Portland, Oregon’s hypebeasts at Great Notion Brewing were targeted by scammers last week. Fake profile accounts created in an effort to catfish people into sharing info or to gain ‘likes’ or clicks is nothing new, but this effort marked an escalation in targeted efforts by thieves to come after beer geekdom.

“We've had a few IG scam accounts created to mimic ours over the years. Mostly people just reselling our beers,” says Great Notion co-founder Paul Reiter. “Recently though we ran a contest to giveaway a Timberbeast Box. The Timberbeast is the top tier level in our App. You need to hit 100,000 points to be a Timberbeast.”

A quick instagram search reveals over half a dozen fake Great Notion accounts, some just trying to gain followers and direct traffic but the most recent effort was much more serious. It revolved around the breweries long in the works mobile phone app that launched back in April. Great Notion keeps their fans engaged on the app as Timber Crew members where you can register to earn points which unlock characters featured on their beers, you earn more points by ordering beer and merchandise, checking in to locations and interacting with their media. As you earn more points you get access to rare beers, and ultimately a very elite few were gifted a Timberbeast Box this year.

“We had less than 50 people earn the box this go around,” says Reiter. “We gifted the box to the members recently and hosted a very special 2 hour online event just for the members. We ran a raffle on Instagram to give away 1 box to a lucky winner and somehow a few different scammer IG accounts popped up trying to get our customers' attention.”

On Friday, December 4th the brewery announced an instagram contest to award ONE Timberbeast box set to a lucky follower by following, liking and tagging two friends. That was a harmless promotional tool to boost interactions and followers by harnessing the demand for the box set which contained a set of Timberbeast 2020 Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout bottles, a set of Spiegelau Willsberger glasses and a custom Great Notion axe made by Woodgrain Crafts. It also left a window open for scammers to attempt to steal data and perhaps even rob the breweries fans blind. The IG posting thread now has nearly 5K comments.

Shortly thereafter fake instagram accounts like @team_greatnotion began popping up and following fans of the legitimate Great Notion accounts. Some were direct messaged by the fake accounts telling them that they were winners, all they had to do was click a link and register to receive a bonus “$100 Credit Card on Movie Sites On Our Partner Pages.” Once you registered your name and email through the portal you were to receive a confirmation email that you had to screenshot and send back to the scam account with your phone number. It was likely all an attempt to steal - and sell beer geeks data.

It’s unclear how many, if anyone fell for the scam but as of now the fake instagram accounts are still active even though they have been reported as fraudulent. It’s another sign that the beer black market world of online sales and tradings has only grown more popular, now commanding it’s own dedicated websites and culture. And, that instagram has become an easy target for fraud while the company does very little to police it, or is at the least extremely slow to act.

“We have not heard of anybody being taken advantage of yet,” says Reiter. “but TONS of people have definitely contacted us about the scammers.”

On beer trading forums, it’s become not uncommon to see people complaining about traders not following up and “ghosting” on promises of beers delivered. There are instances of people refilling bottles with different beers, or taking money and disappearing. Some craft beer fans have been vocally shaken after being taken in by the promises of rare beer only to be swindled. It leaves one to wonder if just patronizing your local bottle shop or trading only with personal acquaintances is the better option.