Kris Calef, Author at Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club

Rare Beer Club® Featuring Two Exclusive Beers in July

July 16, 2015 by Kris Calef

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (July 14, 2015) – The Rare Beer Club®, one of the four U.S. and International monthly beer clubs offered by The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club™, is celebrating the company’s 21 years of business by releasing two exclusive beers in its July shipment: Ursae Majoris from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales and the Buellton Silent Partner from Telegraph Brewing Company.

“It’s a bit of work to line up two exclusives in one month, but we thought it was worth celebrating the fact that our beer clubs are celebrating their 21st birthday this year and are now, ‘of legal drinking age,’” says Kris Calef, president and founder of The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club. “We’re always excited to be able to run an exclusive with Ron Jeffries over at Jolly Pumpkin. He consistently delivers home runs and is widely considered to be one of the best craft brewers in the U.S. His take on an Oud Bruin, as expected, is going to be a real crowd-pleaser with our members. Telegraph’s Silent Partner is worthy of the honor, a complex, yet delicate saison, perfect for warmer weather.”

Ursae Majoris, a sour brown ale brewed in the oud bruin style, was crafted by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, a brewery that regularly partners with The Rare Beer Club for exclusive releases. Blended by Brewmaster Ron Jefferies, Ursae Majoris is a blend of three different, aged batches, which are then refermented in the bottle and allowed to mature for deeper flavor complexity. Ursae Majoris features a deep mahogany color with a thick, off-white head, a powerful fruit and oak aroma, and a sour red fruit flavor with a smooth, spiced finish sure to please any sour beer fan.

Opened in 2004, Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, a small craft brewery based in Ann Arbor, Mich., is renowned throughout the beer industry for its unique, high-quality offerings. Ursae Majoris will serve as the fourth exclusive beer that Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales has released through The Rare Beer Club. Learn more by visiting jollypumpkin.com.

Buellton Silent Partner, a bottle-conditioned saison brewed by Telegraph Brewing Company, is an exclusive craft beer created in collaboration with the band Buellton to celebrate the release of their new album, “Silent Partner.” This world-class saison offers a bright, honey-colored pour, a lemon and black pepper aroma, and a spicy, earthy flavor that complements the citrusy notes. The bottle fermenting also removes any sweetness and gives the Buellton Silent Partner a dry characteristic sure to please members of The Rare Beer Club.

Located in Santa Barbara, Calif., Telegraph Brewing Company is a small craft brewery that specializes in traditional European brewing techniques. With copper-clad brewing equipment and locally grown ingredients, brewmaster Brian Thompson works to capture the spirit of American ales and Belgian-inspired beers through his selection of craft beers. Learn more by visiting telegraphbrewing.com.

Visit buelltonmusic.com to learn more about the band Buellton.

De Proef & Left Hand Knock it Outta the Park with Wekken Sour

June 23, 2015 by Kris Calef

We’ve been running the Brewer’s Collaboration series with one of our favorite importers, Artisanal Imports, for quite a few years now. The premise is that one of Belgium’s most prolific brewers, De Proef, teams up with a hot U.S. Craft brewer to collaborate on something that highlights each brewery’s strong points to come up with something truly unique, and I’m here to tell you, they’ve pulled it off every year. One of my favorites over the years was Flanders Fred, a strong ale lambic blended beer that was born from the collaboration with Hair of the Dog Brewing Co. I still have a few bottles of that bad boy tucked away in the back of my beer fridge…just waiting for the right moment.

So this year Left Hand’s Eric Wallace is collaborating with De Proef on a blend of their infamous Wake Up Dead Imperial Stout and De Proef’s Zoetzuur, a Flemish Red Ale. The brewery’s description doesn’t quite do it justice, but will give you a hint of what’s to come later this month: “It’s nearly black with roasted malts contributing complex flavors of licorice and blackstrap molasses balanced by lively herbal hop notes. The heavy foundation of the Wake Up Dead is enlivened by Zoetzuur’s tart cherry flavor and acidity from its mixed yeast fermentation.”

I’m as excited about Wekken Sour as I was Flanders Fred!

Prost!
Kris

Odell brings the Wood with Barrel Thief

June 9, 2015 by Kris Calef

We just placed our order for Odell’s 9.4% oak aged Imperial IPA and I can’t wait to hear what our members think about it. Historically, we haven’t seen a ton of brewers attempting to marry wood with aggressively hopped beers over the years, but I suspect that’s all about to change pretty quickly. Longtime members may recall another barrel-aged IPA that was featured this past year: Cigar City’s El Monstruo Lúpulo, a double IPA aged on Spanish cedar and spruce that was made exclusively for our members to commemorate our 20th anniversary. Seems fitting that this year, as The Rare Beer Club turns the legal drinking age of 21, we’re running another outstanding brewer, making another outstanding beer focused on the marriage of wood and hops.

As our newsletter writer, Ken Weaver, pointed out, “the combination of hops and wood-derived qualities is certainly an intriguing one, and this will likely find increasingly more traction going forward. Hops offer all sorts of different and endearing characteristics to beer—from the prototypical citruses, herbaceousness, spice, and grass, to tropical fruits and beyond—while different wood types can offer an equally diverse range of input: from the coconut brightness of American oak to the spicy, cinnamon aspects of Brazilian amburana wood.”

