Looking at the landscape of beer clubs and subscription beer programs for a number of years, Iron Hill’s Mark Edelson saw how other breweries or clubs were executing it. So Iron Hill went looking to stand out. It seems to have worked as the new IHBeer Club launched in October and is set to ship its second quarterly box at the start of February.
“Our primary goal was to give Iron Hill beer fans to opportunity to experience our beers on a different level,” said Edelson, the company’s co-founder and Director of Brewing Operations. “We will expose customers to new and different takes on styles, ingredients and processes.”
The goals in the club are for both the consumer and the brewpub’s fleet of brewers, both to expose members to products they haven’t seen in the portfolio before and to give the brew team to shine.
“Some concepts maybe more subtle and some may get way outside what we have done before,” Edelson explained. “Our first quarterly kit included a wonderful Italian-style Pilsner and a tasty egg-nog milkshake IPA (released around the holidays).
“For the brewers, this gives them an outlet directly to a select group of our beer fans where they can try different styles, ingredients or processes that they may not be willing to do for a larger audience. While we are always using our brewery talent to create new beers, this increases the opportunities they have and puts them in the spotlight to a much wider audience across our footprint.”
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The IHBeer Club begins with a “Welcome Kit” that includes a six pack of pint cans with three different beers along with one 750mL of the brewery’s award-winning Russian Imperial Stout, two pint glasses, and a tasting journal with an interactive tasting guide. It follows quarterly with eight pint cans of four exclusively brewed beers for the club. Literature for each beer is created that matches with the cans and includes a QR code for people to give their thoughts on it.
“This is new for us for getting feedback on specific beers,” Edelson said.
That connection, which Edelson says he hopes that if even 30-40% of consumers use it, it would be a success.
How will these answers help shape the future of this program? Edelson said three things are hopeful:
- How did members like the actual products the brewery sent out in each kit and what specific feedback can they use to improve it.
- Is this a style they should make again and release in the fleet.
- In a more global sense, are there things that members want to see or not see in the future offerings (such as too many IPAs, etc.).
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