As dedicated online shoppers and craft beer geeks, we couldn’t resist trying out Tavour – a site that helps you gain access to rare craft beer that you may not otherwise see in your neck of the woods. Each day, Tavour sends two notifications with featured beers that day that you can choose to add to your shipping crate. These beers vary based on your location, and they favor parts of the country that you may not often visit. We are located in Pennsylvania, and we saw a wide range of mid-west and west coast beers featured, including a number from Washington and even Alaska. The range of beer styles was impressive; everything from red ales to Belgians to triple IPAs were available. We ended up with a great selection including beers from the mid-west, west coast, and Alaska.

These were our picks:

(L to R: Oakshire Brewing Drop Bear IPA (OR; $8.99); BuckleDown Brewing Citra Clencher (IL; $4.00); Bale Breaker Bottom Cutter Imperial IPA (WA; $4.00); Anchorage Brewing Company Within Us Double IPA (AK; $6.99); Anchorage Brewing Company Pie Assassin IPA (AK; $6.50); Bale Breaker Fresh off the Farm IPA 5th Anniversary (WA; $3.50); Boxing Bear Brewing Co The Red Glove Imperial Red Ale (NM; $12.99)).

As you can see, our selection skewed more towards hoppy varieties; however, there were plenty of other styles featured in Tavour. One of our favorites of the group was the Red Glove Imperial Red from Boxing Bear. It nicely married the piney hop flavor with a light malt sweetness. It’s a gold medal winner from the GABF 2016 and well-deserved. The two varieties from Bale Breaker showcased a wide range of different hop varieties, perfect for hopheads like us. The Citra Clencher from Buckledown is the quintessential crushable summer IPA with a refreshing fruit-forward profile. Anchorage Brewing clearly has their IPA game on point; Pie Assassin offered a nice creaminess to balance the bitter and citrus notes, while Within Us gave us a hefty smack of dank and juicy hops. We also enjoyed the Drop Bear IPA which highlighted Australia’s Galaxy hop varietal; the adorable bottle art definitely didn’t hurt either. If you aren’t familiar with the dangers of drop bears, be sure to protect yourself if you are ever traveling down under.

Overall, we found that the beers were excellent, the shipping was quick and straightforward, and the selection was unrivaled. We’d recommend you giving it a shot if you are interested in finding some rare beers from other parts of the country. This program is an ideal fit for people who are open to spending a bit more for rare craft beer; while buying a case at your local beer shop of course is cheaper than using Tavour, you will not see the rare options if you only shop close by. It is free to sign up and is NOT a subscription service – you simply start a crate whenever you want. You pay for the beers as you add them to the crate and then you will be charged the flat rate once it ships ($14.90). They also have a nice referral program that can give you $10 in credits per friend referred, which goes a long way! **If you click on our referral link, you will also get a $10 credit once your first box ships.** FYI, be sure to have it shipped to an address where someone over 21 can sign for it (we used a work address).

Planning on trying Tavour, or have you tried it before? Let us know in the comments!

Cheers!

Bethany and Mike