If you went on a road trip of the UK on your dad’s Harley Davidson motorbike, do you think it would inspire you to start up your own craft beer delivery service? That’s exactly what James Brown did and Beer 52 was the result.
Beer 52 is one of many companies operating in this sphere and it’s certainly not the first one I’ve reviewed (see here for instance). It’s becoming increasingly popular to get aficionados to source new beverages and ship them to you each month. It also makes standing out in a crowded market place ever more difficult to achieve.
So how did Beer 52 compare to its many competitors? Did it send me a few ales I was able to enjoy once the kids were tucked up in bed? Let’s start with a little background.
You can sign up to receive a case of eight beers a month. You will receive a discount the longer you sign up. The plan starts at £24 for one case going down in price to £21 for a yearly subscription. The beers will come from a whole range of breweries. The ales I received ranged from very quaffable Vesterbro Pils from Danish brewery Mikkeller to the hardcore Don’t Break the Oat stout from Nordic Brewing.
Other beers in the box included a German style wheat beer from Endinburgh-based Stewart Brewing the Rothhammer IPA from Chilean brewery Nazca and My Pils, which comes from a Danish brewery To-Ol.
Of the eight beers I was sent, I personally found six of them to be very drinkable. Two of them I wasn’t so keen, on although in fairness, as I’ve mentioned, one of them was a stout and I’m not a huge fan of stout.
With this type of venture, you are going to struggle to get a 100% success rate so I feel six out of eight isn’t bad. You also have to keep in mind that craft beer is the new hummus. Whereas once upon-a-time hummus was made from a standard set of ingredients, these days you can buy it in any number of combinations with crazy additives thrown in.
All the craft brewers are tinkering and trying out new ingredients. Sometimes it works (see what I wrote about Lowlander beer in this gift guide), sometimes it doesn’t. You can’t fault the brewers for trying, although I have digressed.
In addition to the monthly service, you can buy individual bottles and make up your own order. There are some well-known names in the range such as Westmaller and Chimay going on to breweries I have never heard of such as Crooked Stave and Evil Twin.
Thus far, Beer 52 is quite standard. What makes it stand out are two things. Firstly, it aims to have all beers delivered to you with four to six weeks of being brewed so they are fresh. For some bottle conditioned beers, this means you may wish to hide them away for a month or two and give them a little longer to age before drinking.
The other stand out feature the magazine sent with each monthly subscription box (£4.99 to non-subscribers). Called Ferment, it is a high-quality publication including tasting notes for the beers, interviews with brewers and various other features of interest to hop-heads. Apparently the magazine has just gone through a revamp so should you have read it in the past, you may want to take another look.
In answer to the question I posed at the beginning, yes, Beer 52 provided me with some beer I enjoyed once the kids were in bed. I’d personally say Beer 52 is more suitable to those people who know a bit about beer. The team has obviously travelled far and wide to select these beers and some of them are very good, if a little complex in taste. It’s a great gift idea for the hardened hop head, although nothing stops you getting a gift for yourself!
Reader offer: If you order a case from Beer 52 or sign up to its subscription service, use the code DADBLOG10 and you will receive a 10% discount off your first order.
Disclosure: A sample case of ales selected by Beer 52 was sent to me for review purposes. thoughts and opinions entirely my own.
