In the News Archives - Page 13 of 14 - Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club

Status of The Bruery’s Six Geese a Layin’!

November 11, 2013 by Kris Calef

The-Bruery-6-Geese-A-Laying Each year, for the last five years, we’ve featured The Bruery’s current selection from their 12 Days of Christmas holiday vertical series and this year was to be no different…

As a new beer, it needed both Federal recipe and label approval and the ole government shutdown put everything in the queue in limbo, making Six Geese the second awesome beer intended to be featured in The Rare Beer Club™ to fall prey to the furlough. It gets worse. The Bruery didn’t make enough of it for us to feature it in December or January and it’s a seasonal beer that’s really meant to be enjoyed.

Are you ready for some good news? The approval finally came through last Thursday and we’re bringing in as much as we can get our hands on so that we can send a special offer to our members later today! That’s right babies, there won’t be any holes in your holiday stockings this year to let this one slip through the cracks…And no holes in the 12 beer line up for those collecting the entire series in order to host a vertical tasting 2019! We couldn’t let this beer pass you by.

Be sure to contact us at [email protected] or 800-625-8238 if you’re a member of The Rare Beer Club™ and don’t receive the offer for some reason (Think Spam Filters!)

Prost!
Kris

International Stout Day

November 8, 2013 by Kristina Manning

It is a great day to head out to your local brewery and enjoy a rich stout on tap. Especially when the flavors contain rich notes of coffee, malts, and chocolate combined with a nice balance of hops in my glass, particularly on these cool fall evenings.

On the way down from our local mountains last weekend, we stopped at Hanger 24 in Redlands, CA. I tried their Russian Imperial Stout, and it didn’t disappoint! Another bourbon barrel aged stout that had the perfect complexity with all the ingredients I look for in this style, I wanted more. However, we still needed to drive home and at 12% ABV, we bought a Hanger 24 growler filled with the Imperial Stout to take with us. It’s empty now but I am looking forward to going back to Hanger 24 for a refill. Maybe tonight to try their #stoutday flights!

We all have that local place we like to stop and have a beer on tap. Where is your local go to for a craft beer on tap?

Cheers!
Kristina

Our Newsletter Writer, Ken Weaver, Picks up 2 Prestigious Beer Writer Awards!

October 21, 2013 by Kris Calef

We’re pretty proud of what we do over here and feel pretty confident that no other beer club spends the time, money or energy both lining up special beers for our members or putting together a quality newsletter that we feel is a big part of the overall experience. So when one of our newsletter writers, Ken Weaver, picks up two, count ’em, two awards from The North American Guild of Beer Writers, we want to brag about him a bit.

Ken’s a freelance beer writer and editor. His first book is The Northern California Craft Beer Guide, a must for anyone either living in Northern California or planning a trip. He’s a frequent contributor to All About Beer magazine and editor of RateBeer Weekly. He’s also written for publications including DRAFT, Saveur, and Wine Enthusiast.

He recently received the following awards from the NAGBW:

1. Best Brewspaper/Free Zine Writing for his article,“The Big Show: Local brewers prepare for the Great American Beer Festival”, and

2. Best Beer and Food Writing for his article, “Genesis of a Beer Dinner”

Congratulations Ken! Well done.

Prost!
Kris

Government Shutdown Delays Delivery of Jolly Pumpkin RBC Exclusive, Los Vivos y Los Muertos

October 18, 2013 by Kris Calef

I have to tell you, this has been a really challenging month as the shutdown of the federal TTB office which approves new beer recipes and labels has impacted a number of beers we had slotted for Q4. The nature of the products featured in The Rare Beer Club™, which are often exclusive products brewed just for our members and new products to the US market, has made us much more susceptible to being affected by the government shutdown.

The fact that I just happened to be wearing my Jolly Pumpkin t-shirt on the day that we rated a potential replacement beer for their Los Vivos y Los Muertos, a pumpkin lime saison brewed exclusively for The Rare Beer Club™, was bittersweet to say the least. We’re all pretty bummed that we had to delay bringing this special beer to our members, but after we tasted Malheur’s Zestig, labeled a Belgian strong golden ale (we all felt was more of a strong Belgian IPA), we began to feel a bit like there was in fact a silver lining to the predicament we were facing.

