My father considered it something of sport to browse through estate sales and see what other people were asking for their “junk” (his word).

“I must be worth more than I realized,” he would tell me. “If I could get somebody to buy the junk.”

I feel that way sometimes when I look at prices of vintage beer. We don’t really have that much socked away, but sometimes the last bottle or two in a six-pack survives a while, and then you stick it back for a special occasion, and then you think, “Gee, this is three years old, maybe we should let it age a little longer.”)

And the next thing you know you’re trying to figure out if you can afford to open that 1992 bottle of Thomas Hardy’s Ale. It’s a heck of a note when you don’t feel rich enough to drink your own beer.

With that in mind here’s an update from some recent auctions, starting with the one at Liquid Solutions mentioned last week:

- Six bottle vertical of Sierra Nevada Big Foot, 1997-2002, $76.01.
- 1994 Chimay Grand Reserved (750ml bottle), $45.50.
- Thomas Hardy’s Ale Vintage 1996 (11.3 ounces), $45.
- 2003 bottle of Stone Epic Vertical (22 ounces), didn’t meet the reserve in an eBay auction. High bid was $56.

The big one. A (magnum-size) bottle of Bass Ratcliffe Ale, dated 16th December 1869. It was bottled “to celebrate the birth of Harry Ratcliff into the brewing family that later became part of the Bass , Ratcliff and Gretton empire.” The description didn’t exactly make it clear if this was from the recent find at Burton-On-Trent, but bottles of this beer were among those discovered.

It sold for GBP 185, or about $366. Seems like a bargain, relatively speaking.

Liquid Solutions has a 1994 bottle of Thomas Hardy up for auction today. The opening bid if $12.45.

Posted: January 26th, 2007 under What should you pay?.