Nowadays, home delivery is the norm for nearly everything. Toilet paper, T-shirts, steaks and more can be brought right to your front door, their arrival announced with a doorbell’s ding. Just like with your favorite pizza (or groceries or wine), beer is also among the many things that can be shopped online and shipped straight to your home. And whether you’re a pilsner enthusiast or you’re completely new to world of craft brews, the best beer delivery services have something for everyone.
The last several years have seen the rise of beer delivery services, bringing the world’s best double IPAs, imperial stouts and fruited sour ales to your doorstep. They offer both convenience and safety in a world that, right now, might feel a bit overwhelming.
“I’m a working mom who doesn’t have much time to herself, so it’s nice to be able to browse through beers at random times without interruption or distraction,” say Beth Demmon, a journalist in San Diego who focuses on beer. “I used to love going grocery (and beer) shopping by myself, but COVID-19 changed that — now I want to get in and get out as fast as I can. Beer shopping online reminds me what it was like to have the luxury of time to browse for a treat.”
The best beer delivery services offer easy-to-use interfaces, speedy and secure delivery (no broken bottles!) and a wide selection to appease lager lovers and hop heads alike. Here are some of our favorites to check out now.
Best Personalized Beer Delivery Service
Beer Drop
With beer subscriptions, there’s nothing worse than getting stuck with a bunch of dud beers. Colorado-based Beer Drop helps customers avoid unloved styles (sorry, pumpkin ale) by letting people pick by broad category. Want all hoppy beers? Great! Or a mix of Belgian and sour ales? Beer Drop has got you covered. The monthly subscription (starting from $39) includes five different craft beers from award-winning Colorado breweries such as Black Project and Comrade, with the option to upgrade for taproom-exclusive beers. But they also have tons of beers from dozens of breweries available for individual purchase, all ready to ship nationally.
Best Beer Delivery Service For Learning More About Beer
Craft Beer Club
If you could use a little reading material with your beer, the Craft Beer Club has you covered. Each order (monthly, bimonthly or quarterly, starting from $43) includes a dozen beers — broken down into four distinct styles — from excellent American breweries, such as Virginia’s Hardywood and Alabama’s Back Forty. Additionally, the shipment includes a unique newsletter that discusses the beer’s backstory and provides pairing options for food. With no yearly membership required, the Craft Beer Club is a great option for folks looking to test-drive beer delivery.
Best Beer Delivery Service For Fast Delivery
Drizly
If you need beer right now, then you need Drizly. The easy-to-use online platform connects customers to local retailers that will deliver your beer (or wine or spirits) in as fast as one hour. You can search beers by geography, price, brand and style, from stouts to pale lagers and wild ales. And Drizly provides concise tasting notes and food-pairing options to help you make smart, informed decisions. “I like to make sure I get at least three different styles, and I almost always base my order total on how to minimize shipping costs,” Demmon advises shoppers. Better still, Drizly spotlights both sales and local options — in Brooklyn, I can buy plenty of beer from my hometown breweries such as Five Boroughs, Threes and Grimm.
Best Beer Delivery Service For Short-Term Subscriptions
The U.S. Microbrewed Beer Club
“My dad drinks beer fairly often, but doesn’t spend much time browsing the aisles of his local bottle shop and often falls back on the same handful of breweries when stocking up for a party or a cookout,” says beer writer Ben Keene, author of The Great Northeast Brewery Tour. “On his birthday this year I signed him up for a few months of the U.S. Microbrewed Beer Club. A full year — 144 cans or bottles — was too much, so I liked that I could choose a short-term membership. And he was very pleased with the variety, which included styles and brands he knew, like American IPAs and Harpoon, as well as those he didn’t, like peanut butter porter and Millstream Brewing.”
Best Beer Delivery Service For Limited-Edition Beers
Tavour
There are more than 8,000 breweries in America, and many of them do not distribute beer far from their home markets. In a world where travel is currently limited, how can you possibly get your mitts on Homestyle, a juicy IPA from Bearded Iris Brewing, in Nashville? Try Tavour, a bespoke delivery service that partners with independent breweries to offer both limited-edition releases and cultish beers from breweries such as WeldWerks, Little Beast, Heater Allen and more. And there’s no dust on these bottles and cans. “We’re super-obsessed with freshness,” says vice president Meghan Packard. “We pick up drink-fresh beer the day of or the day after it’s packaged and get it out to the consumer as soon as possible.” P.S. You can buy beer à la carte on the app, or Tavour offers a subscription service as well, starting from $60.
Best Beer Delivery Service For Unusual Beers
Rare Beer Club
The best part about the brewing industry is the unbridled creativity. If breweries can dream it, they can probably brew it. The Rare Beer Club canvasses the globe for the most unusual, and unusually delicious beers, many aged in oak barrels, inoculated with wild yeast or infused with ingredients such as cacao nibs or coconut. The club regularly features exclusive beers from breweries such as Jolly Pumpkin and Alesong Brewing & Blending, plus an always revolving rotation of imperial stouts and patiently aged sour ales — I like anything and everything from the Bruery and the Lost Abbey. You can order shipments monthly, bimonthly or quarterly, in allotments of two, four or six bottles, starting from $39.
Best Beer Delivery Service For a Great Selection of Styles
Craft Beer Kings
With so many great beers being brewed across the country, picking the right bottles and cans can be paralyzing. Craft Beer Kings simplifies things by offering monthly subscription boxes (starting from $55) built around specific styles, as well as plenty of beers you can buy by the can or pack. If you’re a fan of sweetly potent imperial stouts, hazy and highly hopped IPAs, mouth-puckering sour ales or barrel-aged beers, the Craft Beer Kings will eliminate the guesswork and deliver hand-picked hits from top-shelf breweries such as Great Notion, Almanac and Evil Twin. You can also create your own mix of beers, too. “I typically gravitate towards breweries that I’ve either heard of or ones that have great branding, and I prefer cans to bottles,” Demmon says.
Best Delivery Service For Beer Gear
First Sip Brew Box
The craft brewing industry is more than beer alone. To many fans it’s a way of life filled with affiliated gear, which First Sip Brew Box delivers every month, starting from $25. To be clear, the subscriptions do not contain alcohol. Instead, First Sip delivers T-shirts, glassware, buttons, stickers and select foods and beverages made with beer or brewing ingredients, such as stout-flavored pretzels or sparkling tea flavored with hops. First Sip is the ultimate subscription for the craft beer completist.
