderful collecting items. I will post
some more in depth articles on beer bottles later. For now I’m posting this. -Otto
From F5:
June 19, 2014
Some people collect stamps. Some
collect coins. Others compile stacks of comic books, shelves of figurines,
boxes of baseball cards, or lists of phone numbers. I collect beer. When the
zombie apocalypse comes, I may not have a cache of food or weapons, but I will
be well stocked with beer. I expect to be quite popular.
It was this hobby/obsession for
collecting/hoarding beer that sent me driving all over greater Wichita in
recent weeks in search of Boulevard Brewing Company's Love Child #4. This
special release just hit the market and the few stores that received cases have
limited people to a few bottles per purchase. Its limited availability is what
fueled my gas-guzzling collecting crusade; and, though I am fairly
environmentally friendly in most pursuits, the fact that Love Child is a
barrel-aged wild ale, and I am wild about all beers pucker-inducing, compelled
me to drive to the farthest reaches of the city in search of more.
How many bottles of a single (high-priced)
beer could one person need? That is difficult to quantify. You need one to
drink now, one to drink soon and, in this case, one to drink in a vertical
tasting with each subsequent Love Child release forever and ever and ever …
assuming that is how long Boulevard brews it. Though beers are released
ready-to-drink, part of the excitement in collecting is tasting how beers
change (for better and worse) throughout the years and how they compare with
different vintages. The promise of these distant beer tastings impelled me from
store to store, picking up my allotment or adding my name to waiting lists.
Such expeditions are common — unlike
the rare beers being sought. It seems as though every week there is something
new and exciting to be hunted and gathered. Lest you think that I, as a beer
collector, am a rarity, I am not. There are many of us out there buying and
hoarding and trading and, on occasion, drinking these hard-to-come-by beers.
Spending the better part of a day trekking around town is the least of what I
and other hardcore collectors will do to get their hands on the rarest of
beers.
Traveling great distances to stand in
long lines is par for the course. However, increasingly, there are ways to
avoid this (though I am always up for a beer-cation). Beer trading websites and
apps like The Beer Exchange and beer trading groups on social media outlets
such as Facebook, Reddit and Google+ make acquiring beers from the other side
of the country or the world a bit easier. Most operate on system where users
trade equal dollar amounts worth of beer. Such trading is pretty
straightforward, though there are considerations with the actual shipping of
beer. Many shipping companies, like UPS and FedEx, have rules regarding the
shipping of alcohol by individuals. Typically, these rules are simply ignored.
Such rule-breaking is still less illicit than a technique employed by one
extreme beer collector who, according to reports, hired prostitutes via
Craigslist to stand in line for him at a beer release. Adding a bit of legend
to your acquisitions could increase their "value," if not call into
question your sanity.
For the rest
click
here.
Pix from brooklandbridge.com.
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