UPDATE: As commenters helpfully pointed out, the majority of memberships likely came from previous renewals so not all 1,000 memberships were sold yesterday. I’ve updated the headline to reflect this.
(Placentia, CA) – Even Jim Koch is applauding.
It only took about nine hours for The Bruery Reserve Society memberships to sell out yesterday. At $295 a pop x 1,000 memberships, that is $295,000 in cash for the little brewery from Placentia.
Last year, 700 society memberships were sold beginning on November 1st and didn’t sell out until around Christmas. The price was only $195 last year.
Now, that’s nutty. Even The Bruery was shocked as ticket sales were happening. Per their Facebook wall yesterday…
Reserve Society spots are going very quickly this year and we anticipate selling out within the week. If you are teetering on the edge, you should probably decide quickly and head to http://society.thebruery.com/ and get your spot for 2012.
Two and a half hours later…
In an unprecedented swiftness, the Reserve Society 2012 has sold out. It took us until Christmas to sell out all 700 spots last year. we raised the amount of memberships to 1,000 this year and they didn’t even last through one day of general sales. Thank you to all of the avid craft beer fans out there who are now part of the Reserve Society!
Surprisingly, only a couple of people complained after that one showing just how much goodwill that The Bruery has accumulated since it started.
I’d guess at most, they sold a few hundred yesterday. Remember that 2010 members were able to renew prior to this on sale. So 300+ were actually sold yesterday. Still a very fast pace….
Crazy what the craft beer industry is doing, and in a way it’s pretty awesome.
Just FYI, not all 1000 were on sale yesterday, since the 700 current members had first right of refusal and could pay for quite some time beforehand. Some probably didn’t renew, but I’d be shocked if the total number for sale yesterday was more than 350-400.
The only Reserve Society memberships being sold yesterday were for the new members. Current members get the chance to renew months before they go on sale to the general public. The 750ish members this year had the chance to renew starting back in September. I cannot say how many renewed their membership, but even if 250 spaces or more were sold yesterday that is still rather impressive.
I think it’s amazing personally and a wonderful thing. I would have bought in if they mailed beer. The Bruery, so far, is the only brewery on the market that has found a way to sell high end/rare beer while cutting out the distributor and making the demand for their product grew exponentially. When 2 Turtle Doves hit the shelves no one bought it. It sat around forever now 4 Calling Birds is sold out in 48 hours and the Reserve Society sells out in 1 day. $295k in 1 day is massive. My work cleared $100k in 3 days of GABF and they nearly tripled it. They know wtf their doing and it’s great to see a brewery step up to the plate.
Marc, they’re definitely not the only brewery doing this. In fact, just about every brewery with a (over)hyped beer is having release events where you have to pay to stand in line to buy the beer, e.g. Three Floyds.
Yeah Marc, not sure what you’re talking about buddy. First off, there are a bunch of breweries who do the same thing, as pointed out by David. Secondly, 4 Calling Birds hasn’t sold out – they still have a bunch at the Provisions Store in Orange, CA.
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