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5 Reasons to Join One of the Best Brewery Memberships in the Country
One of the best.
Photography courtesy of Firestone Walker Brewing Company
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Since launching in 2021, Firestone Walker’s exclusive membership society, the Brewmaster’s Collective, has been a perennial favorite of our “Best Brewery Memberships and Bottle Societies.”
Returning for its fifth year, 2025 might be the best yet for the Brewmaster’s Collective.
“Heading into its fifth year, the beer club is really rounding into form as a family of true craft enthusiasts,” says Firestone Walker Club & Specialty Brands Manager Micaela Yeo. “The retention rate is really high, and relationships are forming from one year to the next—not just between us and our members, but among the members themselves at our various club happenings. They may be strangers when they first meet, but they’re immediately drawn together by a common bond: a love of great beer and beer culture. It’s cool to see this happen over time and to bring new people into the family.”
If you’re interested in joining this family, now is your chance to get in on the action. Sign-ups for the 2025 Brewmaster’s Collective are live! But hurry! Yeo says they’re only opening up an additional 350 spots this year, so they’re definitely limited.
But what exactly makes the Brewmaster’s Collective one of the best?
Let us count the ways.
21 of Firestone’s Finest, Rarest, Most Imaginative Beers
Photography courtesy of Firestone Walker Brewing Company
Over twelve months, members receive four seasonal collections with five different beers plus an additional welcome beer (because we know you were about to tell us the math isn’t mathing).
Developed from the ingenious minds of Firestone Walker Brewmaster Matt Brynildson and Vintage Barrel Program Manager Jordan Ziegler, who selects the amalgam of barrels for aging the beer, these aren’t just any ol’ beers.
“We’re supposed to be doing the most special things we possibly can,” says Brynildson. “We’re taking all our beers from our dream board, condensing them into these releases.”
This year, in particular, Brynildson says the focus is “diving deeper than ever into our mastery of barrel-aged beers that push the envelope of aroma and flavor.”
Brynildson promises you’ll love what’s in store.
For instance, Lucifer Gold Strong, a Belgian ale aged in Chardonnay barrels that Ziegler is super stoked to release.
Or a variant of Parabola called Ancho & Fig Parabola aged in bourbon barrels with Ancho chili and fig. According to Ziegler, at a members-only event Firestone threw at the Propagator in Venice, featuring six different one-off variants of adjunct Parabola, the pairing of ancho and fig received the most praise.
In the same Parabola vein, Paraboloid ages for eighteen months in ten-year Russell’s Reserve Single Bourbon barrels, and Paso Parabola ages for eight months in bourbon barrels before finishing in 500L red wine puncheons for six months.
Personally, our eyes widen at Lumber Thunder, a small-batch imperial brown ale aged in bourbon barrels, and Grainshift, a wheated stout aged in soft red wheat bourbon barrels.
5 EPIC Never-Before-Seen Collabs
Photography courtesy of Firestone Walker Brewing Company
And we mean epic.
“We happen to host an amazing beer festival each year (Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival) that allows us to invite breweries from across the globe. This gives us a chance to make a beer together face to face [with breweries] when they are in town and work hands-on with the other breweries involved to create magical concoctions,” explains Yeo. “Plus, Matt has friends from all walks of the brewing community, so he has his finger on the ‘brewing pulse’ and knows how to keep up with the brewing trends and innovations when it comes to making barrel-aged beers.”
These incredible relationships lead to equally unbelievable beers.
This year, Ziegler says he’s looking forward to a few in particular.
For instance, Fouth Meal at Graceland, a collab with Green Cheek and Pinthouse meant to mimic Elvis Presley’s favorite snack, a peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwich. “A flame thrower will be involved to flambée bananas with marshmallow and peanut butter flour,” shares Ziegler.
Firestone Walker also finally managed to wrangle the king of collabs himself, Horus Aged Ales Founder Kyle Harrop, to brew a beer together. The brewery says this collaboration “feels like finding that long-lost speakeasy.”
“It’s a crystal ale,” says Ziegler, “a style of beer created by Horus that we have never brewed before!”
