Join the club: TLH Beer Society's 2023 member cards arrive in time for Black Friday
Boy, oh, boy does it bring us great pride to say this: "The 2023 Tallahassee Beer Society Membership Card is HERE!"
Yes, the thick, black metal membership card — with that clutch built-in bottle opener, of course — that took the Tallahassee-area by storm when we debuted the inaugural version in March has been reupped, redesigned and is returning bigger, better and badder than ever just in time for Black Friday.
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But first, before we tell you how baller the 2023 version is gonna be and who we've added to it, let's just rewind and remember how the TLH Beer Society Membership Card got started AND how it works. And who — besides the local businesses that support it and those who purchase it — the card benefits.
We always wanted to create a card similar to the ones you see high school booster clubs selling filled with deals galore that you keep in your wallet and can use throughout the year — things like buy-one, get-one dozen doughnuts, or $1 off a movie ticket. Except we wanted to create an adult version of that — and we wanted it to only feature local businesses that had a connection to our local craft beer scene.
So we did just that earlier this year and released the first-ever cards in March 2022 with a BREWS and a BITES side. The "Brews" side featured 15 local craft breweries and distilleries, while the "Bites" side featured 15 local business (like craft beer bars and restaurants) that supported these local breweries by offering local craft beer on their menus.
But like all things your Tallahassee Beer Society — the 2022 Philanthropic Organization of The Year — does, we created this card with charity in mind. And in rolling these out, we pledged to donate a portion of the proceeds of every card sold to the Leon County Humane Society, which we did during our 5-Year Birthday Party back in August at Feather Oaks when we handed LCHS a check for $5,555.
We'd call that one heck of a successful fundraiser!
Now, conservatively, we only ordered 150 of these cards to begin with because — A) The thick, metal AMEX-style of card ain't exactly cheap to have made and we didn't want to get stuck with boxes of them on a shelf collecting dust, and B) Being a first-time thing, we legitimately had no idea if this initiative would be hot — or a total flop.
But we soon found out, a flop it was not!
We sold out of the first 150 within a week of announcing them and immediately ordered more. And then we sold out of those too!
Needless to say, the cards were a HIT and they had the town buzzing — and our local businesses were seeing great returns with customers all over going out and using them. It was truly one of the coolest things we've had the pleasure of watching unfold in our 5 1/2 years of existence, and we can't thank all those who purchased the inaugural card enough for their support of us, LCHS and all these local establishments on the card.
So now that you have the backstory, let's get down to why you REALLY clicked on this column: the 2023 card — who's on it — and how you get it!
Let's start with who's on it. And we are happy to report we've expanded it from 30 perks to over 45 deals in 2023! And we're also happy to report that every business that was on board in 2022 is BACK in 2023 (except one that unfortunately announced its closing recently).
Here are the 16 newcomers:
Amicus Brewing
Apalachicola Bee Mead/Wine Company
Blountstown Beer Company
Circle City Brewing
Farmers Daughter Vineyard Winery
Fermentation Lounge
The Hub at Feather Oaks
T'Velo Brewing
7th Hill Taproom
Backwoods Crossing
Barn's Liquors
Charlie Park
Growler Country
Momo's Pizza (Pensacola St.)
Posey's Seafood
Trident
And here are the returning 29 faves
1861 Distillery
Civic Brewing
Deep Brewing
Eastpoint Beer Company
Fools Fire Brewing
Halpatter Brewing
Georgia Beer Co.
Lake Tribe Brewing
Ology Brewing/Ology Distilling
Oyster City Brewing/OCBC Tallahassee
Proof Brewing
Quick n Save
Southern Philosophy
Southern Fields Brewing
World Of Beer
Andrews Downtown
Crum Box
Gaines St. Pies
House of Music Tallahassee
Hubs & Hops
Liam's Restaurant and Wine & Cheese Shoppe
Loco's Tacos & Bar
Madison Social
Metro Deli
Rankin Tacos
Red Shed
Riccardo's
Seineyard at Rock Landing
Smitty's Tap House
And as you'll see when we release all the 2023 perks, some of our OG places changed their deals and some stayed the same.
How to find the deals
So how do you check out ALL of the perks — new and old — for 2023, you ask?
We will release them on our website (tlhbeersociety.com) just in time for Black Friday, which will be your first shot to pre-order your card online and have it in your hands and ready to use Jan 1, 2023. That's when the new card becomes valid and the old card becomes nothing more than a memento, a back-up bottle opener and a piece of #TLHHIstory! (You can also use that 2022 card if you ever get attacked by ninjas or bears too, just FYI).
More perks than ever before means the card will go up from $40 this year to $50 in 2023 — but if you order it on Black Friday weekend (Friday, Nov. 25-Sunday, Nov. 27) and enter the code "TLHBEER20" you'll save 20% and get this year's card for last year's price. And if you slip up and miss out this weekend, we'll give you one more shot to save some money on Cyber Monday (Nov. 28) by entering the code TLHBEER10 to save 10% off this year's price.
Either way, you should have the card ready to put in someone's stocking or under the Christmas tree by Dec. 25 — and ready to use by Jan. 1, 2023.
And just like last year, the entire thing is a fundraiser for the Leon County Humane Society — and also just like last year, we're throwing a huge end-of-the-year birthday party at Feather Oaks and hopefully will present them another whopper of a check!
You can use the card unlimited times during the calendar year, so have fun taking advantage of those perks and supporting local 24/7, 365 between Jan. 1, 2023, until Dec. 31, 2023!
Because at the end of the day, #SupportingLocal is what the Tallahassee Beer Society Membership Card is all about!
Cheers, Tallahassee!
Danny Aller is the co-founder, along with Matthew Crumbaker, of the TLH Beer Society. Reach the Beer Society on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or email: tlhbeersociety@gmail.com.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: TLH Beer Society's new member cards arrive in time for Black Friday