Club-Brewing_new
(l-r) Chris Thomas, Peter Thomas and Daniel Ryan

 

An exciting new craft beer club has launched, giving members access to exclusive collaboration beers.

Club Brewing Co. is a club for a limited number of members who pay $33 per month to have access to exclusive brews, all of which are collaboratively developed with leading local and international brewers.

“These beers are exclusive,” said Chris Thomas, brewer and head of recipe development.

“They will not be available in bottle shops or pubs. They will be delivered to our members.”

Each pack of 24 beers will feature three brews, two that are collaborations with international breweries and one that is a collaboration with a local brewery. There will be eight 330ml bottles of each beer in the packs.

A new pack will be distributed to Club members every three months, giving them time to enjoy the pack before the next one arrives with three new and exclusive brews.

Breweries from the UK, US, Denmark and New Zealand have already shown enthusiasm for the concept and will be featured in the first three packs.

“It’s exciting that we’ve already had interest from some world-class breweries like Stone, Fuller’s and Beer Here,” Thomas said.

The first brew will take place in October, when Mitch Steele from Stone Brewing (USA) is in Australia.

“I can’t give too much away yet, except to say that it will be heavily influenced by Stone’s love affair with hops,” Thomas added.

“We’re also really looking forward to working with some awesome local breweries. Our first three packs will include collaborations with Moon Dog, Prickly Moses and another brewery, yet to be revealed.”

As for where these collaborative brews will be crafted, it depends on the brewery in question.

“Brewers in Victoria who we have talked to are keen to brew on their own system, which means that we will go there on brew days,” explained Thomas.

“With international breweries we will gypsy brew in Melbourne.

“Where we can we will actively work together on brew day. With international brewers we will aim to coincide our collaborative brews with visits from other brewers, as we have done with Mitch Steele from Stone. He is here for a conference in October and we will brew the collaboration with him then.

“At times, breweries will send their brewer over here to collaboratively brew, as is happening with Lakeman from New Zealand.

“At other times, we will collaborate extensively on the recipe but will not be able to physically brew together. This will be the case with some breweries from the other side of the world like Fuller’s and Beer Here.”

As with many brewing concepts, the idea for Club was developed over a few beers between Chris Thomas and his good friends Daniel Ryan and Pete Thomas.

“We started by contacting international breweries to test the idea and the responses have been really positive,” Thomas said.

“We’re now working with local breweries and also looking to build our membership base as we approach our first brew with Mitch Steele from Stone Brewing in October.

“We will aim for the first pack to be delivered to members in January, and then every three months thereafter.”

Due to freight, initially the memberships will only be available in Victoria, New South Wales, ACT and South Australia.

“This is so that we can guarantee the quality of the beer. Delivering to Western Australia or Queensland means more time in transport and less control over temperature in storage, which could compromise the quality of the final product,” explained Thomas.

“We will also need to consider the freight costs getting to Tasmania. This said, if there is significant support for memberships from one of these states, we will look into how we can cater.”

For more information on how to get involved in Club Brewing Co., click here.

 

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