Man, did we ever get lucky finding a solid replacement for JP. We called dozens of importers, distributors and breweries before stumbling across Zestig. The fact that Malheur translates to “misfortune” seems a bit ironic as this is a brand new product from the brewery and only a little over a 100 cases have been sold in the US in very limited distribution. It was indeed our good fortune that we were able to secure all but about 60 cases of what the importer has left on the floor for our members. So you could say it’s got a good “rareness” story…but how’s the beer? One word: Outstanding. You’re gonna love it. What an impressive beer. We were all blown away and felt that in some strange way this was all meant to be as we now can bring our members both outstanding beers, both of which are virtually RBC exclusives. We’ll have the full tasting notes for Zestig up on our site early next week if you’re interested.

One last parting thought. I want to reassure our members that we will in fact get Los Vivos y Los Muertos to you one way or another, either as a special offer or in a future month. Thank you for your patience.

Prost!
Kris

Government Shutdown Impacts Breweries and Potentially The Rare Beer Club

October 14, 2013 by Kris Calef

In case you’re wondering just how the government shutdown might directly impact you, here’s a pretty interesting read posted by Adam Nason over at BeerPulse that outlines the significant impact it’s already had on the brewing industry. As many of our own Rare Beer Club featured beers are new to the US market or were created exclusively for the club, they require federal recipe and/or label approval and sadly this has put at risk two outstanding up and coming featured selections, Jolly Pumpkin’s Los Vivos y Los Muertos, a pumpkin lime saison slotted to go out this month and The Bruery’s Six Geese a Laying, the sixth release in their 12 days of Christmas holiday vertical offering. Both beers await federal label approval and may have to be pushed to a later month. Rest assured, we have several equally impressive beers slotted for future months that we’ll simply move up if we have to push those not approved.

To read more, visit www.BeerPulse.com.

Prost!
Kris

Cigar City Spanish Cedar Barrel Aged Imperial IPA for 2nd MonthlyClubs.com 20 Year Anniversary Beer

October 9, 2013 by Kris Calef

Since we’re doing two 20 year Anniversary beers for The Rare Beer Club™ next year, I figured it would be cool to have two completely different offerings. We’ve got a big ABV, multiple barrel aged blended old ale covered with The Bruery so I figured it would be fun to focus on hops with Cigar City.

Still in the early stages of crafting the vision on this one, but out of the gate we know it will be something with a fairly hefty ABV, aggressively hopped and more than likely aged in several barrels including Spanish Cedar and perhaps spruce. Starting with a base of something akin to Cigar City’s Humidor Series IPA seems like a good idea. Love, love, love that beer.

This one will be featured in The Rare Beer Club™ in September of 2014. More updates after we connect with brewmaster, Wayne Wambles. Should be a fun process.

Prost!
Kris

MonthlyClubs.com 20 Year Anniversary Beer locked with The Bruery

October 4, 2013 by Kris Calef

So I sent out two emails to two of my favorite breweries asking each if they’d be interested in working with us to create an exclusive commemorative beer to celebrate our 20 year company anniversary next July. I’m here to tell you that both The Bruery and Cigar City are on board! More on Cigar City later.

So Brett and I sat down with Patrick, Tyler and Jonas last friday afternoon in The Bruery’s tasting room to kick around some ideas. Work, work, work. I know. I know.

We hammered out the broad strokes. It’s going to be big, 15%+ and a blend of 2 or 3 barrel aged beers, more than likely one of which will be Bois, a Bourbon Barrel Aged Solera-Blended Old Ale that was crafted to celebrate The Bruery’s 5th anniversary. Seemed appropriate.

We kicked around ideas on how we could incorporate our 5 other clubs (wine, cigars, cheese, chocolate and flowers) into the beer. One thought was to have Smokin’ Wood be one of the beers blended. As an imperial smoked porter brewed with beachwood and cherrywood smoked malt, and aged in rye whiskey barrels, we all felt that might incorporate our cigar club nicely. We also kicked around the idea of purchasing cacao nibs from one of our featured chocoatiers, Mindo Chocolates, a true “Tree to Bar” chocolate maker whose cocoa beans are single origin organic cocoa beans from Ecuador.

Suffice to say, it’s going to be special. It’ll be offered as a Special Offer only to The Rare Beer Club™ and The Bruery Reserve Society members only in roughly a year. We’ll be sitting down with the boys to taste different barrel blends in a few months so stay tuned as this one develops.

Prost!
Kris