Why all the Alesmith dumping?
Quality issues did it for me. Just wasn't worth the hassle when multiple bottles had issues, and what was left was kinda just meh.
Why boneflower gone but maybe / undecided on garagiste? From a membership perspective
For one I have too much mead.
For another, Boneflower meads are $$$ but
sooo much sweeter than necessary, which makes me feel like a lot of them are just pulled from the tanks too soon or something. A few have been good (and I've tried to send out the ones I've liked in boxes) but not enough to justify the membership. On top of that, there's so few of them. (I think 12 in two years.) It's like, why pay a large up front cost and then get very little out of it? And then there's the membership party, which I went to once, and which was frankly miserable. Maybe 12 different breweries/meaderies showed up, but each with a single keg (or less!) and several didn't even bother to show up. Meanwhile, maybe 300 people packed into a space that probably could reasonably hold half that. I had a better time across the street at a random brewery (The Sour Note) an hour before the party itself. Could they work out these issues? Probably! Will they? No! Why not? Well, covid will stop the next iteration anyway, and
waaaay too many folks in the group were like "OMG What a great party!!!" and honestly that's enough for them to stay cheap and do things this way. When I contrast with Pips or Garagiste parties, it's just a disappointment.
That said I don't join these memberships for the parties, they're just a nice addition. I join for the quality of the mead. And I think it's just not quite there. $250 for the first two years got me 2 bottles, a shirt, a glass, a corkscrew, and a sticker. I would not at all complain about that price if that meant access to tons of high quality stuff, but I think that has fallen short of the mark.
Now, on the Garagiste front, I've been in it since the beginning and I buy less and less each year, but there's a few things keeping me on the fence: the high quality (and low price) spirits that are available to members only (lots of great whiskey); some interesting collaborations and experiments; still very good pricing; and finally, a couple good parties. I'm less likely to take advantage of the latter for a while what with covid and Florida, but the former still has me coming back for more. I'm talking really good single barrel bottles for well below
retail. That alone is hard to let go of.
