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Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club

A craft beer blog written by the experts of The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club

Beyond the Bottle: Re-Re-Reopenings

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Last month, I mentioned how the beer scene was looking out here in Sonoma County, with the particularly troubling sidebar that we could be losing 40+% of the restaurants in Santa Rosa as a result of the pandemic. Santa Rosa’s the biggest city in Sonoma County—home to breweries like Russian River, Moonlight, Cooperage, and HenHouse, among others. With a recent uptick in COVID-19 cases across the state, California closed indoor dining statewide as of July 13th. The new restrictions, while addressing the fact that indoor transmission is way more problematic, impose a pretty curious handicap on places like breweries, brewpubs, and distilleries—all of which can serve beer outdoors, but only in the same transaction as a meal.

Wineries and tasting rooms, in a move that pokes the most cynical buttons in my brain, have no such restriction. <dramatic villain music>

I’ll focus on how our local folks have been responding. Lagunitas here in Petaluma already had most of its seating outdoors, and is open for curbside pickup and outdoor dining, with the restriction of one household per seating area. Moonlight, Cooperage, and Russian River (the latter getting a boost from Santa Rosa’s decision to shut down 4th Street in downtown for businesses to operate outdoors) have all been creating makeshift beer gardens, satisfying the meal requirements through either an existing kitchen (RR) or rotating food trucks. And the two HenHouse locations, with smaller outdoor spaces, have been curbside pickup only.

Hope you’re holding up ok through this. How are breweries adjusting to things in your area? Have things reopened, or re-reopened? Get in touch on Twitter via @RareBeerClub.

Mikkeller Rare Beer Club Special Offer

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We’re excited to announce another Rare Beer Club® Special Offer!

We’re happy to have had the opportunity to work with the Mikkeller team to bring our members a selection of delicious and hard to find brews this month which exemplify Mikkeller’s creativity and skill. We sampled an array of beers to home in on six particularly engaging selections that we couldn’t put down, and that you won’t want to miss!

A list of the beers appears below, but we encourage you to visit the special offer page for full tasting notes and access to the order form. NOTE: All beers are 330-ml bottles, except for the 12″ Winale which is 375-ml.

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. Cheers!

  1. Beer Geek Flat White – Oatmeal Stout w/ Coffee & Lactose. 7.5% ABV. 330-ml.
  2. Beer Geek Limfjords Porter – Porter w/ Licorice & Coffee. 7.7% ABV. 330-ml.
  3. Beer Hop Breakfast – Black IPA w/ Coffee. 7.5% ABV. 330-ml.
  4. Mexas Ranger – Ale w/ Spices, Almond Milk, Cocoa, Chili, Black Beans, & Avocado Leaves. 6.6% ABV. 330-ml.
  5. Spontandryhop Citra – Dry Hop Citra Sour Ale. 5.5% ABV. 330-ml.
  6. 12″ Winale – Ale brewed w/ Wine Grape Juice & Champagne yeast. 8.1% ABV. 375-ml.

Flexible ordering allows you to order 4, 6, 8, 12, 18, 24, or 48 total bottles, combining any of the six featured beers in any way to get there so that you can easily try them all.

ORDER ONLINE or at 800-625-8238 Mon – Fri, 7am – 4 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.

Learn More for full tasting notes, and to access the order form.

The order cut-off for this Special Offer is 12:00 PM Pacific on Monday, July 20th. Orders will begin shipping out about a week later.

Cheers!

 

 

Kris Calef
President, The Rare Beer Club®

Beyond the Bottle: Venturing Out

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It’s tough to imagine having COVID-19 under control in this country anytime soon, so, like everybody else right now, my wife and I have been making adjustments for the long haul. As local restaurants and breweries reopen for on-site business up here in Sonoma County, we’re finally faced with the option of venturing out. For the past few months, we’ve been focused on curbside pickup at the handful of local breweries we really want to have around when this is all over—which seems dire, but probably isn’t. Our biggest city here is Santa Rosa, known to many as home to Russian River Brewing Co., and the hospitality industry is a very big part of life. In a recent CBS article, the CEO of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber mentioned we’d be lucky to lose only 40% of the city’s restaurants. But he expected most to shut for good.

Deep breath.

The next year is going to be super challenging, even more so for small businesses relying on in-person interactions at the heart of their business model. Things are just now reopening as I’m typing this from Sonoma County, and one of the main things we’re discussing with our friends is how to balance these new options with keeping the folks in our pod (or bubble, or whatever quaranteam term you prefer) safe. Our pod includes our closest friends’ parents, so we’ve been erring on the side of caution. Curbside, delivery, masks, meet for beers outside… But dear god do I want to sit at a bar and drink beer and chat random shit with strangers.

How’s reopening been going in your area? Have you been venturing out to local breweries or restaurants yet? Folks masking up? Get in touch on Twitter via @RareBeerClub.

