Monday 12 April 2010

Moby Dickheads

I very much enjoyed the little heated debate between The Beer Nut and The Boy Dredge which was provoked by spooge beer. BN set forth the proposition that hard-to-find beers and brewery launches, as seen in the US mostly, were Bad For Beer. Mark, all enthusiasm and curiosity, set out a counter-argument that we could do with more of what he called Blockbuster Beers. There were some great contributions, including from Cookie. For the record, I tend to agree with Beer Nut, although I'm not sure the breweries are loving it all as much as they might.

Now, I've got some very good sources who provided me with information about some of the most recent US launches. I was going to regale you with anecdotes about the idiots who pitched up at Southampton Publick House at around midnight on one of the coldest nights of the year to queue for a couple of beers. Or the spoogebeerians who protested about the price of the Captain Lawrence 2010 Rosso e Marrone, then were seen with many more bottles than the per-person limit. All, no doubt going on eBay, or for trades.

Then, more seriously, there was the fall-out from the Kate The Great Imperial Stout launch at Portsmouth Brewing in New Hampshire, when local Beer Advocates who picked up on rumours of place-holding in the queue, stampeded and panicked the brewpub into changing their opening arrangements at very short notice and with no warning, meaning people who drove from as far away as Boston arrived to find the bottles all sold. Meantime, bottles were being pre-sold on eBay. I hear Portsmouth are thinking about a better way to handle this for next year. I'd suggest one way is to ignore greedy tickers who only want the beer to hoard or sell on.

I was going to set out some of the traders' lexicon - talk about the so-called 'White Whales', the rare beers which make tickers tremble with desire. The circle-jerkery of BIF. The hot-housing of a craft-beer niche by online groups. As Beer Nut proposed, all bad for beer.

Then, I found this.

You don't have to watch it all - you'll get the idea. I think it ought to have had a soundtrack. "Raising The Count" by Cabaret Voltaire, or some dramatic Hammer Horror music would have done. Otherwise, I leave you with one thought. If this guy loves beer, he loves it the same way Josef Fritzl loved his kids. And that isn't good.

14 comments:

Cooking Lager said...

When watching the kids edition of the antiques roadshow I'm saddened to see pristine kids toys that have never been played with. I felt a similiar saddness seeing all that beer, intended for collecting and not necking.

Paul Garrard said...

Cooking Lager for once I totally agree with you.

Mark Dredge said...

I'm impressed as this video starts but the longer it goes on the weirder it gets and the more upsetting it is. There is SO MUCH well known beer there but it's too much! Crazy. The enjoyment is the hoarding and the bragging value, it seems. I'd like a supermarket sweep around his beer cellar - most of that beer needs drinking!

Sid Boggle said...

The bloke who filmed it ought to re-title it the "Beer Mausoleum".

Cooking Lager said...

You don't want to be the video guys mate, but you'd like to attend his wake. One day it will all get necked.

Cooking Lager said...

Without wishing to labour this one, I was hoping it would run and run. I was looking forward to designing a derivatives market for beer geeks, and invite geeks to purchase put and call options on scarce grog. Me and you, Boggle, could make a mint out of this.

Sid Boggle said...

I like your thinking Cookie. Alas, I don't think the geeks have found this blog yet, since I don't get illiterate insults from anonymous readers.

The Beer Nut said...

OMG ur a kok.

Howzat?

Thanks for the solid examples backing up my own vague prejudices about extremely rare beers, btw.

Sid Boggle said...

Nice one BN, I spotted the deliberate mistake... 8-)

surfadelic23 said...

"The bloke who filmed it ought to re-title it the "Beer Mausoleum".

That will have me smiling all day...

On a more positive note, I went to Cigar Citeh's event and it was a very positive and fun experience... but people were actually you know drinking the beer...
.re beer geeks... they're like herpes, once you get em they never go away...

Sid Boggle said...

I hear CCB are on the ticker radar now, due to the local fans bigging them up, and the one-off runs the guy is making, so watch out.

Also got some interesting info from the recent Craft Brewers' Conference in Chicago. Hopefully will be posting that over the weekend.

Truh said...

I was present at the Kate release, and the plaintive cries of the tickers who were denied bottles were music to my ears.

Sid Boggle said...

Heh. Cruel but fair... B-)

Stephen Beaumont said...

Unbelievable! But you missed on the music front, Sid. I watched it with Ivor Biggun's "I'm a Wanker" playing in another browser window and the symmetry was outstanding.