Best beer clubs for 2024
There’s nothing like a cold, crisp beer on a crisp autumn evening. Fall brings us a veritable cornucopia of seasonal flavors and styles, from pumpkin beers to harvest ciders and more Oktoberfest brews than you could ever drink during the two-week festival. But if you want to taste the full flavors of the season – and every season afterward – a monthly beer club lets you sample new and nostalgic flavors at the end of a long day.
After testing the best beer clubs, we found the best beer subscription boxes, from rich stouts to hoppy IPAs to microbrewed beers. If you want to enjoy the taste of craft breweries from the comfort of your own home, you can do so at these clubs. Whether you’re a seasoned beer connoisseur or just starting your journey, these beer clubs offer a great way to discover new flavors and support independent breweries around the world.
What is the best beer club overall?
After testing five of the most popular Beer of the Month clubs, we opted for the budget-friendly and original Craft Beer Club as the best beer subscription box for most people.
There are dozens of options to consider when looking for a beer subscription box, and they all deliver curated collections of unique craft beers to your home for tasting. The best beer clubs in 2024 offer access to an ever-expanding beer brewing universe, with unique choices including rare or limited edition beers. Read on for our selection of the best beer subscriptions for every beer or lager lover.
Best beer clubs of 2024
The Craft Beer Club is perhaps the most popular beer subscription box for the craft beer lover, and for good reason. This club sends monthly shipments of new and interesting craft beers from all over the country. Many of the new beers and craft brews have limited distribution, meaning a subscription to CBC may be your only chance to sample those special offerings. The company also places a premium on fresh beer, with many breweries making a new batch just before the cases go out.
The Craft Beer Club is also a cheaper beer subscription box for $54 per month plus shipping within the continental US. Each box contains 12 beers: three of each beer in four different styles from two different breweries.
Plus points:
- One of the more budget-friendly services
- Beers that appeal to a wide range of taste buds
Disadvantages:
- Not so many rare or niche offerings
Some beer subscription boxes on this list don’t leave much of the beer selection up to you, but that’s not the case with Beer Drop. This beer delivery box startup offers a variety of subscription plans, but all of these plans allow you to select your favorite type of beer and specific beer styles that will fit into your monthly shipments of craft beer subscription boxes. That includes IPAs, fruit beers, Belgian beer and many other varieties.
Monthly microbrewery deals start at $50 per month, plus $8 for shipping and handling, for five beers and your subscription can be canceled at any time. Also worth noting: the Beer Drop concoctions are all canned, so you never have to worry about a broken bottle.
Positives:
- This allows you to help curate the deliveries based on your tastes
- Some of the more interesting beers I tried came from this club
Disadvantages:
- On the expensive side
- Some of the beers in my shipment were fairly common
If you’re looking for outside-the-box brewing, Brewvana is the beer club you’ll want to join. Brewvana, the beer subscription service now known as City Brew Tours, offers interesting beers from a single brewing region such as Des Moines, Iowa. The company’s Brews Less Traveled Beer Club highlights a new “undiscovered” beer city every month. Each shipment contains eight different beers; two beers from four breweries in whatever city is on tap that month. In my mission focusing on Lexington, Kentucky, I was given a few beers ranging from the more well-known to the very unusual. Think Berry Cobbler Sours and Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale.
Brewvana members can enjoy interactive livestreams and a drink-along podcast to enhance each month’s tasting. The cost is $70 per month for eight beers if you sign up for six months in advance. For three-month subscriptions, the cost increases to $75. And if you sign up for a month, it will cost you $80.
Positives:
- Highlights a single beer producing region
- Lots of good information included
Disadvantages:
- Duration
- Some beers were too experimental for my taste
If hops make you happy, this is the monthly club for you (or any other hoppy beer lover you’d like to treat). The HopHeads Beer Club sends out three different hop-focused beers every month – four of each – so you can fully enjoy this beer style.
While this is, unsurprisingly, heavy on IPAs of various styles, it also makes room for hoppy pale ales and red ales. These aren’t just super bitter hop-over-the-head beers, though; the club also highlights “the many hop flavors and aromas available to today’s brewers amid the ever-expanding supply of new hop varieties,” and includes both imported and American selections. If this is your favorite beer style, then Hop Heads Beer Club is the way to go. Prices start at $42, plus $16 shipping, per month.
Positives:
- Ideal for hoppy beer drinkers
- Starts at $42 per month
Disadvantages:
- Only three types of beer per delivery
- Additional $16 for shipping
The Rare Beer Club is the most selective of them all, with only two 750ml bottles of beer per month. Two separate types of craft beer are shipped per month, and the same bottle picks will not show up at your door in two months (unless you request or reorder). Don’t be discouraged by the limited choices; it’s the quality you come for, and these beers have been carefully chosen.
You have three purchasing options: two 750ml bottles per month ($44 plus $15 for shipping), four 750ml bottles per month ($66 plus $19 for shipping), or six 750ml bottles per month ($88 plus $24 for shipping). These beers often use rare production techniques and ingredients, making them exceptional craft beers, such as maturation through blending or in bourbon and cedar barrels. Plus, you get super-rare brews from all over the world, including from up-and-coming breweries in Brazil, Japan and Scandinavia.
Positives:
- Good for rare, high-quality beers
- Many international selections
Disadvantages:
- Duration
- Additional $15 for shipping
Types of beer
Before you sign up for a beer club, decide which types of beer you want delivered in your monthly shipment. Maybe you only want to try hoppy ales or Belgian beers. Certain clubs specialize in niche offerings, while others offer a broader mix of beers brewed in any style.
Number of beers
Some beer clubs have a set number of beers in each shipment, while others give you the option to choose more or fewer beers per month. Determine how many beers make sense for you and choose a plan accordingly. Most services allow you to change the subscription later if you receive too little or too much than you want.
Costs
Beer clubs tend to be a little more expensive than going to the local store to buy beer, but some are much cheaper than others. Determine how much you have monthly budget for tasting new beers and select a club or subscription that suits you.
Testing monthly beer subscriptions is a dirty job, but someone has to do it. To assess the top beer clubs, we ordered as many as three months’ worth of beer deliveries from each of them to gauge the types of beer offered, the variety from month to month, and how the beer shipments were packaged, including what information about the beers was included. .
Are beer clubs expensive?
