The beer’s been taken care of

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Pelicon brewery has added subscription packages to its online store. The longer you subscribe for, the cheaper the beer.

»The choice between the blue or the red pill is not really a choice between illusion and reality ... I want a third pill! ... A pill which would enable me to perceive ... reality in illusion itself.« Philosopher Slavoj Žižek, the author of this quote, was not satisfied with the famous Matrix – a third pill is never an option in the film. 

But if he wanted one, he could get it, albeit differently to what he had in mind and not necessarily with the same effect. The 3rd Pill is not a miracle film-coated tablet, but for many, it’s a wondrous potion. The 3rd Pill is a light beer with a rich hoppy aroma and a long bitter aftertaste. 

Photo: Miha Bratina/Pelicon

It won the title of Slovenia’s best beer several times, and Pelicon, the Ajdovščina-based brewery that makes it, was declared the best in Slovenia multiple times. 

For over two years The 3rd Pill is also the flagship beer of Pelicon’s subscription boxes. The brewery started it as a joke, but the idea gained traction with beer fans. If you follow the principles of life per month, getting the box is easy – all you have to do is decide if you want to receive a mix from Pelicon’s general selection, or stick with just The 3rd Pill. Then you can return to your armchair.

If you buy one crate of beer, a bottle of Pelicon pride will cost you 2.75 euros, but with a longer subscription you can save 15 cents per bottle.

On around the fifteenth of the month, your doorbell will ring, and you will receive 24 large bottles of beer in a handy cardboard box. The longer you subscribe for, the less you pay for beer. If, for example, you choose a one-off crate, it will cost 65.99 euros. But if you already know you’ll want to receive it monthly for four months, the total will come to 250 euros, so 62.50 euros per crate. 

Regardless of how many crates you want to receive, you won’t have to worry about delivery costs, because the box of beer comes with free shipping.

Other Slovenian (micro)breweries do not offer this, or any similar types of subscription plan yet, but the subscription economy model, based on regular beer delivery, was tried by another Slovenian company, which was unfortunately unsuccessful. 

Birbox included a selection of Slovenian, Belgian, German, Irish, American, and other beers, and always came with pretzels or another salty snack that beer drinkers might crave. The box is no longer available, and their online store has shut down. 

In Slovenia, subscribing to beer is still something very new, but in many other countries, it's a standard part of the service, especially for craft breweries.

In the meantime, the Crafty mystery box, a box containing four bottles of beer, exclusively from Slovenian Craft breweries, is trying to get its business off the ground. The predicted subscription cost is 19.99 euros, but the box is not yet available. 

Elsewhere in the world, especially in the USA and the UK, subscribing to various beer boxes is becoming more and more popular with customers – much like the lively bubbles that come from the bottom of the beer to the surface, turning into foam. 

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Small independent breweries have managed to chip away at the store shelves in the marketplace of global and local brewing giants, while also looking for other ways to get loyal customers, with surprise subscription boxes. You know that a box will arrive each month, but its contents will generally be a surprise. 

But we can look forward to the unknown, especially if we know that it comes in the form of aromatic hoppy bubbles.