In the pursuit of good beer, breweries are explored, palates are challenged, and hangovers are conquered.
Whether you’re making an emergency run to the Brew Thru to save the party, driving across town to get a favorite IPA that isn't sold on your side of town, or perfecting your own brew through years of trial and error (and forcing your friends to drink all the not-quite right batches you made along the way); no stone gets left unturned for good beer.
And while some beer enthusiasts continue to find value in doing way more than necessary for the perfect 12 ounces of goodness, others prefer to take a more traditional route and hang with the old reliable brands.
Is the extra time invested in exploring and experimenting with varieties of beer worth the marginally better brew?
To some, there is no expense too great for the right beer. Some even plan vacations around beer stops. While others prefer to view the hobby more from a lens of convenience and opt to settle for just asking their waiter a local recommendation.
These wide-ranging beer personalities are similar to the different types of investors. Some investors prefer to make investing a complex ordeal, while others prefer to let someone else do it all for them. Below are four kinds of investors and how they relate to different beer drinkin’ personalities.
The Garage Brewmaster:
This do-it-yourself investor is a jack of all trades that prefers to be very active in their investments. Like their beer-drinking counterparts, these investors do a ton of research in order to create a balanced portfolio. These can be both long and short-term investors. They also stay up-to-date on recent news and trends, incorporating them in their trades when it aligns with their palate.
Brewmasters have a lot of enthusiasm for what they are doing and will talk your ear off at the party about how they went short GameStop because its trends have defied all logic or how they blended different kinds of hops to bring balance to their latest IPA.
The Subscriber:
These hands-off investors prefer the finer things without the stress. Just like those drinkers who prefer a variety of quality beers without the hassle of searching, the Subscribers of investing pass off the responsibility of “what” and “when” to a pro. Subscribers enjoy subscriptions to Beer-of-the-Month Clubs and invest in mutual funds and ETFs to benefit from the expertise of money managers, while maybe holding shares in large blue-chip companies.
Subscribers have stringent parameters that they follow. Just like how a beer subscriber would switch subscriptions if they got a few bad rounds of beer. Investing subscribers might change funds, or even money managers after a period of bad returns.
The ABV-Me:
These risk-seeking investors don’t care if it’s a workplace Christmas party, wedding, family reunion, or bar; they’ll take the beer with the highest alcohol content, please. ABV-me investors could care less about the journey so long the reward is plenty. Swing and day trades, meme stocks and short squeezes, and risky options bets are some of the high-risk/reward strategies that these investors use to go for gold.
These guys are highly involved investors and are as up-to-date with market news as the Brewmasters, but instead of trying to achieve a healthy balance between financial rewards and free time, they enjoy the chase and find risk thrilling.
The Hangover Drinker:
These investors wise up and learn to respect risk as they age. They may over indulge in risky assets early in their investing careers while they're still many years from retirement and shouldn’t need this money for a while.
As these investors age, they grow weary of taking the extra risk as they no longer have the benefit of time to help them recover from having too many risky bets go bad. Similar to how hangovers hurt worse after 30, so to do big losses in your portfolio. These guys drink to get drunk while they are young and drink-to-not-get-hungover as they age. Cheers!
