The Big Blogger Beer Swap!

…Because we haven’t got enough beer already!

This idea has been bouncing around for a few weeks now (thanks to the thirsts of Andy at Beer Reviews, nee Beer Blog, and Mark at Real Ale Reviews who inspired the initial discussion) and I thought I’d open it out to everyone… The Big Blogger Beer Swap!

Here’s the deal: I live down south and rarely get to drink local beers from other parts of the country, which is a terrible shame. If you live up north, or west, or east, wherever, then you might not have tried any of the beers which I can find any time I go to the supermarket or farmer’s market, so… why not just arrange a big swap, so that we can all try a few new beers!?

What do you think? Would you like to take part? If you are up for it then just let me know by commenting below, telling me the rough area that you are in, and I’ll sort it out. I think a box of 5-6 local beers (the best ones in your area, not just any old crap) would be perfect, just put them in there safely and send them to the other blogger, then receive your box sent from another blogger, drink and a few weeks later we can have a big, interweaving blog-up about it (plus the tweets in between, of course). Easy.

If you are in, then how should the swaps be chosen? Do you want it: secretly drawn (I’ll draw it, request addresses and then email the relevant details on), drawn at random (a lottery which I’ll record and post online and you can then contact the other person to arrange everything), drawn so the person you send to also sends back to you, or drawn with specific regional organisation (for example, I might fancy a box from the North East, so I’d choose someone from there; you might want a London/South East set, so you’d request someone down this way).

And let’s set some preliminary dates: Two weeks to organise the idea and get people together; two weeks to get the beers bought and sent; two weeks to drink them; a week to write and post and collate everything together. That leaves us around the first weekend in December, so a little pre-Christmas treat. How’s that for everyone?

Who’s in?!

I don’t know whether to open this out to include Ireland and Europe as the postage step-up would be a big increase. Any thoughts on that? I don’t want to exclude people... I guess if you’d be happy to ship outside of the UK, or happy to ship from from Europe in, then just say and we’ll see what we can do.

If, like Dave and Stu, or any other brewer (home or commercial), you want to send some of your own beers, then go for it, that’s cool.

And if anyone would like to come up with a logo then that’d be good – it doesn’t have to be anything special, just a beer bottle with the title in there, or something, I don’t know… then we can try and make it a yearly thing? Hell, this could even just become a general beer-swapping forum, for bloggers and drinkers, one and all!

Any other ideas for this? Just email or comment...