Column: Microbrewed Beer Club offers best of-the-month subscriptions to the craft-beer industry

Kris Calef drinks a lot of bad beer.

For over 20 years, Calef and his team at Lake Forest-based MonthlyClubs.com have convened at bi-weekly beer-tasting panels, where they sift through samples sent by breweries around the world.

From Belgian brown ales and IPAs to barrel-aged strong ales and more, Calef is constantly searching not only for well-made brews, but ones that would appeal to customers of his five distinct beer-of-the-month clubs, expertly curated bottle shipments that continue to be among the industry’s best.

“It’s about quality control,” Calef says. “If you go with whatever is on deal from your importer, you’re not always getting the best product. We want to make sure everything is good for our club members because it matters. We frankly kiss a lot of frogs.”

The original U.S. Microbrewed Beer Club leapt onto the mail-order scene during the second-wave beer craze in the early 1990s, offering the chance for novice drinkers (in the 34 states where it’s legal to ship alcohol) to explore the growing number of then-small breweries — Flying Dog, Sierra Nevada, Riverside Brewing Company — without having to kiss any frogs.

Boxes included 12 beers per month, including three bottles or cans of each of four styles from lightly distributed breweries, along with a custom-printed newsletter with detailed profiles, tasting notes, suggested food pairings and more.

In the early days, Calef, a former salesman with IBM in Costa Mesa, spent every weekend attending beer fests, conferences and craft beer events, personally signing up new members and building relationships with brewers and importers that can still can be seen reflected in the unique selections sent to both the original and expanded beer clubs.

The International Beer Club often includes European breweries not found on West Coast bottle-shop shelves.

The new Hop-Heads Beer Club cuts through the deluge of bitter beers to deliver an always interesting swath of fresh Session IPAs, hoppy lagers and more from the U.S. and beyond.

Last year, about half of the featured extreme beers mailed to members in the game-changing Rare Beer Club were produced exclusively for MonthlyClubs.com.

“Before we bought the Rare Beer Club [after the death of its founder, celebrated beer writer Michael Jackson, in 2007], I was a member of it and I always got excited — and I’m in the business,” Calef says. “That box showing up every month, you don’t know what’s in it. It’s fun to get something that you trust is going to be filled with quality products that are all new to you. There’s a real social aspect to it.”

Today, however, much of the excitement of receiving boxes from MonthyClubs.com is that they aren’t only filled with beer (you can customize your orders, including re-ordering beers you liked along the way).

Not long after starting his first beer club, Calef took over a premium cigar-of-the-month club from someone he met at a beer fest. He then acquired a wine club, which came with its own intense tasting panel helmed by noted oenophile and wine consultant Don Lahey.

In 2000, Calef’s mother helped find experts to launch the final three clubs: cheese, chocolates and flowers, each one with its own rigorous tasting and selection process to determine what goes out each month.

“You can’t be an expert at 42 clubs. I’m sorry you just can’t,” Calef says, referring to some of his competitors, who boast about offering dozens of niche clubs. “It reads like a template: ‘We care so much about insert product name here.’ These guys aren’t really experts. We take our product selection very seriously.”

Curation duties for the Gourmet Cheese of the Month Club and Gourmet Chocolate of the Month Club both go to Zingermans Deli in Ann Arbor, Mich., which flies its buyers around the world to meet with small chocolatiers in their kitchens and sit in cheese caves tasting 100 different versions of the same cheese, searching for the right batch.

Stories of these searches appear in the monthly newsletters that accompany each shipment, enlightening club members about not only the ingredients in each item, but the tales of how they came to end up in the boxes on members’ doorsteps.

“We’re not just selling beer and we’re not just selling cheese here,” Calef says. “We’re selling an experience. That experience is one of exploration and hearing the stories is a part of that. It’s a cliche that of-the-month clubs are the gift that keeps on giving, but it’s true.”

SARAH BENNETT is a freelance journalist covering food, drink, music, culture and more. She is the former food editor at L.A. Weekly and a founding editor of Beer Paper L.A. Follow her on Twitter @thesarahbennett.