The Beer CSA: Lost Abbey’s Patron Saints and Sinners
Back around Thanksgiving, I bought myself an early Christmas gift and signed up for The Lost Abbey's Patron Sinners club. It's kind of a beer CSA; at the start of the season you pay a set fee ($160 for Saints, $235 for Sinners), and for the next year you get two bottles of beer shipped to your door every other month. The draw is twofold: 1) Lost Abbey, from San Marcos, Calif., is a prized brewery whose beers don't get distributed to D.C. or surrounding states, and 2) patrons get the brewery's rarest bottles, especially with the pricier Sinners package.
My first batch just got here (to my office, so I could sign for it), and before I even got home my first joy was seeing the ALCOHOL sticker smack on the top of the box. Metroing home, I did my best to show it off — "Look at my beer, it's in all caps!" — but turned not one head. You'd think Metro trains were full of USPS booze boxes every day.
The first beer of the year was Lost Abbey's Red Poppy Ale, which somewhere between a Flemish oude bruin and a Flemish red. It's a sour, oak-aged beer on the rusty side of brown, brewed with sour cherries. And it smells like you'd expect: sour cherry and a little bit of dark oak, like a varnished lollipop. The wood lends some dryness to the flavor, but in your mouth it's nearly all tart cherry juice, with an intense sourness that pushes on the joints in your jaw and leaves your mouth watering.
As for joining this beer CSA, and actually getting some of these beers — well I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the holiday season, when sign-ups open again. I'll be sure to remind you and include my address for any generous gift-givers.
12:40 pm
They make great stuff, keep us posted on tastings. BTW - how much extra per shipment are they charging you for each delivery? I want a total to budget for in 2011!
12:53 pm
How much is shipping costing? I thought about joining, but I was worried about what condition the beer would show up in during the hot summer months.
3:37 pm
Good question, shipping for my first package was $18.38. However, that was for four 375ml bottles (two Red Poppy Ale, two Angel's Share Grand Cru). The rest of the shipments will be two bottles each, but they might also be 750s. I guess I'd estimate $4-5 a bottle if you're budgeting.
8:30 am
$235 for 2 bottles every other month plus shipping? Seriously? Assuming your shipping estimates are correct and that the bottles are all 375ml, that works out to a little under $2/ounce, without any retail markup. That better be some damn good beer.
9:06 am
It is great beer. You have the chance to buy two extra bottles of each. You also get a set of glassware and you can buy their non-special release beers and get them delivered. Considering a plane ticket to San Diego is $400+ and is the only other way to get Lost Abbey beer right now it isn't that bad of a deal.
9:34 am
This is f-ing brilliant! I signed up for the World Beer Tour years ago. It was fabulous for a couple of months, but delivery problems in DC caused so much tsuris, the company canceled. I hope they've ironed that out.