One of America’s most sought after craft beers, Heady Topper by The Alchemist has been spotted on the black market before. The Waterbury, Vermont based brewery produces one of the highest ranked IPAs that doesn’t get distributed very far from the cannery.
A lady was recently arrested for selling cases of the brew on Craig’s List for upwards of $700 dollars ($825 in one instance). A case of Heady Topper usually goes for $72. It wasn’t long before the Feds got wind of the illegal operation.
If I were John Kimmich (founder of the brewery) I’d have to feel pretty baller right now. I mean, what started as a homebrew recipe is now sold in parking lots and back alley deals like high end narcotics. I’m pretty sure no one ever did that for one of the big 3 brewery’s beers.
Illegal sale or resale of alcoholic beverages can get you a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison. Pretty steep compared to a plane ticket, a rental car and the cost of a few pints in Vermont, right? [AP]
A festival of idiocy. Idiots buying, idiots selling, idiots arresting — and I’m afraid too many idiot brewers worrying about this practice. Nothing you can do about it, so let it go. Concentrate on your product — not how lunatics misuse it. And of course the po-po loves finding dirty, bad things afoot on Craigslist, eBay, etc. They live for that.
I’m with you my friend. Brewers, brew. Just note that Kimmich didn’t go hunting this person down. The Feds did. P.S. Meet me the Kroger parking lot for some Heady Topper cases and Xbox Ones. (Joke. I have neither.)
You are correct, but Russian River Brewing did waste time hunting down eBay sellers. Natalie Cilurzo seems more than a little dim when it comes to liability. http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20131207/NEWS03/712079900
What’s to joke about buying products from your fellow countrymen? If you aren’t wise enough to differentiate the crooks from the innocents how is that anyone’s fault but your own?
What happens when you put too much trust in the system and the system isn’t there for you one day?
What’s to joke about buying products from your fellow countrymen? If you aren’t wise enough to differentiate the crooks from the innocents how is that anyone’s fault but your own?
Ummm how about protection for the consumer? How about protection for the inventor/craftsman. You have no guarantee from a black market purchase if the product is authentic or handled properly. Heady and just about all IPAs are fragile products that precipitously decline in quality after production, especially if they aren’t stored and handled property. People who produce beers like Heady put a lot of effort, time, and money into producing a high quality product. It’s a disservice to the brewer and to the consumer market when people pay inflated prices and end up with a product in a state that the brewer never intended. We live in a society which needs order and protection so we can have things like Heady Topper, public education, infrastructure. Go take your tin-foil hat somewhere else.
Dirty bad things afoot, like unopened cases of headdy topper, or used baby walkers, or God forbid they find a quart or two of mobile 1 left over from a previously sold vehicle, they should totally shut those scamsters down, lock em all in the state pen for years, never to see their loved ones again!!
Coors was notoriously bootlegged across the Mississippi before they started pasteurizing it. Smokey and the Bandit is all about bootlegging Coors.
I hate BMC as much as the next guy, but their beers have been sought after in certain situations.
Also, surely you’ve seen the commotion over the BCBS series lately. Remember that’s an AB product now.
“I hate BMC as much as the next guy”
This in one sentence is what is wrong with almost the entire craft beer scene. You see, you are not a beer lover. A beer lover isn’t necessarily a huge fan of macro beers but if I’m traveling on business and I’m in some tiny town and they have nothing on tap but macro beer you better believe I will have one. People like you will not. I’m a beer lover. You are a snob. The current group of “craft beer enthusiasts” are just another version of hipsters.
Not drinking something you dont like makes you a snob. Drinking something I dont like makes me a lover of it. This makes no sense at all. I totally get what you are saying, but drinking a beer because it is a beer doent make you a beer lover….it sounds more like alcoholism.
It all comes down to taste. BMC so called beers have none. Some craft beers have none. Some craft beers have a taste that makes them a pleasure to drink. A few craft beers have a taste that is memorable.
If you are prepared to drink BMC and their ilk (and that ilk regrettably is a pretty large one) then you do not care whether your beer has taste or not. Your opinion on beer is therefore of no account to me, and that is probably the case for most lovers of craft beers.
Having said all that, some people take hobbies and make them obsessions. I once took a girl out for a casual ice skating date. She had had years of lessons and told me I wasn’t skating properly. I wasn’t even aware there was a proper way, I was just enjoying myself. If I go out for a beer, I mostly don’t want to talk about it, any more than I would spend a dinner discussing the quality of the wine. I do sometimes have questions about the beer and I appreciate a barman who at least knows something about the beers he has on tap. There are so many labels available today and I like to know what it is I am about to drink. I prefer to leave technical discussions on beer for when I am actually making it.
It’s all because the Feds didn’t get there cut.
Umm actually they did on the original sale. Since these consumables haven’t yet been consumed it’s arguable if the woman was even in the wrong. We think it’s a free country but without free enterprise there isn’t much freedom.