Modem Times

Fruitlands Apricot?

 

Oh...snap.

 

It's ridiculously good, but not on-tap yet (except in our office, muhahaha.) We have to finish off Mega Blazing first. I'll post about it on social media when it's actually available.

EDIT: It's going on at both tasting rooms tomorrow morning. Available for League growler fills.

Cheers & thanks,
Jacob McKean
Modern Times Beer

 

PLEASE REBOOT THE LEAGUE. im so sad I missed out cause I was ignorant of MT when it first came out.

 

Things we* like:
Long pick up time windows.
7+ days to order online with ease of guaranteed bottles
Exclusives
Super Exclusives
Transparency/Communication
Members Only Events (we like +1s/DDs)
Prices that make sense based on the included beer/merch
Discounts at MT
Maple Bourbon Barrel aged Monsters Park
Picking up from the closest location to us (read as: LA for LA'ers)
Spreading out our budgets (not a lot of releases all at once).

Things we don't like:
Non-existent communication/non-members knowing things before members
Short timeframe for pickups
Super small bottle limits (read as: 1)
Closed Events without a plus 1/DD
Same merch year after year
Things that are the opposite of things we like.

*I speak for everyone, right?

 

Various thoughts on the League:
1) I've ended up quite satisfied with the League due to having first shot at all of the BA releases over the past couple years. If I was asked to renew today, I would definitely do so unless the price was grossly unreasonable (which would shock the hell out of me). Even if you don't include any bottles in the membership, having first right for purchasing has been valuable considering how quickly the releases move and how fantastic the majority of the special releases have been. This is probably my biggest reason for wanting to continue the club.

2) I'd love to see League Nights return, the first time you did this with a preview of some small batches was quite cool. Not sure how feasible it is as far as brewing capacity but a night once every two or three months where League members get access to a preview of a new beer, a special barrel treatment, and a special cask would be fun. Sort of the spirit behind the type of beers you put together for the Anniversary party but considerably scaled down.

3) Get coffee involved in the club, both events and sales. I'd love to see monthly cupping events and/or brewing events. I don't know what you may or may not have planned as far as serving coffee in the future but it would be really cool to have ticketed events for reasonably small groups (10 - 20 people) where you'd perhaps have two or three different regions/roasts and do multiple brewing methods with each bean to showcase the beans and discuss how you guys feel various beans shine with various brewing methods. Cold brew, French press, pourover, Aeropress, whatever. I realize espresso is a beast unto itself and probably unrealistic for this sort of thing but I'd love to see coffee become a bigger part of the experience of visiting, beyond cold brew, and starting it at the League level could act as a stepping stone.

4) A quarterly adjunct poll for the League. Peel off a few kegs of one of your reasonably big production brews (core 4 or the quarterly seasonals) and do a poll with limited options for a special treatment. Could be served on tap at League nights or just served at the tasting rooms with League members getting exclusivity for a week or something.

5) First crack at tickets for events would be sweet, I know you don't want to alienate the rest of your consumers but having our choice of sessions for the Anniversary party and things of that nature is a great perk.

6) The fact that you communicate openly and honestly and are always willing to provide quick resolution pretty much puts you ahead of almost every other brewery club. Keep that up and most other things fall into place.

 

As much as I would love to be in the league (didn't join because I was like..."oh hey another brewery in san diego..meh" g'damn I was wrong, still kicking myself for it too), I think personally not having one open up would be more of a long term thanks to those that thought the exact opposite of me.

I know a few that are members that really like the passwords for early access to bottles as well as league-only growler fills. I think it is a fantastic reward for them.

So yeah, to reiterate, as much as I want one to open and become a part of...I would rather it remain closed and only reward those that took a chance (which obviously paid off big time).

Edit: Also not sure how my wallet can handle any more memberships...

 

As always, I'm not quite the target audience for The League (living remotely), but I've enjoyed membership so far. My biggest ask for a rebooted version would be shipping of some sort. I mean I can always bug @westcoastbeerlvr to bring my allocations, but it'd be nice if I could just order something and have it sent. Also, any way to publicize/post online what the growler fill options are? I never know when to bug people for a fill (I'll be down next week to get a growler or two of fruitlands apricot though!).

I'm not a big coffee guy (or a vegan, or a hipster - so you know I'm really only interested in your product cause it tastes good), so adding that to the club would do nothing for me.

You had an awesome logo and hoodie for the members, but mine's wearing out and I'd love more logo gear. League Hydroflask growlers would kick ass too.

I want more sours, those were awesome.

Also, open a spot up in the Bay Area and have a members only section.

Some sort of acknowledgement of the first folks would be a nice touch too, though clearly not necessary.

 

perhaps a new LA league is in order when that one opens?

 

Having missed out on the league stuff in the beginning and now pretty much trying to get everything MT possible I'd sure love if this got a reboot....

 

In for LA League.

 

in for the la league as well

 

in for League reboot

 

I'd be all over getting in the MT league even though I live 250 miles away.

 

Yeah I would love this. Particularly if there was something in LA. But I'd be down even if it stayed SD centric.

And yeah, my main things would be early opportunities to buy bottles, member-specific release, special growler fills, etc.

 

I'd join.

All I'd like to see is being able to purchase releases before they go public, purchasing beers at MT at a discount, a couple member only releases, having the opportunity (no guarantee) to buy a 1/2 barrel of a seasonal and a 1/6 barrel of a monthly special release.

P.S. I'll take a case of City of the Sun.

 

Reboot the League so I can give you money.
Shit, if you need a PM to run this thing, let me know...

 

I'm in. Also let me know if you need some help running it.

 

Awesome, thanks for all the feedback and commentary, guys. A couple things I can answer:

1) I'm forever grateful to the folks who signed up for the League on Kickstarter, and they would certainly get first crack at signing up for the rebooted League. But I do feel they've received a fair value for their money, and at this point, there's only about 25-30 members who even regularly participate in bottle sales. A lot of the folks who signed up were distant friends or relatives who never really intended to participate and just wanted to support my thing and get a hoodie. So I feel good about opening it up to new members.

2) Promising L.A. pick-ups at this point would be a reach. Yes, I expect us to get open in 2016 in L.A., but there are way too many unknowns for me to include it with total confidence.

3) There are several beers I would want to include with League membership or as League-only sales that would work out to one bottle or less per member (obviously "less" would apply only to League-only sales.) Not ideal, certainly, but we don't really have the opportunity to experiment on more than one barrel at a time, usually. When those experiments turn out well, I'd like to be able to offer them to the League, but I wouldn't want to piss folks off. Not sure what the alternative would be.

4) I would definitely love to do more League nights, and the only reason I didn't do more was that attendance was less than encouraging. I probably should've done a few more to try and build the concept, but I got a distinct "Just make with the whales, I'm trying to get out of here before the Fedex overnight shipping cut-off"-vibe from the response to some of the extracurricular stuff. In my ideal scenario, the League would be as much a social club as a bottle purchasing scheme. Given that we'd probably open this up to around 400 memberships, I assume we'd get a mix of folks interested in the social aspects as well as many just interested in the bottles, so I would definitely take another crack at those kinds of low-key events.

5) We're thinking of including coffee as an optional add-on. All great ideas, @Xul. Any other feedback would be welcome.

6) Definitely planning to include first access to event tickets, including VIP tickets for our festivals, which we ultimately plan to do 4 times a year (the next one will be The Festival of Funk in late winter/early spring.)

Cheers & thanks,
Jacob McKean
Modern Times Beer