Our Owner’s Top 10 Picks Available in our Beer Store Now

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We asked our owner Kris Calef which 10 beers he’d pick from our inventory to get him through the quarantine. Here’s what we got back:

  1. Westvleteren XII (Only 10 bottles left! Call to order)
  2. Lost Abbey – Righteous Son Barrel Aged Old Ale
  3. West Sixth – Snake Eyes Imperial Stout
  4. West Sixth – Hop Static IPA
  5. Jopen & De Molen – Sin & Remorse Russian Imperial Stout
  6. Brouwerij De Molen – Bommen & Granaten Barley Wine
  7. The Bruery – Poterie Bourbon Barrel blended English-Style Old Ale
  8. Harpoon – Camp Wannamango Pale Ale with Mango
  9. Amager & Mikkeller – Frederiksen Vaesel Brunch Whiskey Barrel Imperial Oatmeal Stout w/ Vietnamese coffee
  10. Bruery Terreux – 2017 Mélange No. 9 Bourbon Barrel Sour Blended Ale w/ Ginger & Coconut

Order Online or put together your own dream-team-quarantine mixed case by emailing or calling us at 800-625-8238. Note: You may only purchase one bottle of Westvleteren XII and there’s not too much left, so you might want to act quickly if that one’s on your bucket list.

Thanks so much for supporting our small, family-owned business during these unprecedented times. It means so much to us.

Craft Beer Delivery to Your Home

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The pandemic has more and more of us seeking out reputable services and online shops that can safely deliver craft beer. And who can blame them? I’ve been working out of the house for over 2 months now trying to drown out what feels like a daily assault of leaf blowers, garbage trucks, and weed whackers. Hell, there’s a dog barking, my children kicking up a ruckus, and a chainsaw buzzing at the very moment that I’m typing up this post. When it’s time to logoff and leave the coalface behind for the day, I’m more ready for a beer than I’ve ever been each day. Fortunately for me, I’ve got a pretty sweet beer fridge in my garage, well stocked with recent and past selections from our clubs. Yeah, I’m gonna shoot straight with you. It’s good to have a warehouse full of really good craft beer at your disposal when you need it… And even when you don’t.

Anyway, back to your needs, specifically your beer fridge. Shipping hard-to-find, professionally curated craft beers is exactly what we’ve been doing for just over 25 years now, both through our 5 distinctive beer club memberships and by allowing club members the ability to re-order their favorites at discounted prices.

So here’s what’s changed on our end. In these challenging times, we’ve made the decision to open up our beer store to everyone, not just active members.

Read more about our craft beer delivery options.

Stay Safe, But Don’t Stay Thirsty my friends,

Kris

Beyond the Bottle: Shoutout to the Beer Artists

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I’m really digging the label art featured on Sudwerk’s Microfauna, created by the brewery’s in-house label artist Gregory Shilling and featuring, I think, a tardigrade (aka ‘moss piglet’) double-fisting some beer cans, surrounded by microbial drinking buddies. It’s super weird, evocative, scientifically questionable… but I think it’s great, and it nails the overall surreal and world-building vibe that permeates so many beer labels and beer artworks these days.

I love this creative space. And, while we’re all bunkered down for the indeterminate future, now seems an ideal time to shout out some of the folks contributing a ton within the space of label design and beer-related artwork. First off, AJ Keirans with @16ozCanvas has been rounding up a bunch of us for podcasts and features, and his archive of podcasts very likely has your favorite artist in there somewhere, going into detail about process, influences, and inspiration. Em Sauter’s been creating daily educational beer drawings and comics over at @pintsandpanels. And Nicolas Fullmer (@beyondtheale) has been sharing his increasingly detailed beer illustrations on the regular—predominantly in his label designs for Monkish.

I’ve missed a ton of folks. In Cali: the labels of HenHouse, Cooperage, and Modern Times all come to mind. Who do you find inspiring in the world of beer art? Whose label artwork do you think deserves some attention? Let us know on Twitter at @RareBeerClub.

Beyond the Bottle: Beer in Quarantine

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It’s hard to know where the world will be when this newsletter lands, but at the moment my wife and I and our cats have been bunkered down for just over 11 days. We both work from home usually, so we’re focused on worrying about the family we’ve got working through the outbreak (one a pharmacist; another working on a crisis-response team). We’ve been keeping in touch with peeps, via online happy hours and the like… But this is super tough—even for introverts, where this should be our Olympics. We miss our friends and our shared spaces.

Until things go back to anything resembling normal, here’s hoping that you’re staying safe, isolated, virtually connected, and properly stocked. Your favorite small businesses are almost for sure having a terrible time figuring out how they’re going to weather this pandemic, so now’s the best time to support them if you’re able to. The local breweries here in NorCal are offering options like no-contact home deliveries, curbside pickup, and online shops. Merch, gift cards, and employee fundraisers are other great ways to help folks get through this.

How are you making it through the downtime? What beers did you quarantine impulse-buy? Did you find a way to support your local brewery? Connect on Twitter at @RareBeerClub.

The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club

The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club | 1-800-625-8238 (Outside USA call: 949-206-1904) | P.O. Box 1627, Lake Forest, CA 92609