The Rare Beer Club Says You'll Never Get a Beer You Don't Want

The Rare Beer Club’s PSP (Personalized Shipment Program) allows members to easily add more bottles of either or both of the upcoming featured beers, add more of favorite past selections, replace one or both of the featured beers with favorite past selections, choose not to receive one of the featured beers, or even skip the entire shipment altogether. In short, members are in complete control of what they receive each month and will never get a beer they didn’t want to get. No other beer club offers that kind of flexibility.

Each month prior to receiving their shipment, members are sent an email detailing the two upcoming beer selections and given the ability to customize what they want to receive. Members are automatically enrolled in the program and gift recipients may easily enroll upon request.

Four different membership types are available from The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club, but when only the best will do, The Rare Beer Club™ features the finest the world of beer has to offer in limited-release, artisanal beers such as Jolly Pumpkin's Biere de Goord, an oak-aged spiced saison brewed exclusively for club members. Or Elevation Brewing Company's Prostator, an 8.5% Bamberg-style smoked dopplebock which was also only available to members. Owner Kris Calef states, “We work with the world's hottest microbreweries such as Fantôme, Lost Abbey, Jester King, Cigar City, Mikkeller, The Bruery, and Anchorage Brewing Company to bring you their latest creations, often months before they're available only in local markets.”

Memberships range from 2-12 months and can be sent monthly, every other month, quarterly or even on specific months. Gift givers can even combine a Rare Beer Club™ membership with the company’s three other beer club options into one custom membership using its Design Your Own Club Program™. Any of the four beer clubs may also be combined with the company’s other exclusive clubs including Wine, Cheese, Cigar, Chocolate, and Flower of the Month Clubs.

For more information, please visit BeerMonthClub.com or call 800-625-8238.

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Jeffrey Dale Starr is a beer enthusiast, oil painter, and owner of mobile software company Purple Falcon.

Craft Beer Site LetsPour Ships 200,000th Bottle

LetsPour.com, the largest online craft beer store, announced shipping of its 200,000th bottle and rolled out a new service to satisfy increasing customer demands by offering lower prices and next-day delivery on bottles and fresh growlers in Washington State.

“Unbelievable!" said LetsPour CEO Raghav Kher. “200,000 bottles in about half the time we expected! We want to thank Washington’s beer lovers for making this exciting journey possible. This just proves what we've said all along: American craft brewing is the wave of the future.”

Kher attributes LetsPour's success to the sophistication of craft beer drinkers and growing demand in Washington and across the country. Beer enthusiasts traditionally used message boards and forums to hunt down and trade beers they couldn’t get locally. But that is really low-tech and definitely not easy. It’s also a $12 billion market that’s growing 15% a year.

Beer enthusiasts are increasingly venturing online to explore styles and brands not available in local shops. LetsPour’s dedicated staff constantly searches to find and obtain the nation's best beer. The site is well-known for daily offerings of hard-to-find selections and seasonals that aren't widely available.

“Among craft beer geeks, shopping for beer online is all about getting your hands on extremely limited, highly sought after beers as soon as they’re available,” noted Kher. “We’ve had customers confess that rather than working, they are monitoring LetsPour so they can pounce on a beer as soon as it launches.”

LetsPour also will offer a limited selection of growlers of tap-only beers online for delivery the next day in Washington state. These 1-liter growlers are filled using a state-of-the-art tap module that first fills the containers with CO2, eliminates all oxygen contact and keep the beer fresh.

“The first time the beer in our growlers is exposed to air after leaving the keg...is when you unscrew the cap!” Raghav Kher said, “Short of traveling to the brewery, this is the freshest beer you can drink. And, you get to do it in the comfort of your own home.”

Next-day delivery and local pricing is available for the entire selection of craft beers that ship from LetsPour’s Washington distribution center. Orders must be placed by 12 pm online in order to guarantee delivery the following day. Orders placed on Friday by 3pm will be delivered on Monday. Orders placed on the weekend will be delivered on Tuesday. For a handful of remote locations, LetsPour may not be able to guarantee next-day delivery.

Washington’s Online Craft Beer Facts (based on data from LetsPour 2012-2013)

Top breweries from which Washington customers order beer:
1. Cigar City Brewing, Florida
2. Bell’s Brewing, Michigan
3. Elysian Brewing, Washington
4. Odell Brewing, Colorado
5. Dogfish Head Brewing, Delaware


Top craft beer styles ordered by Washington customers:
1. IPA
2. Stout
3. Belgian-style ale
4. Amber/red ales
5. Porter
6. Pumpkin ales

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Jeffrey Dale Starr is a beer enthusiast, oil painter, and owner of mobile software company Purple Falcon.

Beer of the Day: Cigar City Hunahpu's Imperial Stout

Cigar City Hunahpu's Imperial Stout

DESCRIPTION:
Pours extremely dark in color with a brown head with big notes of chocolate and espresso, moderate notes of vanilla and cinnamon and mild notes of tobacco and chilis. The flavor opens with a big blast of chocolate and moderate espresso with notes of dark toffee and interjecting notes of vanilla with lingering hints of cinnamon and tobacco and chili notes with a mild scoville heat in the finish.

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Jeffrey Dale Starr is a beer enthusiast, oil painter, and owner of mobile software company Purple Falcon.