The Best Craft Beer Delivery Service

Few words are buzzier than local and beer, but there are only so many craft breweries you can visit on a casual Tuesday night. Enter Tavour: the easiest way to try beer from, say, Alaska without hopping on an ocean liner.

Which is exactly what we did when we got Anchorage Brewing Company's farmhouse ale in our first delivery from Tavour, a delivery service that brings craft beer right to your door. The Seattle-based company, which has been around for three years now, was launched on the frustration the founders felt with the lack of widely available interesting beers, so don't expect the same boring selection you'd find at a supermarket. The Tavour team is constantly building relationships with new breweries to introduce buzzy new beers and stay on top of trends. So far, they're available in 13 states with plans to expand.

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So how does it work? Every day, you receive an email about a specific beer the company is highlighting, so you can decide whether or not you want to add the beer to your cart. After 30 days' worth of emails, it ships the chosen bottles to you. It doesn't work like a typical subscription service, where deliveries are auto-scheduled and inevitably pile up unused—it delivers only the beer that you want, and there's even an app for easy exploring. You'll learn about beer from breweries you didn't even know existed, some of which are Tavour exclusives.

Not into hoppy IPAs or funky sours? Keep them out of your cellar—a physical temperature-controlled space they create for you in the warehouse—and go for oatmeal stouts and spiced pumpkin ales instead. The crowd favorite in our box was a salted caramel stout from Breakside in Portland, Oregon, a collaboration with West Coast ice cream favorite Salt & Straw. Many were in large bottles or double cans, making them perfect for sharing with friends.  

Consider Tavour (a portmanteau of taste and flavor) the middleman of a win-win relationship: Small independent breweries benefit from new business, and beer connoisseurs get to kick back with hard-to-find beers in hand—no plane ticket required.