Topic Archives: Bruery Hoarders Society

Posted in The Bruery
Posted in Beer News, The Bruery

Bruery’s Rue on Hoarders: “We Want to Cater To Most Loyal”

Patrick Rue, Founder of The Bruery (Placentia, CA) responds to the beer community after the announcement of a “Hoarders Society” surfaced. The society is an even more exclusive version of the Reserve Society, at a price tag of nearly $700 dollars. Judging by a lot of the comments on BeerAdvocate.com, not everyone was thrilled. Here’s the thoughts from the man himself. Feel free to sound off too.

Hi All—

Interesting read, good to read all of the opinions on the Hoarders Society. I appreciate all of the feedback.

I’ve been wanting to create several levels of “Society” memberships for awhile now as we have a wide range of customers with varying expectations— those who have extensive beer collections and trade frequently, others who want a a wide variety in smaller quantities of what we have to offer, and customers that fall somewhere in the middle. I’d love to be able to deliver a great experience to a wide range of beer enthusiasts, and I don’t think the best way to do that is exclusively through the Reserve Society. There are certainly all three types of customers in Reserve Society now, and I know we can do better to serve the particular desires of a wide range of customers.

We could not figure out a good way to do this with the available “off the shelf” eCommerce solutions out there, and up to this point having a customized solution that takes a web development company several months to develop and continual maintenance and improvements is outside of our reach financially as a small, growing company. Up to now, we’ve been investing in our capacity, improving our production processes, implementing and improving our retail efforts, and in our staff at the brewery, Tasting Room & Provisions (now totaling close to 60 employees). Improving business systems and processes has been “higher hanging fruit”, but at this point it is very important in the process of becoming the brewery we want to be. We finally have the resources to invest in this, so have so we’ve enlisted a local OC eCommerce development company to put together a solution that makes this possible. I’m very excited about this. We are tailoring the site and the backend processes to make a much more pleasant experience for our members and allow us to do a better job at serving our members. Even Black Tuesday next year (and perhaps this year, if we can get it going in time) will run much smoother with greater server reliability and hopefully we’ll avoid all of the issues in past years. This is a sizable investment, but I know it’s what we need to do.

The Hoarders Society is a way to recognize and cater to our most loyal Reserve Society members, and allows us to brew and sell beers that we wouldn’t otherwise be feasible to make by taking manageable risks with some very expensive ingredients / processes. The 5 exclusive releases included with the membership are very expensive to brew (especially two of them in particular), and at this point we’d have to take big gambles to create enough for the entire Reserve Society. The price we’d have to offer these beers would be well beyond our current top pricing, and frankly I’m not comfortable releasing beers that exceed our current price range. By securing an up front commitment and an established price for these beers, this is the best way to be able to make these beers make sense financially for us and hopefully make sense for many of those invited to join the Hoarders Society. Once we reach our target goal for Hoarders Society, we will not be growing it or adding a membership above and beyond it. Reserve Society is very near to the memberships we’d like as well— we intend to grow it at a much slower pace than we have in the past.

 

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in The Bruery

Is The Bruery Launching A Super Secret, Super Exclusive, Hoarders Society?

This was just submitted to BSJ. A letter (seemingly sent out early) about an even MORE special society by The Bruery called the Hoarders Society. We’re still checking the validity, but seems legit. A select few members (we think?) are being offered Hoarders Memberships, at the cost of $695 dollars. There are special “hoarders” beers, alongside the ability to purchase 2x the amount of Reserve Society allocated brews. Below is the purported email:

Dear Bruery Supporter,

You’ve been chosen to be an inaugural Hoarders Societymember due to your prized status as one of our top customers.We have been having a great time developing new and interesting beers for the Hoarders Society, and we look forward to you trying them as we get to know you better at the exclusive events that we’ll be having for you next year.

