Whale Hunting

The Hunt...

I've been thinking about this subject for a while and think I've finally figured out what drives me to search for rare and interesting beers...baseball cards.

This brings me back to when I was a kid hunting for baseball cards.  As a young Jersey boy, my favorite player was Gary Carter of the NY Mets.  Here's the thing though, I wasn't satisfied with having just the Gary Carter baseball cards I found in packs - I needed more, I had to have more.  I hunted down over 100 Gary Carter cards, pins, postcards, promotional inserts...you name it, I wanted it if it had good 'ole Carter on it. The whole process of finding a card I didn't have and couldn't just happen upon was a huge rush for me.  Over the years, this manifested in different ways - baseball cards as kid, CDs as a teen, and then rare beers as an adult.

In an age of having everything at your fingertips, there is something deeply satisfying for me in the hunt for a whale of a beer.  It's super easy to walk into a decent beer store and find good beer to drink, typically even something I haven't had before.  But, for me, the big payoff is in the hunt.  I've walked into many a good bottle shop and saw many unknown beers I'd never tried...but then left empty handed.  Why?  Because what I was looking for was more rare...something really special.

For me, finding and then enjoying a hard to find beer is simply awesome.  I still have my Gary Carter cards and I hope to build a great collection of rare beers - not too big though, what's the point of finding a beer and not drinking it?  I love the look on friends faces when I pop open something they've never heard of or even better, have heard of and know how tough it was to find!

So to all of you wondering why beer geeks like me try so hard to hook a whale, maybe they're like me and just can't help it!

Cheers & happy fishing :)