The Session #76 - Compulsion



The Session is a monthly event for the beer blogging community which was started by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer. On the first Friday of each month, all participating bloggers write about a predetermined topic. Each month a different blog is chosen to host The Session, choose the topic, and post a roundup of all the responses received. For more info on The Session, check out the Brookston Beer Bulletin’s nice archive page.

This month’s session is hosted by Glen who writes Beer Is Your Friend and is all about the deadly art of Compulsion when it comes to buying beer.

Glen mentions in his post the fact that he overbuys beer. He has a shitload of beer at home that he’s not drinking but still buys more. What’s the fucking point? Seriously. Please tell me what the point is because I really don’t understand. Beer is a beverage made for drinking. I buy beer because I want to drink it. What if –god forbid – you die tomorrow? It’ll be a waste really because some family member who doesn’t quite understand the obsession and how rare a beer is will probably just crack it open and neck it from the bottle.

People who stockpile and cellar beers to me don’t seem to enjoy drinking beer. They’re kleptomaniacs. They’re just like the wine wankers we all mocked when we were younger. Don’t lie. We all did it.

And I guess that’s my point. I’m compelled to buy beer because I want to drink it not because I want to forget about it and boast about having a 1998 bottle of blah blah fucking blah that I’ll probably die before I get to open it.

Nate

Comments

  1. My old Granny used to hoard tinned food. When she died my parents may parents got a shock at the amount of it she had. They knew she was a hoarder, but we are talking survivalist amounts of tinned ham. My Dad was the only one of us that liked tinned ham, he’s still eating it. I like tinned fruit but it took years to get through. I developed a taste for it and still buy it now.

    I gather the reason was that she lived through both the depression, as a child & the Second World War as a young woman. She knew about going without and her reaction to post war prosperity was actually a rational form of insurance. She also didn’t trust banks and had bank notes stuffed in all sorts of places. Something that appears more rational after the recent financial crisis.

    I think hoarding can be rational or irrational. We have all seen those hoarder programmes on the telly with odd balls unable to throw away what is clearly old crap, but I have an attic full of crap. I reluctantly chuck stuff when I need to put more crap up there. I have 3 lawn mowers. 1 bought, 2 inherited. They all work so I’m not chucking any despite only needing 1.

    The question with hoarding is, is it rational or irrational? If there is a beer you like and you spot it half price, why not stock up? If you have a place to put it, you’ve saved yourself a bob.

    If you are collecting stuff you do not intend to drink, then you are one of those types that appear on the kids antique road show that take along a child’s toy still in the box, unopened and never played with and it is a little sad that the point of the toy was to bring joy, and it probably hasn’t. Unless you count the compulsion of the collector as a form of joy. It just seems so joyless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The thing is, the amount of comments I see from people who are like "I have x beer but I'm not gonna drink it. I'm saving it for a special ocassion" but there will probably never be an occasion special enough.

      I completely get stocking up and drinking through your stock but that's precisely my point... people don't seem to do that. They hoarde and then buy more beer that they actually plan on drinking.

      I completely agree with you. Surely there can't be much joy of walking into your room full of beer, looking at it and thinking "not today!" before going back to your kitchen to drink the same beer as you drink any other fucking night.

      Delete
  2. I have a box of about 12 beers that I'm ageing: some Abstrakts that I'll open after one or maybe two years, a Fuller's Vintage 2005 that I'll open in 2015, that sort of thing. I don't know if this is hoarding though, because as you say, the point of the beer is to drink it. I'm simply choosing when I will drink it.

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    Replies
    1. I wouldn't say that's hoarding... people who talk as if they have pretty much a whole room or garage that have beers in that they never seem to drink, that's hoarding!

      Delete
  3. That is like buying a CD, leaving it in the cellophane and putting it on the CD rack tbh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It doesn't help that Brewdog stagger their releases and it isn't worth the postage not to get a full crate. I'm rarely drinking at the moment (fat fuck losing wait) but keep buying all those special releases breweries do. I'm ageing a few bottles but all those I bought multiple bottles of so I could do it. Unless I die I will drink them.

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  5. I think you've misunderstood my post. I buy beer to drink it. I don't cellar or age anything. Every single beer I have at home is something I aim to drink within the next few months. And yet I still buy more. Most likely because I see a new beer that I want to try and I buy it. And I rarely buy more than a single bottle - six-packs are uncommon and I can't remember the last time I bought a case of anything. So it's all for drinking.

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    Replies
    1. Apologies, but the way I read your post was as if you have a whole room for beer that you don't bother drinking which is why you buy more, because you're buying beer specifically to drink.

      Delete
  6. I have a cupboard full of beer that I just don't drink, they fall into a number categories:

    1. Beer bought by well meaning people that I just can't be bothered with, not being a snob but I always forget to drink that bottle of Old Speckled hen or Bishops Finger (however I was thinking about drinking some of those tonight).

    2. Something I bought multiples of and just don't like.

    3. Beers to trade.

    4. Stuff I just never seem to fancy drinking but I know will keep, I rarely fancy a 10% bottle of treacle but will share one when the time is right, the same goes for massive bottles.

    ReplyDelete

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