Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 22 OCTOBER 2022 Craft beer aficionado Christopher O'Connell lives just two blocks from Salem's Gulu-Gulu Cafe and has long been a regular, dropping in often to order a pint or two from what he calls the area's best lineup of beers. So, in 2014, when the cafe launched a beer club that challenged would-be members to try 200 different brews, O'Connell was in from the very beginning. Slightly less than a year later, he had met the lofty goal, becoming the first full member of the Flying Gulu Beer Society. "The convenience of living right nearby helped," O'Connell laughs. The Flying Gulu Beer Society was born when Steven Feldman, who owns both the Gulu-Gulu Cafe and the neighboring Flying Saucer Pizza Company, decided he wanted BEER SOCIETY Gulu-Gulu Cafe in Salem creates a club for ale enthusiasts. BY SARAH SHEMKUS E AT + D R I N K PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELISE SINAGRA to create an experience that would both create camaraderie among regular customers and help build customer loyalty. He was inspired by the idea of a mug club—in which bars reward customers who drink a certain number of beers with their own beer mug kept on the premises—but he wanted to give it his own twist. The result was the beer society. Once a contender drinks 200 different beers from those on offer at Gulu-Gulu or Flying Saucer, they are rewarded with a membership card and a personalized t-shirt. They also earn the right to drink from the society member chalice—they don't get their own, but there are several available, so no member shall be deprived of their hard-won drinking vessel. There are also less tangible benefits. There's the pride and camaraderie of being one of the select few to achieve membership— so far only 49 people have completed the requisite drinks to earn admission. Members might also be invited to special keg tappings or have the chance to test out samples of beers under consideration for the menu. And once Gulu-Gulu bar manager Zakk Nix gets to know your preferences, he might just go out of his way to make sure there's something interesting on tap for you. "You almost become something bigger than the beer you're drinking," Nix says. "Your thoughts and preferences are being used to create and fortify the space you're spending time and money in." In the early years, there was a specific list of beers aspiring members were required to The Flying Gulu Beer Society was started to build camaraderie among customers.