Beer/barrel clubs
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 11:34 am
It seems to be a growing trend for craft breweries around the country to start exclusive beer clubs. Sierra Nevada recently started one out of the NC facility. Bruery, Upland, Cigar City, Hill Farmstead, Crooked Stave, Smutty, Jackie O's, FiftyFifty and dozens of others have started this as well. Locally, Yazoo and Mantra both have joined in. Usually, they run around $150 or more (some in the thousands), and you get limited release beers, special parties, discounts and the like. Here's the Mantra and Yazoo breakdowns as an example:
Has anyone joined any? I'm curious as to your thoughts. I haven't bitten the bullet on any of them for several reasons, though I am tempted. The cost/benefit is usually pretty good on these if you break it down to what you get... Yazoo for example is $250. In that, I would get a ticket to Funk Fest ($50) and 8 exclusive bottles ($25 ea), so that's a break even. In addition, I'd get occasional parties (free), early access to other bottles releases with no lines, and one free pint every time I visited the taproom. So, the benefits clearly outweigh the costs, especially since I frequent the taproom. And, the access to exclusive bottles, discounts, etc. are nice perks. Mantra the same... lots of discounts, merch, and parties to go along with bottle access. Most of the others offer similar cost/benefit.
Where I fall off the rails is that I have a limited beer budget (especially considering the medical expenses we've recently incurred), and I like variety. Thus, the outlay of $250 up front for Yazoo or $150 for Mantra would eat a large portion of my annual beer budget, and thus any variety I have from picking up bottles from other breweries would be negated. I simply can't afford (or, actually, don't want to afford) buying multiple memberships, though I have some friends that are in several of these bottle clubs, so I'm basically limiting my beer purchases to one or two breweries. And, what if one (or several) of the bottles that are part of the club end up being styles I don't care for? I'm kinda putting myself in a position to buy bottles I normally wouldn't. Also, it kinda bites that you miss out on being able to purchase some of these bottles (on the exclusive bottles) if you don't join.
I will say, I can totally understand why they do this. In Yazoo's case, they've sold 200ish of the 250 memberships in the first week at $250/per, so that's $50k they've made up front in the last week. Cigar City made $180k on their club in the first year. It makes perfect sense for them if they have the market for it.
Has anyone joined one of these? Any thoughts as to what you liked or didn't? Is anyone else considering any of these? Curious to everyone's thoughts on these.
Has anyone joined any? I'm curious as to your thoughts. I haven't bitten the bullet on any of them for several reasons, though I am tempted. The cost/benefit is usually pretty good on these if you break it down to what you get... Yazoo for example is $250. In that, I would get a ticket to Funk Fest ($50) and 8 exclusive bottles ($25 ea), so that's a break even. In addition, I'd get occasional parties (free), early access to other bottles releases with no lines, and one free pint every time I visited the taproom. So, the benefits clearly outweigh the costs, especially since I frequent the taproom. And, the access to exclusive bottles, discounts, etc. are nice perks. Mantra the same... lots of discounts, merch, and parties to go along with bottle access. Most of the others offer similar cost/benefit.
Where I fall off the rails is that I have a limited beer budget (especially considering the medical expenses we've recently incurred), and I like variety. Thus, the outlay of $250 up front for Yazoo or $150 for Mantra would eat a large portion of my annual beer budget, and thus any variety I have from picking up bottles from other breweries would be negated. I simply can't afford (or, actually, don't want to afford) buying multiple memberships, though I have some friends that are in several of these bottle clubs, so I'm basically limiting my beer purchases to one or two breweries. And, what if one (or several) of the bottles that are part of the club end up being styles I don't care for? I'm kinda putting myself in a position to buy bottles I normally wouldn't. Also, it kinda bites that you miss out on being able to purchase some of these bottles (on the exclusive bottles) if you don't join.
I will say, I can totally understand why they do this. In Yazoo's case, they've sold 200ish of the 250 memberships in the first week at $250/per, so that's $50k they've made up front in the last week. Cigar City made $180k on their club in the first year. It makes perfect sense for them if they have the market for it.
Has anyone joined one of these? Any thoughts as to what you liked or didn't? Is anyone else considering any of these? Curious to everyone's thoughts on these.