Last week someone I follow on twitter retweeted @HonestBrew and as a completely new name to me I instinctively clicked through to their profile to see what they were all about. Their profile blurb seemed straightforward enough 'Great craft beer direct to your door' and I assumed they were another beer home delivery site.
What caught my eye was their banner photo showing two bottles of "Honest Brew" beers: "Straight Up Pale Ale" and "Straight Up Amber Ale". So I already knew they were not just another ordinary beer shop but they also brew their own. My interest was now piqued and I found my way to their website.
This is where it got interesting and I got quite excited. You can either go straight to their standard shop or you can "Create an Honesty Box" where you are given a choice of typical ale properties for you to define your tastes: Pale, Amber, Dark are the first three, then flavours such as Crisp, Citrusy, or Chocolaty. Then for a fixed price each month Honest Brew will match your choices to the stock of beers they have in and send you either 9, 12 or 18 different beers each month.
I plumped for the 9 bottle pack to try out the service and this costs £28 with "free UK delivery", which works out at a little over £3 per bottle. A couple of days later my delivery arrived and I had 9 new beers to try out.
£2.20 - BrewDog - Dead Pony Club - Pale Ale 3.8%
£2.50 - Honest Brew - Straight Up Amber Ale 4.6%
£2.70 - Pressure Drop - Stokey Brown - Brown Ale 5.1%
£2.75 - London Fields - Shoreditch Triangle - IPA 6%
£2.25 - Camden Town - Hells Can 4.6%
£2.50 - Honest Brew - Straight Up Pale Ale 4.7%
£2.40 - Fourpure - Amber Ale Can 5.1%
£2.75 - Redchurch Brewery – Shoreditch Blonde 4.5%
£2.75 - Bristol Beer Factory – Southville Hop- IPA 6.5%
A good mix (I didn't filter anything out when ordering my box as I'm happy to try them all!), and certainly a few in there I might not have picked out myself I was very happy overall. I did note the prices; had I used their online shop and done all this myself the beers would have cost me £22.80 plus shipping of £4.90, giving a total of £27.70, so "UK delivery included" would have be a more accurate description than free.
I must say though that nothing about this service shouts "cheap beer" and that isn't what I was using it for, I'm happy with the selection I got at the price I got delivered directly to my front door. What I did note was the fantastic service throughout the whole process. Initially I got an email from "Frank" (which I suspect is a play on "Honest" rather than actually being someone called Frank, but I may be wrong... sorry Frank). Frank picks your beer and emails you to let you know what you are going to get this month. If there is anything you especially want, or want to avoid, just let Frank know and this will be accommodated for.
The day after my order arrived I missed a call from a number I didn't recognise, I'm not one to call back when I'm not expecting a call but I stuck the number into Google and "Honest Brew" came back as the top result. I called them back and had a chat with one of the founders, Craig, who again was fantastic and wanted to know what I thought of the service, if there was anything I'd change or improve and if I had any suggestions.
This is only my first batch but with 91 beers available at the time of my first order I expect the range of beers to be delivered over the coming months to be wide and varied with little repetition, which is exactly what I was looking for. The ease of home delivery, the range of beer and the simplicity of the site mean I'm happy to pay for this service for a while. I'll re-evaluate in a few months but I see it as a nice luxury for now.
I'm especially happy I got a bottle of the two Honest Brew beers in the photo that brought me to the site in the first place.
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