First you need a place to setup a trade. I use the beeradvocate.com forums, but there is also a trading area on ratebeer.com, and I’m sure several others that I don’t know about. Since beeradvocate.com is what I use to trade, it will be used for my examples. The site offers three ways to trade beer: Wants/Gots lists, the Beer Trading – ISO/FT group, and the Beer Trading – BIF group.
Wants/Gots
When you’re browsing for beer on the site, there are a few links in the upper right portion of the page that relate to trading:
Clicking “+ Add to your Wants” will add this beer to the list of beers you’re looking for. Clicking “+ Add to your Gots” will add this beer to the list of beers you currently have. Keep in mind that you don’t actually have to have the beer you add to your Gots, it can be any beer that you can buy at your local liquor store. If you click on the “44 wants” link it will show you all of the users looking for this beer, and the “16 gots link” will show you the users who have this beer. Once you have added a few wants and gots, you can click on the “My Profile” at the top, and view your Wants and Gots lists.
This view is my Wants list, and there is a little + next to every beer I’ve added, that expands to show users who have matching Wants and Gots. After you have everything setup that you’re looking for and have to offer, you can either wait for somebody to contact you, or start sending messages to people that you have matches with. You have to follow the Beer Trading – ISO/FT group if you want people to be able to see your matches, so don’t forget to join. If you’re not the patient type, you can move on to option two.
Beer Trading – ISO/FT
This section of their forums is setup for people to initiate trades by posting what they’re looking for (ISO = in search of), and what they have to offer in return (FT = for trade). In order to start a post like this, you just navigate to the group and click the Start New Topic button. My first trade looked like this:
The subject states that I’m looking for Oskar Blues, and I’m pretty open about what I have to trade. I also included a link to a store that has their inventory online so people could look through and hunt for what they wanted in trade. I was specific about being dollar for dollar, but that’s implied for trading. I had about five hits on this offer in about 15 minutes, with several more coming in after. General etiquette is that you take the first reasonable offer to come in, but it’s your beer, and you can do what you want with it.
The first person to write me on this offer worked in a liquor store, so he knew the prices off the top of his head. In return for the 20 beers I requested, he wanted a 6-pack of Three Floyds Alpha King, a 6-pack of Thirsty Dog Siberian Night, and a 22 oz of Three Floyds Behemoth Barleywine. Because this was my first trade, it was expected that I ship first, and he didn’t ship in return until my package arrived. This is the way it goes until you’ve got a few trades under your belt, and then you usually ship simultaneously. It took about two weeks to buy the beer he wanted, get it shipped out, and have his return package shipped back.
