Details about  Lord of the Rings "Old Gaffer" Beer. Unique Promotional Item. Hobbit. Sean Astin

You are looking at an exceptionally rare, virtually unique, Lord of the Rings promotional item. It is one sealed bottle of “Old Gaffer” beer. This is the ultimate in collectability and an extraordinary find. This item is truly what you get the Lord of the Rings fan who has everything. I don’t think Peter Jackson has one of these (but he is welcome to bid).

The bottle tells you that:

“As a tribute to the success of The Lord of the Rings^TM Collectable Card Game Esdevium is happy to present this special promotional beer courtesy of Decipher Inc. and with the help of the Hogs Back Brewery.”

This was produced to mark the launch of The Lord of the Rings^TM Collectable Card Game in the United Kingdom. Decipher were the Company that made both the Collectable Card Game and the Roleplaying Game. Esdevium are one of the UK’s top games distributors.

At UK Gen Con (which was the UK’s main gaming expo for many years run by Wizards of the Coast) a special afterhours promotional event was run for the traders and certain special guests from the UK gaming community. There were no members of the public allowed in. Everyone who attended was given a single bottle of this beer. It was from around 2001 when Gen Con UK was at Olympia in London.

There is no barcode on the bottle, it was never mass produced or made available for sale in any way shape or form that I have been able to discover. This was an industry only event that was never publicised in any way. There were less than 100 people at the event and there were no bottles left over so this has an incredible rarity value to it. I was at the US Launch as well and I didn’t see any of these bottles there.

What makes this item virtually unique is that it is still sealed. Everyone’s beer was opened in front of them so they could drink it there and then but because I am a confirmed teetotaller they let me keep mine sealed. To my knowledge this is the only bottle I didn’t see drunk that day. Apparently it was quite good. Several of my friends and colleagues in the industry still have their bottles (taking pride of place in their collections) but all of them are open.

There are some tiny brown marks on the label that you can see in the photo and these are purely due to age. Other than that this bottle is in immaculate condition, identical to the day it was presented to me.

It will be shipped to you using Royal Mail Special Delivery with appropriate insurance at £19.99. It will be wrapped securely in more bubble wrap than you can shake a stick at to make it as indestructible as possible. It will be photographed at every stage of the process to prove that it was intact at the time it left my possession. You will be supplied with all appropriate tracking numbers and documentation.

I will CONSIDER posting this item to anywhere in the world using whatever courier method you would like providing you pay for it.

If you have any questions whatsoever or if I can help in any way then please ask and I will answer you as fast as humanly possible. Thank you for looking.

Although this was produced by a reputable brewery as a consumable item I really would not advise drinking it as it is quite old and there is no best before date on the bottle so it is probably well past its prime. It is not being sold as a foodstuff or for human consumption it is being sold as a collector’s item.

This was given to me in return for my attendance. It is not being sold for commercial gain but as “sale of personal assets.” It sincerely breaks my heart to sell this item but I am saving to go back to university and study for a degree in creative writing. A long held dream of mine that is now mind bogglingly expensive!

Thank you so much for your interest and good luck.