Elitist? Exclusive?

I see that Zak Avery has followed Adrian Tierney-Jones in writing positively about the Meantime College Beer Club in return for a bottle of their first beer. A loyal reader (I think there's one of them) might recall I asked who this club was for a while back, offering as it does some kind of colour-supplement lifestyle proposition as part of the package.

I still don't know, but am interested in any views about where something like this sits in the current elitism debates that have occupied the likes of Zak, Tandleman, Phil at Oh Good Ale and, across the pond, Stan Hieronymous. For sure it is, as Zak notes, "exclusive" at 350 notes for an annual membership, but is it the same thing as "elitist". Phil posits that money affords opportunity, it does make a difference. Elite, then?

As an aside, I see Zak got bottle 74 out of 100 of the RIS Meantime brewed as their first CBC beer. I assume they haven't had all 500 memberships taken up, or the series would have to run to an edition of 1,000 bottles. A cynic might suggest a bit of below-the-line advertorial from a couple of respected industry writers might move things along. I wonder if there are any spoogebeerian consortia in the membership list? I can't imagine they'd want to miss out on such rare spooge...