The Hoarders Society will be a much smaller membership base than the Reserve Society for next year and for the foreseeable future. Opportunities to join in the future will be very limited and will be by invite only. Members of the Hoarders Society receive all of the benefits of the Reserve Society, plus more.

If you wish to accept this invitation to join the Hoarders Society, please do so by purchasing your membership through this page by Sunday, September 23, 2012. Only purchase one membership, please. Duplicate membership orders will be cancelled and refunded.

Cost: $695

Membership begins on January 1, 2013 and ends December 31, 2013.

Membership includes the following bottles, exclusive to Hoarders (many of these beers are not yet named, our apologies): — 2 bottles Portola Coffee / Strong Ale Blend (1st Quarter release) — 2 bottles Peach Sour Blend (2nd Quarter release) — 2 bottles Fess Parker Riesling / Sour Collaborative Blend (3rd Quarter release) — 2 bottles Fess Parker / Saarloos & Sons Late Harvest Syrah / Black Tuesday Collaborative Blend (4th Quarter release) — 2 bottles Bois (5th anniversary) aged in new French oak barrels (4th Quarter release)

Membership also includes the following bottles, available after their release date (except for initial package offerings): — 1 bottle of Melange #3 (Initial Package, January pickup) — 1 bottle of White Chocolate (Initial Package, January pickup) — 1 bottle of Otiose (Initial Package, January pickup) — 2 bottles of Chocolate Rain (Available in March) — 4 bottles of Black Tuesday (Available in late October) — 1 bottle Barrel Aged 5 Golden Rings (Available in December) — 1 bottle of Mystery Beer #1 (Mystery Release Date) — 1 bottle of Mystery Beer #2 (Mystery Release Date) — 1 piece of high quality merchandise

Other Perks: — Ability to purchase at least double the amount of allocations compared to Reserve Society members — 20% off: Allocations, other purchases through The Bruery website, purchases at the Tasting Room, and when purchasing Bruery beer at The Bruery Provisions (compared to 15% for Reserve Society members) — Access to special growler fills, special flights, access to Reserve Society events — Access to Hoarders Society events — First right of refusal to join 2014 Hoarders Society — Shipping within California (will apply to Reserve Society as well)

Anticipated Releases for 2013: *Society Member Exclusive = Hoarders & Reserve Societies

— Sour in the Rye — Chocolate Rain (Society member exclusive) — White Oak — Sans Pagaie — Bois — Bois Aged in Rye Whiskey Barrels (Society member exclusive) — Bois Aged in Brandy Barrels (Society member exclusive) — Bois Aged in new American Oak Barrels #4 Toast (Society member exclusive) — Kumquat Sour In The Rye (Society member exclusive) — Barrel Aged English Barleywine with Portola Coffee (Society member exclusive, not yet named) — Blueberry Sour (Society member exclusive, not yet named) — Mystery Beer #1 — Mystery Beer #2 — Tart of Darkness — White Chocolate — Barrel Aged Apricot Strong Ale (Society member exclusive, not yet named) — Bourbon Barrel Aged Smoking Wood — Cherry Oude Tart (Society member exclusive) — Oude Tart — Black Tuesday — Grey Monday (Society member exclusive) — Melange #1 — Bourbon Barrel Aged Autumn Maple — Melange #3 — Rueuze — Barrel Aged 5 Golden Rings (Society member exclusive) — Smoking Wood – Rye — Approximately 8 very exciting Provisions Series releases

Barrel aged beers tell us when they are ready, so keep in mind any stated release dates are estimates only.

Shipping within California will be offered for the beers included in the membership, however we will handle the additional cost of shipping at a later date.

You must be 21 years or older to be in the Hoarders Society. All pick-up purchases take place in Placentia, California, thus CA (Placentia area) sales tax will be applied to all orders at a rate of 7.75%. All shipping orders will be taxed at the shipping address rate.

Please note that we will not be able to ship outside of California. If you are outside of California, please designate a trustee who is over 21 years of age to pick-up or receive shipment of your beers.

by Reid Ramsay