Cigar City El Catador Club Thread

[chongcheesol]

i am, was hoping for this to stretch out through february so the 30 day pickup would fall somewhere around huna day.
my trade partner and i can't keep scheduling trips to tampa for picking up bottles if CCB is going to release el cat on a 2 month schedule. i wish they would do a 2 membership a year schedule with about a beer a month.

Get a trustee mang

 

[jivex5k1]

Just got a long winded e-mail from the club. They are shooting for 15 bottles in 2017 for catador, with a lot of narrative on the perils of barrel aging and quality assurance.

 

[Beerologist]

Three rounds in 2017 pretty much ensures I scale back to 1 bottle membership or split my membership with someone. Not going to drop it entirely at that rate though

 

[BGsWo22]

Just got a long winded e-mail from the club. They are shooting for 15 bottles in 2017 for catador, with a lot of narrative on the perils of barrel aging and quality assurance.

Is this an email they sent to everyone? Or just you?
Interested

 

[Beerologist]

Is this an email they sent to everyone? Or just you?
Interested

Everyone

 

[GhostOfGaspar]

Just got a long winded e-mail from the club. They are shooting for 15 bottles in 2017 for catador, with a lot of narrative on the perils of barrel aging and quality assurance.

Nicely written and informative email.
My experiences with El Cat (member since round 1) have been pretty ******* awesome.

However, it makes me think about how if that ******* Wakefield had taken the time to pen out just one email like this one, he would have had to deal with a lot less ****, and he would still have my business.

 

[Beerologist]

El Catador members...

From the day we introduced our El Catador Barrel-aged Beer Club in 2013, our goal was to foster a community of beer lovers who would appreciate our most ambitious and interesting projects and to include as many Cigar City supporters as possible in this community. We've been vigilant about the quality of the beer first and foremost; every beer we've released to our El Catador Club members we've been proud of, and we feel that we've always succeeded in our primary goal of producing world-class beer.

We've also been attentive to the customer service portion of the club. Those who have been with us from Club #1 have seen major improvements to the sign-up process, bottle pick-ups, trustee assignments and nearly every other facet of our interaction with Club members. You have also seen club editions of various lengths; some have lasted as long as 17 months and some club editions have seen bottles are released in a very short period of time. As part of our continuing customer service focus for the club, we'd like to take this opportunity to tell the story of our barrel-aging process, explain the reasons behind the different timelines and offer some expectations for the El Catador Club for 2017.

Every step of the production process in creating barrel-aged beers is an exercise in patience and balance. We're currently producing as much beer as humanly possible at our facility in Tampa, meaning that the continuing production of our year-round beers like Jai Alai does have a direct impact on our ability to produce seasonal, specialty and barrel-aged projects. If it's going to prevent us from supplying the market with our core beers, some of those specialty beers get put on the back burner, so to say. When we're able to, our Production team will squeeze new barrel-aged projects on to our schedule to make sure we've got a succession of beers for our club members, and sometimes those opportunities to produce beer destined for barrels fall more closely together than others. Further complicating production is the need to make enough beer to supply the entirety of the Club. It's not as easy as scheduling a single, small batch of beer like you may see in our Tasting Room; we need to make enough beer to supply the entire club and have some wiggle room for unplanned circumstances like spillage, failed barrels and other minor catastrophes.

Once the beer has been produced and transferred to barrels, a variety of factors can contribute to the speed (or lack thereof) that a barrel-aged beer will be ready to bottle. The condition of the barrels when we acquire them varies from strong, clean and wet to leaky, dirty and dry. A barrel that's been emptied of a wine or spirit very recently will be able to hold beer much more quickly than an older barrel that will require cleaning or rehydrating and will impart spirit character much more quickly. The temperature and humidity of the environment where barrels are stored is critical to the speed of barrel aging and with our current barrel storage area we are certainly at the whim of our Florida climate. Finally, the ability for wood to harbor beer spoiling organisms like brettanomyces, wild saccharomyces, lactobacillus, pediococcus and acetobacter also makes wood-aged beer fraught with danger. We've had unfortunate run-ins with each of these organisms and they've colluded to ruin some very promising beers. When we have a leaky barrel, or a dry barrel, or have to reject a barrel due to the presence of spoilage organisms it has a tangible effect on the timeline of the El Catador Club.

Once the beer is in barrels, we are essentially at the whim of the beers. Sometimes we find that the wood and spirit character that we're looking for from a barrel is present in a few weeks, sometimes it can take several months. Even batches of the same beer in the same type of barrels can develop differently and finding the sweet spot in time between different barrels is one of the satisfying part of the art-science balance in beer production that we love. Frequent tasting panels are conducted to monitor the progress of these barrel-aged beers and though we try to anticipate how quickly different beers will mature, we find over and over again that "the beer is ready when the beer is ready", to quote Brewmaster Wayne Wambles.
As a a result of all of these colluding elements, we've always been hesitant to set any guarantees on club timeline. We've come to a point, however, where we need to set some expectations to fulfill our commitment to customer service. Our goal for 2017 is to release fifteen bottles to our El Catador Club members before year's end. This is indeed a goal, not a guarantee. We will never release beer that we're not 100% proud of and that is not of the highest quality and will forever be at the whim of the above-listed factors. We do hope that setting a very coarse timeline for the next year's club will help our members prepare for bottle pickups and plan their finances a little more accurately than in the past.

