UPDATE: Lot included two bottles, not one making this not nearly as lucrative as it originally appeared. The seller may not have done much more than break even. See re-write below.

(Boston, MA) – eBay made it an easy process for individuals to sell beer online though, with the auction company’s current soft ban on alcohol in place, they may be looking for alternatives. And now they might have one.

On Thursday, as part of a Skinner, Inc. sale involving over 400 lots of wine, one person submitted a bottle two bottles of Samuel Adams Utopias 2007. The auctioneer said that it was the first-ever beer to be sold by a brick-and-mortar auction house.

Both the seller and Skinner made out well in the sale with the bottle going for $488. Bottles of Utopias carry a suggested retail price of less than $200.

Skinner charges a 20% commission to the seller and a 22% premium to the buyer. Skinner made over $200 less whatever associated costs it incurred. The seller, meanwhile, presumably made almost $200 profit broke even after Skinner took its commission.

If a lot sells for less than $150, Skinner will apply a flat commission rate of $30.

While it isn’t a very lucrative option for the sale of most single-serve beers, if beers are lumped together in one lot, this could potentially become lucrative enough for some beer collectors though that didn’t appear to be the case for the Utopias lot…even when considering the additional press that this sale got relative to the press that future sales will get.