Bruery 2015 RS/HS Allocations

And this couldn't go into the Bruery society thread because...?

 

It was probably moved from Beer Talk.

 

I'd like to be excited about this. But then next May we'll get an email about their wonderful BA Sour Wee Heavy.

 

As long as they maintain Hoarders at about the same membership number, it will likely be more difficult and require more purchases for an RS to get in. Their retention number for Hoarders is probably pretty high because if you left, you couldn't easily get back in (if at all). Even if 10% of Hoarders dropped out, that's only 45 spots for a base of 1500 RS folks.

I'm going to be very curious to see if they keep slowly bumping up the Hoarders numbers though. Lord knows we have to keep Bruery beer values down.

 

No merchandise in this year's renewal, there is a cost savings to The Bruery. I am happy to return to RS, just something I noticed.

 

Woo! Got my Hoarders invite... I'm starting to think it's partially random.

 

HS includes exclusive merchandise, it's listed among the perks.

 

They announced it only to take people's money, and have no plans to release the beer.

 

It doesn't say 1 piece of high quality merchandise. Exclusive merchandise to me means, the ability to buy a glass or something along those lines.

 

If you want to interpret it that way, I guess you can, but you're assuming that it was an intentional change rather than just someone using different wording than past years. Considering their general inconsistency in writing and editing emails, reading a lot into it is taking a pretty big leap, especially for a fairly inconsequential component of the membership.

If I had to guess, they don't even have a firm grasp on what next year's merch will be, and they're probably expecting people to voice their opinion on what it should/could be over the next couple of months (since the merch is a topic of conversation/complaints every year), so...consider this an opportunity to voice your thoughts on whether you hope it's something smaller and cheaper, bigger and more expensive, or in between.

 

isn't that what this whole thread is?

 

the lobster font is real

 

I was about to completely agree with you. Then I realized that there are two more beers allocated for HS next year (21) than this year (19). I think it's safe to say that they may have finally realized that people prefer beer with their beer membership.

 

Oh it's real. I should reinterpret beer labels using lobster and comic Sans exclusively. Helvetica got played out after the documentary.

BTW. ..that's impressive considering its only in 4 digits.

 

they've been doing this a few years so they should have the turnover rate figured out by now. Or they are slowly expanding the societies as production capacities increase...

HS can split the renewal fee between two months which is nice...

 

I did some rough math for next year and came up with the following:
3 x Mocha Wednesday = $120
2 x HS BT Variant = $80
2 x Chrono 6 Wee Heavy = $50
2 x Scotch Anniversary = $60
2 x Boysenberry Sour Blonde = $46
2 x SitR w/ P&C = $46
2 x Melange 13 = $50 - $60
2 x Melange 15 = $50 - $60
2 x Wineification IV = $80
2 x BA 8 Maids = $50
TOTAL = $632 - $652

Obviously I had to make some assumptions on pricing but based on their history, things seem roughly right, so either they're planning on raising prices or there's plenty of room left over for merch.

To compare it to this year, 2015 has fewer but more valuable bottles. The following can basically be treated as constants:
3 x 2015 MW = 3 x 2016 MW
2 x BA 7 Swans = 2 x BA 8 Maids
2 x Melange 10 + 2 x Melange 11 = 2 x Melange 13 + 2 x Melange 15
2 x Wineification III = 2 x Wineification IV

From 2015, that leaves:
2 x BT Reserve
2 x Madeira BT
2 x Port BT
2 x Mystery Beer #1

And from 2016, that leaves:
2 x HS BT Variant
2 x Chrono 6 Wee Heavy
2 x Scotch Anniversary
2 x Boysenberry Sour
2 x Sitr w/ Peaches

We don't specifically know the value of any of those remaining 2015 bottles (yet, we should know the Mystery Beer's value eventually and possibly BT Reserve if we get to buy more), but the BT Reserve can safely be guessed at $40 and the Madeira and Port probably would've been $35 - $40. If you assume a $25 value for Mystery Beer #1, that's a total of $270 - $280 for those 8 bottles, whereas the 10 from 2016 total up to $272.

Essentially, the cost of included beer looks to be roughly the same between 2015 and 2016, they just allocated it to a greater number of less valuable bottles for 2016. Alternatively, they could be planning to raise the prices on all of their beer, but that's something that would be impossible to guess at.

 

designer eye

 

Whomp. Haven't gotten any emails about renewing anything or upgrading yet.

 

I get invited into HS every year even though I never upgrade.

 

I would be stoked to get an HS invite, but I'm also very content with RS. I already have too much beer as it is