Best Brewery Membership (CA)

Most of the good memberships in CA are from wild leaning breweries. If you want stouts or a mix, there is The Bruery, Hangar 24, and FiftyFifty off the top of my head. I'm kind of over The Bruery since I've been a member for a few years and have a stockpile, but it's a much better option than either of those two.

 

I enjoy Casa Agria's membership alot. While it pretty much is a sour focused brewery (great sours btw), they also make excellent hazy IPAs and have released a few stout variations on tap. One of the most appealing things for me about the membership is getting to buy their canned IPA releases online with a larger allotment than non members who must line up to purchase.

 

Modern Times is the best membership ive had to date with a solid and diverse beer lineup

 

I'll second the MT membership as the best I've had, but they do not hold your purchases for the entire year. Most non-ipa purchases have to be picked up in 3 months, and canned IPA's have to be picked up in 30 days. Depending on how close you are to San Diego, this may or may not work for you. If the pickup windows are workable though, the MT membership is seriously awesome.

 

I am in both the Bruery's and Phatom Carriage's membership. The Bruery offers diversity, shipping, a broad range of styles, a 15% discount, options to fill exclusive grower offerings, and access to awesome events. Phantom Carriage so far has been sour only. I am hoping they can IPA's someday, but I do really enjoy their membership. They are in the first year of offering a membership, but so far so good. There is an online shop, a 10% discount, available shipping option, membership growler fill options and will call orders. Both have awesome customer service, which IMO is just as important as the quality of beer. Both also offer the option to have a trustee pickup.

 

Oh yeah I forgot Modern Times haha

 

Modern Times and Mikkeller have been pretty awesome so far. Both seem very focused on improving and listening to their member's input so that's a great sign to me.

 

I didn't even know Mikkeller had one

 

This is year 2 of it running. You likely didn't hear much initially because year 1 didn't really kick in to being good until January of this year (runs May to May). talking with a few friends that also bought in the first year, we were all planning on not renewing, then they started this weekly can release thing and it changed the game.

There are 2 levels, regular viking and then beserker. Could buy into either. Beserker is about $100 more for the year and you get an extra set of bottles that vikings won't even get, as well as some swag and a special tap that only you can get fills off of.

 

Cellador is a great sour brewery with a tiered membership (each tier just means quantity of member exclusive bottles). As they're replacing rare barrel for me next year, one upside is they're in SoCal and shipping is $10 for 12 bottles.

There's also free memberships such as Monkish or Highland Park Brewery's, where if you are a frequent online buyer, you'll have potentially gain early access.

 

I'll second casa. It's nice to get the IPA cans guaranteed instead of waiting in a line. And they are damn tasty. Also, sours of course.

 

Mikkeller ships within CA.

 

Id recommend Sante Adairius membership although getting into it might require talking to the owners rather than filling out a form online. I would also recommend the Bruery as a nice place to be a member of if you like big stouts. Membership at the bruery is gonna land you with more stouts than you can deal with but a few years at least is probably worth it

 

Two years ago I would have recommended the Bruery membership. Today, I would not recommend it. The quality of the beer is no longer what it once was.

I would recommend Modern Times if you plan on frequenting the tasting room.

 

I am moderately happy with Mikkeller's membership program. I'm tier two, but I will probably go down to tier one next year. I won't need another set of swag, the "upgraded" promises haven't really been delivered yet, IMO. Or they're just not comparable to similar perks in other memberships. Like the growler fills mentioned above - sure, they're tier two only, but they're usually aging IPAs from previous releases. Feels like it's more a way to dump the remaining stock than it is to actually make something exclusively available. This is compared to, say, the MT fills.

What I DO like in comparison to others is that they offer 15% discount on EVERYTHING. Every single purchase. And I like the early access to purchases each week. Figure out what the time is worth to you and apply that to the costs of memberships. They do seem to listen to the members and adjust their practices. They recently got a crowler machine which seems to be in response to demands of fills for some of their higher end offerings, so we'll see how that goes. Only 1/4 of the way in to the membership and I've "saved" $43. Yes, I track it. So if this gets to $150ish in total savings, that leaves just $50-$150 toward the rest of the perks. $12-ish per bottle received (at the higher tier), not even including the swag. I tend to purchase no more than a 4pk or two at the releases that interest me. Savings could be much more if you frequent their brewery, and the membership could actually pay for itself.

Hopefully that makes sense. I'm a budgeting/accounting nerd so it's sometimes tough to demonstrate value. Based on other experiences, the one I'm considering also joining next year (and possibly just replacing the Mikkeller club in my beer budget) is MT League.

 

Cellador shipping is $10 a box, other than that I'm not sure you're going to find another membership that you're not going to have to drive a distance or ship...

 

I'm in Casa, Cellador, rare barrel, and Bruery. Casa is my favorite because of the IPA access. Their sours while still really good are my least favorite.
Cellador's sours are my favorite, or at least the few I have had and will probably make me not renew rare barrel because I live in so cal. I also love the tiered membership.
Rare barrel is great, but I'm tired of getting a new growler every year.
The Bruery used to be great, I used to love going to the tasting room but I haven't been back since the price increase, there are just so many other better tasting rooms nearby, the anniversary party was not good this year and that was one of favorite things about the membership. I also haven't "loved" any of their new beers. Also, offshoot has been a joke, and it just seems like they aren't about the beer anymore and only about profits, and it seems like it was like this before the buyout.