Beer Me Know

Beer Me Now Black Friday Box

Back in November I noticed that Beer Me Now (full contact details below) had just started following me on Twitter. Looking to see who this was I discovered that it was a fairly new beer subscription service, operating out of Colchester just 45 miles from me. I also noticed that they were advertising a ‘Black Friday’ offer that very weekend - ten beers for £25 including postage. That looked like an offer that was worth checking out with Christmas on its way.

I placed my order on Saturday morning and got on with my day. Just a couple of hours later though, I noticed that I had a DM from Beer Me Now. I had already received an automated email confirming my order, so I wondered what the DM was about. Actually it was an enquiry as to what sort of beers I like, so that my box of ten beers could be tailored to my taste. I have only had experience of a couple of beer subscriptions so I may be wrong, but this seemed unusual in its level of personalisation; it is certainly a step up from Beer 52’s Mixed or Light option. I let them know about my beer preferences, which led onto a bit of a chat about how the business came about, and then looked forward to my beers arriving. On Monday I received an email saying that my beers had been dispatched, and on Tuesday they arrived. As I mentioned earlier Beer Me Now is a new beer subscription service; in fact, it was only launched in September 2018. The company consists of brothers Evan and Alex Herbert. They had both been customers of other beer subscription companies and felt that they could do something just a little bit different.

“We source our beers from UK breweries, often travelling around the UK ourselves to collect these (its been a fun few months!). We personalise our boxes based on customers 'beer-tasting preference' so encourage customers to let us know what they like/dislike to tailor future boxes. We also like the boxes to contain a mixture of the larger craft breweries (ie the Tiny Rebel's of the world) and the smaller microbreweries who cannot produce in bulk to provide our larger competitors and who customers may not have tried beers from. It's been a great learning curve already and we are constantly tweaking things based on what is working and what isn't and it feels like we are on track!”

So they gave up their jobs, in retail management and estate agency, earlier in the year in order to plan and prepare for the launch of Beer Me Now. Apparently, the business is going well in its first few months.

When my box arrived I eagerly unpacked it to see what Evan and ALex had sent me. The packaging itself was a typical box with card dividers between the beers and bubble wrap around the bottles. Definitely safe and secure; although personally I would prefer to see cardboard padding from an environmental point of view. In addition to the beers themselves there were a couple of Beer Me Now branded beer mats, a branded pen, a packet of Fairfield Farm crisps (also from Colchester), and two pages of tasting notes for the beers.

As for the beers themselves, this is what I found:

• Night Owl by Gather Seventy Seven (Colchester, Essex) - 500ml bottle
• Sumo by Mad Squirrell (Herts) - 440ml can
• Mango Coolship by Elgoods (Wisbech, Cambs) - 330ml bottle
• Pale Fire by Pressure Drop (Tottenham) - 330ml bottle
• Old Ford Export Stout by Redchurch (Harlow, Essex) - 330ml bottle
• Peaches and Cream IPA by Tiny Rebel (Newport, Wales) - 330ml bottle
• Pale Ale by Station 119 (Eye, Suffolk)
• Treason West Coast IPA by Uprising (Windsor) - 330ml can
• Black IPA by Lithic (Brecon, Wales) - 330ml can
• Bad Kitty by Brass Castle (Malton, Yorks) - 330ml can

I have to say that I was very happy with these at first glance. Only two beers that I had drunk before, and both of those I was happy to drink again. Six beers that I was definitely keen to try because I had heard good things of the beer itself, or I rate the brewery, or enjoy the style. Just two breweries that I didn’t really know at all.

I won’t give tasting notes on each of the beers; I fear it could easily become boring. What I will say though, is that there was only one beer that really disappointed. The Mango Coolship, which I had been looking forward to trying, had a sweetness which, to my taste, didn’t sit well against the underlying slight sourness. The Bad Kitty was the best of a rather good bunch, nearly all of which I scored 4 on Untappd. Brass Castle describe this as a ‘chewy chocolate-vanilla dream of a porter’; I got coffee more than chocolate myself, but otherwise I agree. Lithic and Gather Seventy Seven were new breweries for me; both of their beers were excellent and I will definitely try them again given the chance. In fact I have another Lithic beer waiting for me in my second Beer Me Know box.

Beer Me Now’s standard offer is an 8 beer box for £25 which can be ordered on a monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly basis. It has taken me a couple of months to get round to it, but I have just ordered and received my first bi-monthly box. If you are interested it is easy to sign up on the Beer Me Now website.

Beer Me Now can be found on:
Twitter - @BeerMeNowHQ
Facebook - Beer Me Now
Instagram - Beer Me Now HQ
Web - beermenow.co.uk