Bruery Membership

I really cannot overstate how appreciative I am of how convenient the Bruery makes it for me to get my hands on beers like BT and CR. The online BT sale last year sold 11,000 bottles in 15 minutes, with a 2 bottle limit per person. RS had almost a month to purchase up to 5, and with a 15% discount. Compare that to the Kern river citra release, with a fraction of the bottles, a 2-6 hour drive depending on where in socal you were, and people getting shut out the first day despite showing up at something like 6 in the morning, I definitely prefer the bruery's method. Another local(ish) brewery, Hangar 24, has a no buy in membership card with reward tiers based on how much you spend at their tasting room, and the first tier gives you the ability to preorder their special release (barrel roll series) beers a couple days in advance.

I like the crooked stave cellar reserve membership system in general, though I think overall it's a bit inferior to the way the Bruery handles things (WWBV release being a big part of that) and wish more breweries had loyalty incentive programs in place to reward the people that invest in them either in large amounts or over a long period of time.

A final point, the RS membership comes with something in the area of $240 worth of beer (msrp) included at no additional cost. Offset's some of the sting of that initial investment.

 

Agreed. Plus a sweatshirt, and a bottle opener. I only wish I lived closer to the tasting room to take advantage of that benefit

 

Yeah, it's really a futures program when you factor in how much you're getting in bottles and the ability to buy more is always nice without having to go through so many loops.

When you're sitting there with your case of CR or BT without any sweat used to get them, then you really appreciate it. Not to mention the RS only taps at the tasting room.

 

This thread has been great. I recently moved to CA and was wondering the benefits of the memberships. Sounds like the reserve society is great for someone that does not want to chase trucks to get great beers.