Firestone Walker Brewmaster's Collective Club (2022)

How were the exclusive beers last year? Did members generally feel like it was a good value? And are they piling more glassware on this year?

 

Thats fucked that Sucaba is a member exclusive this year

 

They had to do something to get people to join this god awful club.

 

What makes you say it’s “god awful”?

 

They’ve done well keeping it exclusive, I’ve tried to track some down.
For glassware it looks like they learned their lesson from the first year and have reeled it back

 

i think hes referring to the $600 they expect people to drop on it.

i think it would have been better if they charged for only the 15 exclusives, dropping the entry price to 250-275ish, and the rest buy as you go. then the club would have quickly filled (i would have joined).

a filled membership who buy as they go is much better than a half membership who pay the high entry fee

 

oh yea dont get me wrong, the perks all seem to be great, but dropping $600 in november/december for renewals is not in the cards for me no matter what the perks are

 

Little bump here. Figured this might be the best place to ask. Paraboloid popped up in my Tavour feed. Beer sounds fantastic. I happen to love Rye BA stouts, and Sazerac. So yeah... Did this beer see distro in or out of state? Looks like it was released with the membership in Feb, but first I'm hearing about it. It's running $11.99 per, so price is in line with other FW BA beers. Thanks for any insight you all can provide!
@Jinx989

 

distro in state. i sent some out to plenty people on here. you want one say the word if you took a break from tavour. will trade for DT

Edit: its fuckin delicious and worth getting

 

Ugh. Almost went out in March because I wanted this beer. Finally making it back to Cali in two weeks. Saw it was still available, not loving my chances of getting any if it's made it's way to Tavour though. Damn you MI for blocking Tavour!

 

where in cali you landing?

 

SFO... heading up to wine country for the lady's bday

 

Hearing rumors that Barrelworks is closing and a distillery will open in its place?!?

 

When did you hear this?

 

Today from someone that lives in the Santa Ynez Valley. Can't corroborate with another source so take it with a grain of salt, but after Sour Jim's departure earlier this year and the decreasing popularity of wild/sour ales, it's not a big surprise. If true, I hope they keep the taproom and restaurant open.

 

They've got a good number of barrels stored there. Do they have the space at their main campus to store all of those?

 

Reminds me of when Ballast Point closed one of their facilities in 2019 and they dumped 1,300 oak barrels of beer down the drain.

 

When I took the main brewery tour in 2019 think they had 2.5-3K barrels in storage. I've never been to Barrelworks, so no idea how many we're talking about, but my guess is yes they'd be able to accommodate their storage in Paso if pressed.

 

Assume that was under after they sold to Constellation?

 

For sure, this is what Constellation had to say about it: "Our goal is to right-size our investment, resources and align with consumer trends.”

 

I've never taken a tour of the barelworks but there were easily 500 barrels visible, and possibly significantly more. I dont have a good framework for judging the volume of a barrel room but there was a large room with barrels stacked to the ceiling

 

I’ve taken a self tour and the barrel room is huge, that’s a bummer becasue that was always a fun stop on my way to LA

the beers I’ve tried this year have all been excellent!

my cousin is in the club and he kicks me out beers here and there and it’s some pretty tasty stuff, at a really good price point too. Man what a bummer things are caving in

 

If it's true, I wouldn't be surprised. When they laid off Jim, I had a feeling this might be coming. I've always loved Barrelworks' beers, especially the beer/wine hybrids, and would be very sad to lose them. I was excited for their experiments with spontaneous fermentation, but that likely is finished after only releasing two beers. Hopefully they will find a way to keep the wild ale program running at a smaller scale in Paso.

 

2023 Membership info released today. I did notice that there are only 3 sours and they are not labelled as "Barrelworks" beers but as Firestone beers.

 

they do mention picking up from 3 different locations tho!

it looks like the price came down to $500 but no longer includes shipping. wrong part to drop. what they need to do is drop the general release beers, brings it down to $320 (id do everything i could to get it sub $300). easier to digest and easier to sell out. have the general release beers be "buy as you go". the money is still going to be spent, but over the course of the year.

$635 upfront to include shipping

 

well in that case they didnt change anything and messed up again

 

They're listing Buellton as a pickup location for '23 Brewmaster releases, so it sounds like they're intending to have that space there in some capacity at least.

 

A few questions for those of you who are members:
1) Do you have the option to purchase extras of the various bottles in each quarterly release before they come out? Or are all extra sales on an archive basis for club-exclusives and as-they-release basis for distro beers?
2) Can you adjust your shipping address on an ongoing basis (without emailing to ask for help)? Or once you set it for the year is it a hassle to change?
3) Are they fairly responsive to questions? It strikes me as a fairly chill club and I wouldn't go in expecting something like the Modern Times League (or what the League used to be, anyway). Mostly verifying that it's not Lost Abbey-caliber customer service.

 

My cousin is in the club

My cousin is in the club and I sent him your questions. Here’s his replies:

1) Each release has set quantities, usually they offer all or most of those in the days that follow. So I think more like the last part of that scenario described

2) yup you just change on the website ahead of time. Done it twice now

3) pretty quick response the one time I reached out

 

I was in both the MT league and Lost Abbey, it's not really comparable to either. I've gotten nothing but fast responses, but don't expect warm and fuzzies. It's definitely not the community MT was, but it's not a shitshow like Lost Abbey.

 

Thanks for the feedback, @KevSal, @johnInLA, and @chrisjws! Just pulled the trigger and looking forward to next year's lineup.