2021 Beer Memberships: Adding, Keeping or Dropping?

Keeping:
MT - Theory
SARA Cellar
Lost Abbey Sinners & Saints
Lost Cause Coveters

Failed at getting into Antidoot (lolz 90 spots for over 2k applicants)

Dropping:
None

 

Keeping:
Modern Times Theory
Highland Park Bottle Friends
Lost Abbey Saints & Sinners

Dropped:
Horus Convocation

Adding:
None

 

I'm debating whether or not to keep Bottle Friends...I probably will but a fair portion of the releases this year were stouts with ingredients I don't care for (coconut, cinnamon, chilis, etc.). I'll probably keep it for the discounts (and assuming bottle friend pours) and events

Adding/Re-joining
Modern Times maybe...I finally worked through all of my past bottles lol

maybe the hivemind can help out. What's a solid membership with barrel aged stouts that aren't too crazy on the adjuncts and good sours?

 

Unsure: HPB Bottle Friends (although the cost is worth it, having two kids now, covid, etc my expenses buying beer from them has been literally almost 0 and it's only been for allocation pickups)

Want: CASA. Does anybody have any good/bad reviews as membership goes? They seem similar to hpb in a way.

 

Keeping: Highland Park Brewery
Adding: Modern Times
Contemplating: CASA

 

Just because you mentioned MTs, most of their member released stouts have adjuncts. Without combing through my emails, i wanna estimate they do a barrel only stout/bw/malty beer about once a month, maybe once every 1.5 months and theyre usually very limited. The reason for the small bottle counts is because they usually only do non adjuncts in special one off barrels they receive whereas the adjunct stouts usually start with a base blend of multiple barrels

For sours, I do like the amphora aged saisons and their grisettes but most of their sours are too sour, imo. They arent the first brewery i look toward for sours. I usually stick with blendery. Great sours, reasonable price and easy to get/no rush whatsoever.

Been a member since 2016 and im a total homer but tried to give an honest opinion

 

Keeping: Modern Times League

Adding: Cellador

I might add Highland Park Bottle Friends if membership slots open up, but I'll have to wait and see.

 

Keeping: MT Theory
Adding: I guess I drunkenly bought in to a portion of Bruery Hoarders
Crumpling into a Ball and Firing Directly into the Sun: Wild Barrel, Alpine

 

Keeping Modern Times, that was an easy re-up! I hope I never get tempted to join another beer membership again!

Added: Culling. I know there was a lot of hate with them because of the unknown and the disclaimer if you don't max, you won't be invited next year. I'm not worried about re-upping next year, so that doesn't bother me. But for $50, it's worth a shot. I wasted more money for less value. Also the idea of buy as you go...sounds great. Rather than dropping $300 and hope those are good beers.

Dropping:
Bruery.
Honey Pot

 

Question to you guys dropping Horus... Why?? Past years I thought they were an absolute joke but it looks like Kyle got his shit together and dropped a lot of bangers this year.

 

Adding:
Culling Meadery
Viking Artisan Ales

Keeping:
Honeypot Meadery
Modern Times league
Private Press
Sante Adairius

Dropping:
Moksa

 

Keeping: Modern Times League

Dropping: Alpine (will they even do it next year?)

Adding: None

Hoping: That all the breweries running these clubs are able to survive the pandemic and stay open.

 

I actually got an email the other day for a 2021 membership into the 1843 lodge.

 

Keeping
Casa Agria Specialty Ales

Dropping
Cellador

What do you want to know? The details of the club are pretty much as described, and for 2021 it's $100 cheaper to boot!

 

Keeping:
SARA
MT League
HPB
Cellador V
Lost Abbey
Horus

Dropping:
None

Adding:
None


Running it back one more year with these, largely because all are friends and I want to support them as much as I can.

Focusing this year on making sure I pick up all of my shit.

 

Keeping:
MT Theory
Lost Abbey Sinners & Saints
Order of Anvil (Split)
Bruery Hoarder (Split)
Private Press

Dropping:
Alpine

Adding:
Russian River if selected

 

Keeping:
Bruery Hoarders
MT League

...that is all.

 

I noticed a lot of people are renewing their Lost Abbey membership. Can someone give a brief description of what they liked about it/beers received this year? Thanks.

 

I liked it because it is simple, just like how the SARA club is run. When beers are ready, we receive an email with the pickup weekend/options for shipping, ability to purchase more if bottles are available, and during pickup we get little tickets to get free (well now gotta buy a meal) pours usually of everything we are picking up. If it was a smaller batch then just a pour of one of the offerings.

We don't get a slew of emails throughout the year, although this does seem to be a negative for some members that like to know what is going on.

I don't have a good list of what we received last year without dissecting all of the pickup emails since they usually only tell us of a few planned releases
(Ex. "Completely forgot I wanted to share a few of the beers for club next year. We are working with Shaun from Hill Farmstead on a collab, of course the return of our Sinner's Blend that we'll be relying on our club members to help decide what that looks like, Cable Car 2020, and after much investigation from Tomme, the return of Yellow Bus.")

We also get a discount on the site as well as I think in the tasting room, early access to public sales (Ex. our cyber-monday sale with older DDG and CC occurred that sunday), and occasionally they will put up a vintage bottle on a first-come first-served basis for us.