Secret Santa 2011!!!

[SeanB]

Make it 19. Should have 7 diff kinds ready by then as long as I can keep the family out of it. And by family I mean her....

[Hammy2424]

I always include local commercial brew. Makes you forget about the hb I send

I can't let him lie. While Dark Side does send a local commercial beer, his homebrew was nothing to sneeze at. I had to pry one of his brews out of my wifes hand with a crow bar and a tack hammer

does this make me unlucky number 13?

i haven't been around in a while...still listen....but have a family now.

can you make it a requirement that at least one commercial beer be included? If i get some shitty homebrew, I want at least one good beer

BooBoo, I haven't even been able to catch up on recent shows in a while so don't feel like the lone ranger. Glad to hear about the family though, Congrats I can assure you I need to send one or two good commercial brews. Usually I only have like one worthy HB, or as is the case last year (Sorry Dark Side!) my crown jewel took a dive. Finally got a winter warmerized Bug's Oatmeal Cookie Amber off that I though was pretty good.

Don't worry all, this year I have three beers on tap and ready to go!! Can't Wait!!

[Blitzkolsch]

Count me in. I have never shipped yeast samples before. Anyone have any tips on companies to use to ship them? My plan is just wrap the shit out of them so that they don't move.

[EL TIZZO]

Even though I work for the post office, I always ship things of this nature UPS...they are a little more consistent and faster in my opinion...I don't usually say yeast samples either...I say cologne, olive oil, etc

[Bugeater]

Use UPS. It's against their policy to ship beer so you need to tell them it's something else. I ship collectable beer bottles (I've been shipping art pottery with the local UPS folks for years so they don't bother to check anymore.

Don't use USPS. It is actually against the law to send beer through the mail.

Stay away from FedEx too. They also have a policy against sending beer. What makes it worse, though, is that if an undeclared liquid leaks from a package they will automatically assume that it is a hazardous material and call in a professional hazmat team to clean it up. Their lawyers will then track you down and present you with a bill for both the cleanup and for their time. UPS will simply toss it in the trash and warn you not to do it again.

Wayne


P.S. I'm also in.

[TheDarkSide]

Count me in. I have never shipped yeast samples before. Anyone have any tips on companies to use to ship them? My plan is just wrap the shit out of them so that they don't move.

Like Bug said, UPS. Yes, wrap the shit out of it so it doesn't move. Also, line the box with a couple trash or plastic shopping bags in case of breakage so they won't leak all over the place.

No peanuts!!!! ( hey...where the hell is the nutter smiley..or is that only in the chat )

[nedvalton]

count me in on this one. i been looking for a swap and always seem to be a day or 2 late finding them.

[spiderwrangler]

Well, I've got a guy I send through, he runs the local shipping/mailing place, and that's where the shop I work at goes through when stuff needs shipping, so he recognizes me and doesn't ask questions. The main thing is making sure that there won't be issues with leakage and the like. Put each bottle in a ziploc bag and wrap them in bubble wrap and you should be fine, just make sure they aren't going to hit one another, and that every bottle is far enough away from the sides of the box that if it gets hit or bumped that it isn't going to be damaged. Pythoner or I will probably be calling in at some point to remind people or ask Tasty or someone to go over it briefly so that people can get beer sent to where they want it to go. I don't know if other people do this, but when I've shipped things before I've put the delivery address as the return address. I'm sure this would piss someone somewhere off, but they can't return it to me if they for some reason decide it isnt' deliverable... I suppose they would just destroy the package then, so I don't know if that gains me anything. The shop does that, which is where I got it from, but my guess is just so that the business name isn't on a package that is undeliverable for going against practices.

Also, make sure too have each beer labelled with what it is. i know last year I received brewday recipe sheets from my SS, which I found enjoyable, so I'd recommend adding them to your package, since we are all beer nerds and like to know what's going in the beer. Besides if your recipient ends up loving your beer, including your spec sheet will let them brew it for themselves!