In the News Archives - Page 8 of 14 - Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club

July 2015 Rare Beer Club® Special Offer

July 20, 2015 by Kris Calef

Today it’s our pleasure to announce another Rare Beer Club^® Special Offer! You can read a summary below or visit the special offer page for full tasting notes and access to the order form.

If you’re new to the club: welcome! One of the best things about being a member is that, in addition to our normal monthly selections, you can take advantage of our periodic special offers on additional exciting and hard-to-find beers.

We’re very excited to offer four delicious beers from Colorado’s Odell Brewing Company – specifically from their Cellar Series, which are very limited production beers usually available only from their tap room. And, like our June feature from Odell, Barrel Thief, three of the beers below have aged on wood. Cheers!

Jaunt – Incorporating the juice of Riesling grapes from the Western Slope of Colorado, Jaunt is also aged with light and medium oak staves during secondary fermentation. Additions of wheat and Pilsner malt serve to keep this smooth and crackling. 7.6% ABV.
Trellis – This very unusual strong ale is brewed with locally grown herbs and spices including cilantro, coriander, lavender, rose petals, and pineapple mint. Along with being an expressive (and wholly unique) offering, every bottle sold raises one dollar to support The Gardens on Spring Creek. 8.7% ABV.
Fernet Aged Porter – A blend of 50% porter and 50% aged porter matured in Fernet barrels via Leopold Bros. Distillery. Inspired by the framework of dark, minty liqueurs, Odell combined the core elements of minty licorice barrel notes with the base of a chocolate-malt-forward porter. 9.4% ABV.
180 Shilling – An upsized riff on the flagship beer they opened their doors with back in 1989: the also-delicious 90 Shilling. We, unabashedly, were totally into this one. An undercurrent of roast meets huge, glorious levels of caramel and dried dark fruits and sherry, with a perfect impact from the oak. 9.6% ABV.

Flexible ordering allows you to order 2, 4, 6, 8, or 12 total bottles, combining any of the 4 featured beers in any way to get there so that you can easily try all four. Orders ship after our July 31 cut off date.

Order online or at 800-625-8238 Mon-Fri 7 am – 5 pm Pacific. If your Rare Beer Club^®membership was a gift, you will be contacted by one of our team members for payment information if you submit your order online.

Click the “Learn More” button for full tasting notes, and to access the order form.

If you wish to get any of these limited selections, please respond to this special offer by 12:00 PM Pacific on Friday, July 31, 2015.

Cheers!

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.

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

HAPPY Birthday Michael Jackson!

March 27, 2015 by Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club

And no, not that one. I’m talking about the The Beer Hunter and founder our Rare Beer Club! Michael James Jackson (27 March 1942 – 30 August 2007) was a beer journalist and critic, traveled the world discovering different beer cultures and his work was influential in the popularization of the brewing culture in the US. The modern concept of beer style is largely based on his work in the 1977 book The World Guide To Beer in which he categorized beers from around the world into style groups according to local customs and names. He also hosted a television series aptly titled the Beer Hunter in around the 1990’s. His awards and accolades are countless in the beer industry and we are honored to continue his pursuit of beer.

Salud!
David

They Are Women, Hear Them Roar

March 8, 2015 by Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club

Equality for women in the work force is stronger than ever, but don’t tell that to the beer industry which has been male dominated for hundreds of years and remains so today. However, things are changing fast and by the hand of the minority. In recognition of International Women’s Day on March 8th, the non-profit organization Pink Boots Society will be throwing their second annual International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day (IWCBD) with over 80 participants from 11 different countries. This year’s style to be mastered – Unite Red Ale. Following the event, over 80 versions of the beer will be released so that fans and supporters around the world can not only try the brew, but join in the cause of supporting women in the beer industry.

To that my friends, I say Cheers!
Shelton

February 2015 Rare Beer Club Special Offer

February 10, 2015 by Kris Calef

Today we’re excited to announce our first Rare Beer Club^® Special Offer of 2015! You can read a summary below or visit the special offer page for full tasting notes and access to the order form.

We sampled a lot of beer during the last few months in order to home in on four outstanding brews. These standouts really impressed us, and each in their own unique way. We know you’ll enjoy them as much as we did. Cheers!

Brasserie du Flo: Cuvée St. Antoine Blonde – Brewed on a tiny 2-bbl system by Didier Cornet, a friend of Fantôme’s Dany Prignon, this superb beer comes through as a mixture of bready blonde ale and peppery saison, with layers of intermingling yeast, firm and funky acidity, well-fermented dryness, and plush fruity esters. 7.5% ABV.
Brouwerij Kerkom: Reuss – A blend of 80% blonde and 20% lambic, Reuss delivers a heady, toasty, yeasty aroma with a citrusy tart backdrop, while the juicy, acidic tang and subtle funk of a precise gueuze comes forward in the flavor, with a touch of herbal hop bitterness throughout. Approx. 6.5% ABV.
Mikkeller: Frelser – Brewed by Mikkeller at De Proef, Frelser is a massive, hugely appointed überbock delivering deeply caramelized sugars, dried dark fruits, some dark roast, leather, and a ton of rich, intricate maltiness – all within a soft, finely carbonated texture. 11% ABV.
Epic Brewing (New Zealand): Epicurean Coffee & Fig – An impressively unique imperial oatmeal stout featuring Turkish figs and conditioned on toasted Philippine coconut & Kenyan coffee beans. Pouring jet black, there’s tons of roasted coffee and subtler chocolate, while figs play off the coffee, and the coconut offers a toasty, slightly tropical backdrop. 8% ABV.

Order online or at 800-625-8238 Mon-Fri 7 am – 5 pm Pacific. If your Rare Beer Club^® membership was a gift, you will be contacted by one of our team members for payment information if you submit your order online.

Click the “Learn More” button for full tasting notes, and to access the order form.

If you wish to get any of these limited selections, please respond to this special offer by 12:00 PM Pacific on Wednesday, February 18th.

Cheers!