It's all about networking
Apr 16 '00
Finding rare and exquisite beers is like finding a job. It's often more important to know someone than it is to know something. People will lead you to the best beers around if you ask. It also never hurts to prime the pump; share your beer knowledge at every turn.
Get to know your local beer retailer. Find the best beer store around and become a regular. Your beer guy will know if you're shopping around. If you're a regular you get more influence in ordering, you can ask him to special order for you, you even get samples of new stuff sometimes. Beer retailers get all kinds of info all the time. If you get tapped into that, you're ahead of the game.
Find a good beer bar and become a regular there. You can branch out a bit more here, be a semi-regular a couple places. Talk to the bartenders, get to know the beer manager. Sure, they might just be following orders, but you might find a real treasure. Get on the mailing list if they have one, ask them why not if they don't. Ask, ask, ask about beer selections, seasonals, beer dinners.
Get thee to a brewery! If there is a local brewpub or micro, get to know the people there, brewers and customers. The brewer's probably too busy to even buy beer (and he's probably drinking his own low-fills anyway), but he'll be a good rumor/scoop nexus for the local beer geek community.
Do you homebrew? You might want to consider it. Not only will you perforce learn a lot about beer, your local homebrew store and homebrew club will probably be a great source of beer buying information. These guys love to drink good beer.
Spread out, make your contact net worldwide on the Internet. USENET newsgroups like alt.beer and rec.food.drink.beer are full of people who can tip you off to great beer sources all over the world. They love to help people find good beer. If you're looking for breweries and beer bars, www.pubcrawler.com is a great place to start with its excellent search engine.
Check out the beer mags/beer rags. There's the Celebrator on the west coast, Ale Street News on the East Coast, and Bill Metzger's empire of papers everywhere else: Southwest Brewing News, Great Lakes Brewing News, Yankee Brew News, and Mid-Atlantic. Not only do all these papers have regular newsy columns to keep you updated on which brewery's doing what, they'll have some in-depth articles about more specific topics, and a bunch of informative ads. You'll find them at bars, beer stores, and breweries.
Go to the source. Call the brewer or the importer. Every beer label in the U.S. lists either a brewer or importer and the city they're in. A minimum of work on the Web will give you a telephone number or URL, and from there you're only minutes away from granting them their fondest wish, a customer asking "where can I buy your beer in my area?"
Start a case club. I do one of these with several brewers and beer writers in the Philadelphia area. Every winter we buy 24 different cases of beer, trying to out-do each other with rarity and outrageousness. Then we get together and mix them up so we wind up with 24 cases, each with 24 different beers in them, for the price of one case of beer.
In short, ask. Then once you find these places, pay off your debt of gratitude by telling your friends about them. Keep spreading the word and everyone will come out ahead.
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Epinions.com ID:
beerfly
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Member: Lew Bryson
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 82 members
About Me:
One bourbon, one Scotch, one beer, eh? I'll take Kentucky Spirit, Scapa, and HopDevil.
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