Annual Memberships On Sale For Lower Forge Brewery’s Committee Of 250

With just a few weeks left before their anticipated public opening, the group behind Medford, NJ’s Lower Forge Brewery is offering memberships to their Committee of 250 club. Named after the original Committee of 50 made up of early 20th century businessmen who got together to objectively study the impacts of Prohibition, the Committee aims to thank the friends and family who helped Lower Forge founders fight the government forces that challenged their ability to open a brewery on the historic New Jersey town’s main street. The group will only allow 250 members at a time, and because there weren’t 250 conscientious objectors helping Lower Forge’s cause, there’s room left for future brewery friends to join.

What will they get for their $150 annual (or $1,000 lifetime) membership? An annual t-shirt and growler or pint glass designed by a local artist; early purchases of limited releases along with free samplers and pints of said beers; exclusive permission to rent the space for private events and crowd into the brewery during town parades, festivals and the like; invitations to monthly events, quarterly tastings and an annual gala. I haven’t tasted the beer yet so I can’t speak to its quality but I can say that I’ve paid $150 for annual brewery club memberships that have earned me far less … namely, the ability to buy special releases before the general public, and nothing more. Oh yeah, a t-shirt and a glass.

With more breweries opening and fighting for attention, we can probably expect to see these club offerings getting more creative and maybe more competitive. Personally, once Lower Forge opens, I’ll have at least eight breweries within a 30 minute drive of my house, and that’s just on the Jersey side. People without a close personal connection to any of these places may be swayed to spend more time at one over the other if they can start to feel like they’re part of a private community that gives them “free” stuff.

The team at Lower Forge shows confidence in the brewery’s future by selling lifetime memberships, too–something I haven’t seen before. And while no one expects a second Prohibition, many industry insiders do predict a third market shakeout in the next decade or two. Let’s hope for those lifetime Committee members, these brewers have a plan to insure themselves against the more quotidian forces of supply and demand.

Lower Forge Brewery [Official]