Craft Beer Club

The Craft Beer Club is arguably the most popular beer subscription box out there for the craft beer enthusiast and for good reason. This club sends out monthly shipments of new and interesting craft beers from around the country. Many of the new beers and craft brews have limited distribution, meaning a subscription to CBC might be your only shot of tasting those specialty offerings. It also puts a premium on fresh beer, with many of its roster of breweries making a fresh batch just before boxes go out. 

The Craft Beer Club is also one of the most affordable at $48 a month with free shipping within the continental US. Each box features 12 beers: three of each beer in four different styles from two different breweries.

Beer Drop

Some of the beer subscription boxes on this list don’t leave much of the beer selection up to you, but not so with Beer Drop. This beer delivery box startup offers different plans, but with all of them, you can select your favorite type of beer and specific beer styles that go into your monthly craft beer subscription box shipments. That includes IPAs, fruit-forward beers, Belgian beer and plenty of other varieties. 

Monthly drops of microbrewery offerings start at $33 per month, plus $8 for shipping and handling, for six beers and your subscription can be canceled anytime. Also notable: The Beer Drop brews are all canned, so you’ll never have to worry about a broken bottle.

Brewvana

If you’re looking for outside-the-box brewing, Brewvana is the beer club you’ll want to gain membership to. Brewvana features interesting beers from a single beer-brewing region like Des Moines, Iowa. 

The company’s Brews Less Traveled Beer Club highlights one new “undiscovered” beer city each month. Each shipment includes eight different beers; two beers from four breweries in whatever city is on tap that month. In my shipment highlighting Lexington, Kentucky, I got a smattering of beers ranging from the more familiar to the highly unusual. Think berry cobbler sours and Kentucky bourbon barrel ales. 

Brewvana members can enjoy interactive livestreams and a drink-along podcast to enhance each month’s tasting. The cost is $80 per month but there are no ongoing commitments and you can pause or cancel at any time. If you sign up for six months prepaid, you can save $100 compared with a monthly subscription. 

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If hops make you happy, this is the monthly club for you (or another hoppy beer lover you’d like to treat). The HopHeads Beer Club sends three different hops-centric beers — four of each — every month so you can get your fill of this beer style. 

While this is, unsurprisingly, heavy on IPAs of various styles, it also makes room for hoppy pale ale and red ales. These aren’t just super-bitter hop-you-over-the-head beers, though; the club also spotlights “the many hop flavors and aromas available to today’s brewers amidst the ever-expanding supply of new hop varieties,” and includes imports as well as American selections. If this is your favorite beer style, the Hop Heads Beer Club is the one. Pricing starts at $40, plus $16 shipping, per month.

Rare Beer Club

The Rare Beer Club is the most selective of them all, featuring only two 750ml bottles of beer a month. It sends two separate styles of craft beer per month and no two months will see the same bottle picks at your door (unless you request or reorder). Don’t be discouraged by the limited choices; it’s quality you’re here for, and these beers are carefully chosen. 

You have three buying options: two 750ml bottles per month ($42 plus $15 for shipping), four 750ml bottles per month ($64 plus $19 for shipping) or six 750ml bottles per month ($85 plus $24 for shipping). Often these beers use rare production techniques and ingredients, making them exceptional craft beer, like aging through blending or in bourbon and cedar barrels. Plus, you’ll get super-rare brews from all over the world, including from up-and-coming breweries in Brazil, Japan and Scandinavia.