Finally, Firestone Walker doesn’t just keep its collabs national. Teaming up with the Norwegian LERVIG, Ziegler says he had a lot of fun making this one. “We shared a lot of similar values when it came to making barrel-aged beers,” he says. “We decided to design a massive stout resting in six-year rye whiskey barrels, unadulterated from adjuncts to let the barrel character shine.”
4 Four-Packs of Propagator Releases
Photography courtesy of Firestone Walker Brewing Company
Back by popular demand!
Two years ago, the Brewmaster’s Collective tried something new—including four-packs of the latest release from Firestone Walker’s R&D brewery, the Propagator.
This year, Propagator releases will return, with a four-pack included in each quarterly collection.
3 Extra, Exclusive VIP Perks
Photography courtesy of Firestone Walker Brewing Company
In addition to all the beer, collabs, and four-packs we’ve already mentioned, the Brewmaster’s Collective comes with additional perks.
As a member, you’ll have access to Firestone Walker’s rotating Library cellar or rare and past-exclusive club beers. Plus, you get member pricing, aka fifteen percent off everything online and in-store.
If you visit the Paso Robles taproom, you can enjoy the VIP taproom experience with complimentary tours.
And perhaps most importantly, you have lottery access to one of the best festivals in the entire country—Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival (FWIBF). These tickets sell out every single year, so getting the opportunity to get your hands on some is a serious perk.
Lastly, you’re invited to exclusive events, ranging from local pub crawls to a Block Party during FWIBF, that includes a VIP area and pop-up shop in the Barrel Room just for Brewmaster’s Collective members.
1 Incredible Mystery Merch
Photography courtesy of Firestone Walker Brewing Company
While Yeo wouldn’t share too many details with us, she did mention that the Welcome Kit will have “a pretty epic merch item to look forward to this year!”
So, while we can’t dish all the deets here, we can go by past experience.
Honestly, we think the impeccable, well-thought-out gifts have been one of the seriously underrated parts of the Brewmaster’s Collective.
Past years have included a set of dice (which currently sits on my desk), a large, soft, insulated cooler (that I’ve been known to take on road trips), a tasting tray with glasses (that I, no joke, use every single week when I taste through beers breweries have sent me), and cookies designed to pair with specific beers, to name a few.
Whatever Yeo has curated and planned this year, we can assure you it will be capital A Awesome.
Great, Where Can I Sign Up?
Photography courtesy of Firestone Walker Brewing Company
We thought you’d never ask.
Last year, Firestone Walker incredibly dropped the price to $399 for a prepaid annual membership, and they’re sticking to that price this year. Your membership will renew in 2026 unless canceled, and you get free on-site pickup in Paso Robles, Buellton, or Venice (three-week pickup window). If you’d like your collections shipped* to you, it’s $85 in California and $125 for annual shipping to all other available states (which include DC, KY, NE, NH, PA, VA, and VT).
However, multiple cost configurations are available.
If you want to spread things out, you can choose a five-payment installment plan of $85 ($425 total). Again, free on-site pickup is available in Paso Robles, Buellton, or Venice (with a three-week pickup window). Shipping on this plan comes to $19/shipment in CA and $27/shipment to all other states.
You can find all the details here.
Spots are limited, so if you want twenty-one of Firestone’s finest, rarest, most imaginative beers, five EPIC never-before-seen collabs, four four-packs of the latest Propagator releases, extra, exclusive VIP perks, and one incredible gift, we highly recommend you pull the trigger now before they’re all gone for next year!
About The Author
Grace Lee-Weitz
Currently Drinking:
Fort Point Beer Co. KSA
Grace is the Senior Content Editor for Hop Culture and Untappd. She also organizes and produces the largest weeklong women, femme-identifying, and non-binary folx in craft beer festival in the country, Beers With(out) Beards, and the first-ever festival celebrating the colorful, vibrant voices in the queer community in craft beer, Queer Beer. An avid craft beer nerd Grace always found a way to work with beer. After graduating with a journalism degree from Northwestern University, she attended culinary school before working in restaurant management. She moonlighted as a brand ambassador at 3 Sheeps Brewing Co. on the weekends before moving into the beer industry full-time as an account coordinator at 5 Rabbit Cerveceria. Grace holds her Masters degree in the Food Studies program at NYU.
