The strange world of beer

Each issue we’ll feature some of the stranger and funnier stories as well as all sorts of other nonsense

Trading up
A canny internet wheeler-dealer has converted a bottle of beer into his dream motor in just five trades.

Pete Genders, brewer and owner of The Beer Cellar in Lincoln, could not afford the camper van he wanted to take wife Verity on a second honeymoon to Italy. So the 28-year-old set up a website offering to swap a £2.69 beer for absolutely anything better and vowed to keep on trading up until he landed the prized vehicle.

Pete, from Lincoln, expected his quest to take years but after just five months of shrewd bartering he now has the keys to a £1,500 Wreg VW camper.

Along the way, he received all manner of wacky offers of swaps.

Pete began in July with a bottle of Lincoln Grale beer (4.3%) and his first deal was with his local newspaper, which offered him a day as its editor.

But it was when a listener keen to go on air traded four VIP tickets to see rockers The Zutons in concert that interest in Pete’s website (www.thelincolngrale.blogspot.com) really snowballed. Pete said: “I thought it was fantastic when I got the tickets. Suddenly I was getting all kinds of offers from Zutons fans.

“One guy even asked me if I fancied a night with his girlfriend for the tickets. I’m not sure whether he’d told her or not. But he never provided a photo of her and in any case my wife told me in no uncertain terms that I should forget all about it.” Pete eventually plumped for an offer of a J-reg Citroen ZX worth around £500. He said: “I could not believe I had got a car. I .....

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By Sally Toms

Section : Beer Matters

Page number : 62