Okay, I’m officially thirsty as we near 5 o’clock. Not that happy hour is by any means a perquisite for popping the cork on an outstanding beer at my desk. Such is the luxury of owning The Rare Beer Club. Having a warehouse full of really good stuff at your disposal is always a good thang.

Where the hell was I going with all this? Got side tracked there. Barrel Thief. You’re going to LOVE it. It’s bottle-conditioned, well hopped, and aged in fresh American oak. You’ve got juicy, tropical hops melding with similarly generous oak-barrel notes. The nose offers aromatics of fresh melon, a melange of citrus (from grapefruit and fresh-squeezed lemon to angles of kaffir lime leaf and passion fruit), and of course that American oak. Don’t check out Ken’s full tasting notes on Barrel Thief unless you’re prepared to become a member to ensure you can get your hands on some of this stuff!

Prost!
Kris

Five Barrel Aged Beers from Odell Coming Over the Next Few Months

April 28, 2015 by Kris Calef

I love working with Odell. Eric “Smitty” Smith has been at the helm for 25+ years now and they’re producing a ton of outstanding beers. It’s been a few years since we worked together in The Rare Beer Club^® so I figured it was time to see what was in the queue for 2015 that might be new and interesting for our members. The only problem was that there were five really exciting barrel aged beers to choose from and only one slot to fill. Not wanting to deprive you of any of these tasty gems, we resolved to featuring one in the club and the other four in a special offer a month later! You’ll thank me later.

So here’s what you have to look forward to:

June RBC Featured Beer:
– Odell Barrel Thief, a 10%+ oak aged double IPA.

July Special Offer Selections – For the love of Wood:
– Woodcut No. 8 – A 10.3% oak aged barleywine.
– 180 Shilling – a 9.6% oak aged American strong ale
– Jaunt – a 7.6% oak aged American pale ale brewed with Riesling grapes
– Fernet Porter – a 9.8% strong porter aged in Fernet barrels

I’ve been wanting to run something from Eric’s Woodcut Series for years now, but he’s never got enough of it. Every year, I send him a mixed case of some of my favorite RBC selections and beg him to use the shipper to send me back some of his Woodcut stash. I covet each one and will be squirreling away a mixed case of these four beers myself to be sure.

No you just have to sit back and wait for it baby.

Prost!
Kris

One Czech Bug Can Do a Lot of Damage!

April 21, 2015 by Kris Calef

Drunk-Bug In over 20 years of running this club, I’ve yet to run into the problem we had last month bringing in our import selections from Primátor. Everything was perfect. We were all fired up to bring you the Czech Republic’s strongest beer, a 10.5% Double Bock from Primátor which was a perfect beer to run in April when many bocks are traditionally released. And then we got a call. There was a problem in customs. Upon opening our container, they found one bug in one pallet, seized the little shit and promptly locked back up and secured our malty cargo.

We waited a full week to see whether or not the beer would be released, all the time offering solutions such as repacking every last case on to new pallets, but in the end, it was not meant to be and the whole lot of it was sent back across the pond to be repacked and returned on another ship. We scrambled to move up either our May or June beers so your shipments wouldn’t go out late and pulled a rabbit outta you know where to make it happen. I’m also happy to report that you will get to try that amazing double bock, just a few months later.

I hesitate to rail too hard or name the customs office that made the call to send everything back due to one bug as we still don’t have the beer in hand. I guess they’re just doing their jobs in the end, but it sure seemed like a bit of an over-reaction at the time…and a costly one at that!

Rest easy knowing that we are 1000% committed to getting you the goods each month on time.

Prost!
Kris

AguaMala…This ain’t no Corona, Baby!

March 31, 2015 by Kris Calef

I’ve been wanting to run a Mexican craft brewer for a while now as there are quite a few that have popped up in recent years making really nice beer. The AguaMala Brewery initially sent us four beers to check out: a 3.4% session pale ale, a 4% amber ale, a well hopped American pilsner, and a 7% IPA, and we really liked them all. As much as we loved the IPA, we were really impressed with the two session beers. It’s a real art to be able to deliver that kind of flavor and body at such a low ABV. Makes me want to head down to Tijuana, plop down on a bar overlooking Avenida Revolucion for say…6 or 8 hours…and drink a lot of (good) beer while pounding street tacos.

AguaMala produces six or more other beers which we’ll be taking a look at as well and we’re going to do our best to line them up in the next 6 months. Sweet label art too. Stay tuned.

Prost!
Kris

Getting reacquainted with an old friend, Fantôme’s Magic Ghost

March 24, 2015 by Kris Calef

This beer tripped me out when we first featured it back in 2011 and once again over three years later when I busted open a bottle I had stashed from the 2011 run. It was still green to be sure, but not quite as vibrant as it was when we first ran it. Definitely a creeper that didn’t feel anywhere near 8% and I found the beer’s herbal qualities to be even more pronounced after some time in the bottle allowing it’s hop profile fade. As I was drinking it, I imagined Dany, the head brewer, darting about in the forest collecting various twigs and vines to toss in the mash. Still a definite lemon/lime citric nature to it and I still got the green tea notes that we picked up originally.

Suffice to say, my mood was altered a bit after downing the bottle while not doing much of anything else on our deck. It was pretty good (my mood) before I opened the beer…But really much, much better after the ghost worked his magic. Be sure to check out our original full tasting notes from when we first ran it.

Prost!
Kris