When I started reviewing beers a few years ago on Instagram I would be in pubs tasting the beers or would nip out to the supermarket to grab a few new cans that hit the shelves and give them a try and relay my thoughts to my page. Then we ended up in lockdown and going to the pub for a fresh pint of craft beer became a little harder than usual. I could still get beers from supermarkets but that wasn’t essential travel so I had to find another way to obtain beers to review, subscription services seemed the way to do that. One subscription service I tried was Beer 52. 

Started in 2013, Beer 52 aims to offer you an insight into beers from different craft breweries from around the world in a box delivered to your door. In the box you receive 8, 10 or 12 beers (depending on which subscription you choose), 1 snack and a magazine called ‘Ferment’.

The Beer Selection

The beers are pre selected beers from different breweries around the world. You can see names from the UK from the likes of ‘Salt’, ‘Tempest’, ‘tiny rebel’ and many more.

The selection of beers can range from stout to IPA’s to even lagers which gives you a great range of beers from different styles, the only problem is that because you can’t chose the selection you receive you may find your self with beers you might not have a taste for.

Most of the time the beers are great. You will defiantly come across some big names that you may have seen before, other times you will come across some hidden gems that you may not have heard of from other countries that are great, flavoursome beers that make you think “damn I wish I could get this again. Other times you feel like a few of the beers in the box are just there as fillers. You find some of the beers to be lacking flavour, really just quite boring and not really nice to drink. Now yes, This could be down to personal preference but it happens all to often in the 2 years I have been a customer of Beer52.

How much is a Beer52 subscription?

A Beer52 subscription could cost you between £24 and £34 pound depending on your subscription. All subscriptions receive a snack and the resident magazine but for £24 you receive 8 beers, for 10 beers it’s £29 and for 12 beers it will cost you £34.

When we compare this with other subscriptions I would say this is an average price across the board if not slightly cheaper than its competitors. Honestbrew offers 6 beers for £22.90 – 12 beers for £36.90. The only service I found to be cheaper was Virgin wines where 8 bottles of beer will cost you £11.99 at the time of writing which is amazing.

Is Beer52 easy to cancel?

The straight answer to this is, not as easy as it should be. The thing with Beer52 is that when you go to their site and click on where it says cancel it will ask if you want to amend your subscription in any way, such as: Lower the amount of beer in your subscription or if you want to change when you receive the subscription to every other month. Now this isn’t the bad thing, every business wants to retain a customer in any way they can, the struggle is that there is no way to cancel this subscription on the part of the website that is labelled cancel. In fact all that is there is a contact number, yes, you have to cancel over the phone. The reason is because Beer52 actually employ people whose job is primarily to answer these phones and persuade you to stay. Now I still haven’t been involved in a conversation with one of those people as I am yet to cancel but if that day comes I will be sure to update the experience here.

The Bottom Line & Scores

In all honesty Beer52 looks to be leading the way for other beer subscription services. The subscription is fairly priced in comparison to other subscription boxes. They offer a wide range of beers and craft ales from all over the world giving you a diverse range of styles.

The only major issue with Beer52 is the cancelation process, it baffles me that in the 21st century you can not cancel your order online. Yes it gives you more options to help keep the customer buying from you, to have a conversation to make it more worth the customers while, but customers want things to be easy especially if they are cancelling. Customers don’t want to be stuck in a call que just to speak to someone who is just trying to convince them to stay.

Lets get down to the scores:

Diversity in Style of beers: 7/10 Good range

Price: 7/10 Average in the industry or cheaper

Flexibility: 5/10 Only offers monthly or bi-monthly subscription

Ease of cancelling: 4/10 Having to call is a farce for some people who just want to cancel on the spot

That concludes my experience with Beer52. I hope that helped give you some insight into whether this is the right subscription service for your beer needs.