A community-led subscription box, where users are heavily involved in the creation process, has opened up places for a new tranche of 100 members.
New subscribers can join The Fellowship of Beer and get involved with a very active online community, discussing all things beer, suggesting beer styles, voting on bespoke ingredients, barrels for beers to age away in, and names and label design.
The Fellowship of Beer is an extension of Steam Machine Brewing Company’s mission to showcase just how vastly different every pint of beer can be.
Founded in 2015 by husband and wife Nick and Gulen Smith, the North East brewery has always been focused on direct relationships with consumers rather than mass supply and supermarket deals. Their idea of craft concentrates on the ultra-artisan side of the market, with draught-led quaffing pints fresh from tanks, and distinctive strong beers, often featuring foraged ingredients, lovingly aged away in extra special barrels for months and years, each one a limited edition release.
Involving their fans — and local response has made up 50% of the original subscribers — as well as opening up to a national audience has been a natural evolution of their consumer-led style.
Anyone who follows Steam Machine on social media, or has been on a brewery tour, will be used to seeing Nick Smith, co-founder and head brewer, and listening to his passion for the creative brewing process. Nick acts as the beer guide for The Fellowship, steering the creativity, providing options, listening and answering community questions so that the subscription box offerings are truly special.
The community is aimed at anyone who loves beer, especially those who want to explore how diverse beer can be, and who want to try different beers that no-one else will get a chance to. Members can be as active as they like, visiting the brewery, suggesting and voting on recipes, joining communal foraging trips for ingredients, and meet-ups for beer, or they can just sit back, relax, and receive a box of 12 beers every other month.
Subscribers are polled regularly, featuring their ideas and discussions from the private Facebook group, and then the brew team at Steam Machine leap into action.
An example of how this works is the Brzozowy birch-smokedgrodziskie, an almost extinct low-ABV beer from Poland. This unique beer came about from members discussing experiences of smoked beers from UK and international breweries. A member asked if Nick had ever smoked his own malt, so a poll followed, offering the chance for the Fellowship to have their own smoked beer.
A vote was made to decide on the style from various types of smoked beer, and then to take it one step further, the wood type was chosen. The full process was documented on The Fellowship of Beer’s YouTube Channel, from creating the smoker to cracking open the first bottle of the smoky and champagne-like 3.4% ABV beer.
“Building The Fellowship of Beer community has been about taking beer far beyond being just a transactional arrangement,” said Nick.
“I think people know I love what I do, especially being creative. Offering members the chance to be involved in every part of the creative process has been so rewarding, and I love the ideas that are being suggested left, right, and centre. Our tagline is ‘Why Should Brewers Have All The Fun’, and sharing that fun with everyone is truly exhilarating!
“We are involving our members in every stage of the creative process, engaging with them on a private forum, and making sure that everyone is having fun with the project!”