What else can you expect from the El Catador Club in 2017? More ambitious beer projects, more El Catador Club exclusive events, more improvements to our online portal and in-person pick-up processes. We've always aimed to create a bottle club that we ourselves would like to be a part of, and that means constantly evaluating our processes and procedures. If something is going to make El Catador Club membership a better, more valuable experience, we'll try and make it happen.

We at Cigar City want to thank you again for your patience and understanding as the El Catador Club develops and hope that this email has shed some light on the past, present and future of the club. If you have any additional questions please email [email protected] and we'll answer them as honestly and quickly as possible. Here's to a great 2016, a better 2017 and to the best fans and supporters that a brewery could ask for. Prost!

-Cigar City Brewing

tl;dr

15 bottles next year is the goal - barrels are magic

 

[Carolinabeerguy1]

Barware is ****** quality from what I'm hearing. There's a pic on BA if you want to search for it. Just think Terrible Towel.

 

[Steve2]

Nicely written and informative email.
My experiences with El Cat (member since round 1) have been pretty ******* awesome.

However, it makes me think about how if that ******* Wakefield had taken the time to pen out just one email like this one, he would have had to deal with a lot less ****, and he would still have my business.

Barware is ****** quality from what I'm hearing. There's a pic on BA if you want to search for it. Just think Terrible Towel.

My thoughts:

1. The barware looks like ****.
2. The club will always be worth it to me at this rate. There's usually at least 1 bottle per edition that could pay for the entire membership if sold on secondary. Makes it easy to justify to myself.

 

[jivex5k1]

Barware is ****** quality from what I'm hearing. There's a pic on BA if you want to search for it. Just think Terrible Towel.

GOD DAMN FIREMAN CAPITAL!

 

[Scalzo]

maybe its supposed to be a **** rag after they drop 15 beers on us


...... and what if each beer is a different barrel treatment of hunapuh and then the 15th bottle is a blend of them all? (aged in malort barrels)

 

[mixed_master7]

maybe its supposed to be a **** rag after they drop 15 beers on us


...... and what if each beer is a different barrel treatment of hunapuh and then the 15th bottle is a blend of them all? (aged in malort barrels)

IN!

 

[JulianB1]

IN!

On the Huna coovie, or the **** rag?

 

[Scalzo]

Why not both Julian?

 

[Heatwaves1]

However, it makes me think about how if that ******* Wakefield had taken the time to pen out just one email like this one, he would have had to deal with a lot less ****, and he would still have my business.

Although a rum barrel aged licorice beer definitely sounds like the kind of "**** you" that Wakefield would have given us. Except for $50, instead of $30.

 

[theMang]

Although a rum barrel aged licorice beer definitely sounds like the kind of "**** you" that Wakefield would have given us. Except for $50, instead of $30.

I don't see it as such. Without trying it, I figure it is this round's [insert name of your least favorite beer from previous rounds]. Imagine if they had actually put that ****** tequila taco beer in a bottle for us.

 

[trickytunadicky]

Honestly, if I didn't have to be careful of consuming different types of licorice additives (some trigger migraines) I would be way more excited about this. Some are found in spiced rum and this isn't that weird of a flavor if you think of it. It's trying to mimic blackstrap molasses. Not trying to be an apologist for the program. There is always a flavor I rank fifth as well, but people are treating this bottle as the straw that broke the camel's back and I am betting it works better than you think.

 

[shelfie]

After the nice surprise of how great dioscorides was I'll withhold judgement on this one.

 

[jivex5k1]

Yeah, it's probably a decent beer at the least. I'm more disappointed in not getting a glass than anything.

 

[shelfie]

Really wish my die hard steelers fan uncle liked beer instead of peligrino.

 

[Doc1]

Barware is ****** quality from what I'm hearing. There's a pic on BA if you want to search for it. Just think Terrible Towel.

The bottle opener is really nice, I also like the sticker. Who really needs more ******* glassware?

 

[jivex5k1]

The bottle opener is really nice, I also like the sticker. Who really needs more ******* glassware?

Me. They better release a 53oz snifter next edition.

 

[shelfie]

It is a slightly thicker version of a standard bar opener but whoever stamped it did a bad job. You can see the machine marks around El Catador and at least on the 3 I picked up it's quite sharp around the edges. Also I thought bar towels were lint free and or micro fiber but I could be wrong there. Luckily I signed up for beer.

 

[theMang]

5th bottle is Hard Sauce

 

[Dmkaz]

For someone who isn't on Facebook, I really wish they told you *what* it was vs. just a pickup notification.

 

[theMang]

For someone who isn't on Facebook, I really wish they told you *what* it was vs. just a pickup notification.

https://cigarcitybrewing.com/beer/hard-sauce/

 

[jivex5k1]

Pecan Pie beer? What is this, the Funky Buddha club?

 

[mateoloco]

Were the five bottles from the last round Trousseau, BA WarmerWinterWinterWarmer, Dioscorides (sp?), DB Huna, and DB Bolita?

 

[trickytunadicky]

CCB was making Oatmeal Cookie before FB was a thing.

 

[cannonboi]

Were the five bottles from the last round Trousseau, BA WarmerWinterWinterWarmer, Dioscorides (sp?), DB Huna, and DB Bolita?

Yes.