myBrewerytap.com

One thing I have been meaning to do for a while is to share the joy that is myBrewerytap.com.

I am a big fan of on-line beer shops but only if they bring something different. Realale.com for bottled conditioned micro-brewed beers, Beermerchants.com for something special from Belgium or USA and now myBrewerytap.com for their 52 week beer clubs.

The first time I shopped was when I needed a present for my brother-in-law last year and bought him a 52 week beer club. You pay up front, £89.99 plus one delivery fee of £5.99, and myBrewerytap.com deliver a box of thirteen beers to your loved-one every quarter. Beer lover, B-I-L, was delighted (he lives right in the Devon sticks, so I'm sure the courier firm weren't so delighted) describing it as the "gift that keeps on giving".

Watching jealously from afar, I was most impressed with the selection each quarter. The guys at MBT clearly taking much care and attention in selecting the country's finest bottled beers. (It must be a really tough job researching and choosing the selection).

When they announced a US 52 week beer club I could not resist. Limited to fifty members due to the scarcity of the beers and slightly more expensive at £119.99 + one delivery fee of £5.99 it runs on the same basis - a quarterly delivery of thirteen US craft brews.

Every three months a new box lands on the doorstep, packed with interesting American beers from the renowned Brooklyn, Flying Dog, Sierra Nevada, Odell, Stone, Goose Island and Anchor to the lesser known Smutty Nose to some previously unknown to me like Uinta, Buckbean, Ballast Point and Caldera. In your face IPAs; America's take on some UK beer styles like ESB and brown ale, porters, stouts; spicy winter beers to warm in the cold weather, fruity and hoppy for the spring.

The latest box even included three canned beers. I had come across 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco, much of whose output is canned beer, so I knew that craft beer in a tin was not necessarily a great Satan. The cans in the current box include an IPA and a pale ale from Caldera in Oregon and a Bavarian style schwarzbier from Buckbean in Nevada. All fresh and tasty with no metallic aftertaste or aggressive carbonation, slugged straight from the tin or poured into a glass if you prefer. More tins are promised later in the year.

I am well impressed again with the care and attention put into selecting the beers. These are some of the finest that USA has to offer, straight to my door, at regular intervals.

So there you have it, an honest recommendation for myBrewerytap.com from a most satisfied customer. The website, service, delivery and most importantly the beers are all first class IMHO.