UPDATE: As commenters helpfully pointed out, the majority of memberships likely came from previous renewals so not all 1,000 memberships were sold yesterday. I’ve updated the headline to reflect this.

(Placentia, CA) – Even Jim Koch is applauding.

It only took about nine hours for The Bruery Reserve Society memberships to sell out yesterday. At $295 a pop x 1,000 memberships, that is $295,000 in cash for the little brewery from Placentia.

Last year, 700 society memberships were sold beginning on November 1st and didn’t sell out until around Christmas. The price was only $195 last year.

Now, that’s nutty. Even The Bruery was shocked as ticket sales were happening. Per their Facebook wall yesterday…

Reserve Society spots are going very quickly this year and we anticipate selling out within the week. If you are teetering on the edge, you should probably decide quickly and head to http://society.thebruery.com/ and get your spot for 2012.

Two and a half hours later…

In an unprecedented swiftness, the Reserve Society 2012 has sold out. It took us until Christmas to sell out all 700 spots last year. we raised the amount of memberships to 1,000 this year and they didn’t even last through one day of general sales. Thank you to all of the avid craft beer fans out there who are now part of the Reserve Society!

Surprisingly, only a couple of people complained after that one showing just how much goodwill that The Bruery has accumulated since it started.