WaPo does feature on eBay beer sales
One Friday in February 2010, hundreds of beer geeks descended upon California’s Russian River Brewing Co. to score some Pliny the Younger, an imperial India pale ale that is released just once a year — only on draft. Within eight hours, they had bought all 600 gallons, and within days, 64-ounce growlers were selling on eBay for $150 and up. To thwart profiteers, this year Russian River decided not to fill containers. “The only way it was going to get out of there,” co-owner Natalie Cilurzo says, “was in your stomach.”
What are your thoughts on beer auctions?
Breweries: Russian River Brewing
Honestly I do not see a problem with it, people sell wines at auction all the time and nobody complains about that. why can’t people sell beer at auction. it gets beer to places it normally would not.
ya, I understand your point. But this is what makes the craft beer world different from the wine industry.
It’s completely fine by me.
If you’re crazy enough to pay amounts of money like that for beer then more power to you!
It hurts the people in the industry. People have to pay large amounts of money to get licenses to sell alcohol. Also they often times can’t legally ship alcohol from their stores/breweries. People turn around, make huge profits off of the same product without paying tax or checking to see who is getting it. If eBay sellers spent the money/taxes on a license to do it all then it would be more fair.
I respect Russian River’s decision here. What these guys are doing is disrupting the entire point of doing a limited on site release. The point being that they offer this as a special incentive to come and visit their brewpub, and it’s something that they only offer for a limited time window. If’s not a good thing to have a bunch of jackasses going in there on day one and taking it all just so they can (illegally I might add) resell it at a higher price. And frankly it’s just insulting to the brewery.
I have some Dark Lord for sale if you are interested.
If there exists a ‘third rail’ in the politics of the New American Beer Culture, it is surely beer auctions.
It’s nice to know that brewers like Vinnie Cilurzo care enough to take steps to ensure that as many people as possible have the experience of trying these special releases. Additionally, it makes for a nice blurb in the media — not a knock on Vinnie, just an observation. With that said, there must surely be brewers that are indifferent to the second-hand black market that arises from these special releases and would prefer to be able sell their product without being expected to police the buying habits of their customers. One wonders what the consequences would be if any brewery voiced such opinions, even in passing.
While I don’t necessarily support the practice, I think it’s unreasonable to expect every craft beer drinker to hold themselves accountable to this tacit code of ethics that is now part and parcel with the New American Beer Culture.
Ultimately, beer is a commodity. The opportunity to try every new beer, as much as we all may want to, is not some inalienable right and it would seem that far too many view it such, as if every rare beer ‘lost’ to eBay auctions is at the expense of someone who is somehow more deserving.