www.secretbarrelsociety.com

$250 buys you the right to purchase 8 different sours plus a couple of other perks.

Think it's worth it?

for some reason I can't open the link at work, but what exactly do you get for the $250?

2014 Membership $250:

The 2014 Membership will include the right to purchase 8 different Barrel-aged Sour beers (each bottle release includes (1) 750 ml bottles per release, with additional purchases available if the yield permits) to be released throughout the year.

Your membership also includes:
- 2014 Secret Barrel Society Certificate
- Two Upland Sour Program custom glasses
- First right of refusal for 2015 membership
- 1 free non-transferable general admission ticket to Sour Wild and Funk Fest
- Free entry to a special event for Secret Barrel Society Members

Every dollar generated through membership will bypass pockets and paychecks and go directly to growing our Sour Ale Program.

Please note, only your Sour reservation, not the purchase of your beer, is included in your membership fee. Your beer must still be purchased at a retail location (Indy or Bloomington) after it is released.

DISCLAIMER: Upland Secret Barrel Society Memberships are open to individuals over the age of 21 only. We are unable to ship beer as FedEx, UPS, and USPS do not allow us to ship beer direct to customers. No refunds will be given after placing an order.

Pricey yes, Don't care much about the glasses or certificate but the events are probably worth something.  But because of that I doubt that is worth it if you are not local.  Besides not being able to attend the events there is the extra cost of shipping.

If I was local I would consider it, but I would first want to get an idea of what is included in the events, plus approximately what each bottle would cost.

MTA: Here is what was included in the 2013 Sour Fest ($45)

https://uplandsourfest.eventbrite.com/

I went to the Sour Fest this year and really enjoyed it. There were a lot of good beers there and I didn't even get to them all. If I had tried to taste them all my wife probably would have had to carry me out.

I tasted their Backberry Lambic and their Sour Reserve. Both were very good.

I'll probably go to Sour Fest 2014.

A response from Upland taken from the BA thread.

-----

Hi folks,

Took a minute to internalize some of the feedback we are getting in regards to the Secret Barrel Society Memberships. Hopefully, I can address our perspective on how we structured the benefits, as well as touch on most of bigger concerns out there.

First and foremost, we are not trying to offer anything we did not feel would have value for our customers. We have the honest desire to make this membership as valuable for you as what it will help us create. I believe one main point was lost, and one we could have done a better job communicating, is this membership is different than other currently offered program by any other brewery, is because it is exactly that, different.

In this day and age, and in the spirit of crowd funded endeavors, which sincerely desire to return to their donators the ability to be a bigger part of something, we utilized this model when drafting the membership details. It is giving our small Sour Program the potential means to grow, which will in kind provide a more direct value to the customer than what was previously offered. This concept should not be entirely foreign or negatively perceived, unless the person buying in and the business itself does not mutually benefit. We never set out, rubbing greedy hands together, to cheat or take advantage of anyone in this endeavor. I will not attempt to sell you anything in this response, only clean up the air the best I can.

To address some of the main concerns out there:

• · Even though we have been brewing sour ales since 2006, the program is still very small and relatively in its infancy. 2013 is the first year we have focused 100% on brewing sours in downtown Bloomington since the inaugural batches touched oak. We positively have enough beer selected from 2008 to 2010 to make the 4000 bottle commitment if the SBS fills up for 2014, as well as newly developing beer well on its way to appropriate flavor profile.

• · We have already bottled one collaboration beer that is slated for exclusive pickup by members, as well as another in the works utilizing locally harvested grapes that we expect to be ready next summer.

• · Everyone ultimately gains. SBS members will get first in line access to every release next year, the quicker the program grows the faster we can create better and less expensive future benefits and more exclusive releases. Upland will be able to build a 1350 sq. ft. cellar to double sour fermentation and cellar capacity, because every dollar generated by the program goes directly into the brewery. And non-members will eventually gain access to more widely available and distributed releases in years to come. Actually maybe I lose out, because I’ll be working a ton more to make more beer, but I digress.

• · We never claimed to be Clarence Darrow on legal issues, but there was enough concern with Indiana Code to not pre-sell or discount beer as part of our initial discussions in designing the program. This isn’t a reactionary excuse; it was posted proudly on the SBS membership details, but we should have left the issue absent to begin with. However, this is entirely unrelated to the fact we are asking for folks to help us build our brewery, with returned privileges of value in exchange.

• · We openly admit we are not perfect, but strive every day to deliver to customers the best quality beer possible at all times. Since the Sour Program began, we have destroyed one bottling run of Persimmon, one bottling run of Dantalion failed to carbonate, and the 2013 Persimmon run is also of unacceptable carbonation levels to release. This really is not that much beer, and I’m glad we never sold it. For every person waiting on a Persimmon redemption, they will be honored in our next release for any style of choice, or redemptions can be held for our expected Persimmon release next spring. We will email everyone awaiting redemption this update, and apologize for not providing an explanation sooner. We also have gained a greater understanding of why these quality fails occurred this year, and have not replicated them since implementing new practices.

On a final note, I know I didn’t see in the mirror this morning a faceless, greedy, shark jumping, potential kidnap victim. Brewing sour ales means a lot to me personally, and my commitment to do what I find to be an honest, traditional and local way to make beer is only rivaled by my passion to make sure our supporters get the best sour beer and customer service we can provide. I personally invite anyone who has questions about the Sour Program to drop by the brewery in downtown Bloomington and I’ll show you around. I think most folks would get the impression Upland is not a soulless corporate entity, within the confines of a modest brewing environment with happy, honest and dedicated fellow employees to boot (and in boots).

We are looking forward to your feedback, and highly appreciate your past and future support in our endeavors. I’m all ears on how we can make this membership work better for all of our customers, and I thank you for patiently reading our side of the story. I hope I have encapsulated better what we are attempting to achieve with the SBS and the Sour Program in general.

Cheers,
Caleb

That makes a lot of sense actually.  I kind of read over the brewery funding part without fully internalizing it.  I'm still not their target market for this as I'm not invested in seeing their sour program develop and grow, but for the local person who is passionate about that this is a reasonable model.

Agreed.  As I said before if I were local I would research it a bit more but I would definitely be interested, especially if I had been to their brewery / events and had positive experiences.  And the fact that their beer is pretty good does not hurt.

And what really pisses me off is that I DO LIKE Upland and DO LIKE their beers, and this is going to make it harder for me to get them.

Unless I throw them money.

Meh.

Oh sure, I could throw them money for some vague promise. Who does that? Well, collectors do, and scalpers and rich folks. Which means by doing it this way, Upland makes their beers less accessible to everybody. The lambics are already hard to get. It was just a year or two ago when they sat on shelves...