The concept of trading hard-to-find beers among fans has been around for a long time and chances are that if you’re a self-proclaimed “beer geek” you’ve either traded beer yourself or have friends who do. I first wrote about (well to be fair, Josh @ brewsandbooks.com wrote a guest post and I published it) the phenomenon in October of last year here — but the tradition of beer trading goes much beyond that — and its popularity has only increased with the burgeoning trend of special beer release days, such as Kate Day at the Portsmouth Brewery, Dark Lord Day from Three Floyds, the release of Sexual Chocolate from Foothills, Vagabond from Allagash; the list goes on, across the country.

The results of a disc golf themed "beer-it-forward" trade conducted by Russ from TwinBeer.com

So it’s interesting to see the trend getting some media attention outside of the beer world. The large food & drink themed site, Chow.com, recently wrote a piece on the rising popularity of beer trading (please ignore the gross inaccuracies about Kate Day in the opening paragraph; no one ‘reserved bottles the day before’) with instructions on how to trade (or how people get away with it currently, since it is technically illegal) and a list of some of the more sought-after beers people are looking to trade for on the popular beer forum, BeerAdvocate.

Check out the piece for yourself; who knows what you’d be able to snag for that bottle of Black Tuesday from The Bruery you’ve been stashing away. Do any of the readers out there have any experience with beer trading? Please share (if you are willing & able) in the comment section!

Filed under: Beer Events • Fun Beer Stuff

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