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Feb 25, 2025

The 30 Best Gifts for Beer Lovers

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. Our list includes curated snack subscriptions, coolers, glassware, and lots more.

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.

Our list includes curated snack subscriptions, coolers, glassware, and lots more.

In This Article

Food & Wine

If you know a lover of lagers and ales, you’re likely on a perpetual hunt for the best gifts for beer lovers. Proper beer glassware, like specific vessels for stouts, IPAs, and wheat beer, is a great idea. So are beer subscription boxes or craft beer clubs that deliver noteworthy brews to their doorstep every month. But there are plenty more options for the beer fan, like bottle openers, storage gear, and simply fun, silly accessories.

We've rounded up 30 of our favorites here, from heavy-duty coolers to adorable can holders and plenty of actual brews, these beer gifts are a great choice for any occasion.

Beer trends may come and go, but for craft brewing nerds, IPA is forever. Fans of heavily hopped beers will go nuts for this selection of sought-after India pale ales. It includes a dozen cans of the year's finest in hoppy brews, from breweries all over the country. If you're feeling extra-generous, there's also the best IPAs 24-pack for even more variety.

It's time for your beer-loving friend to ditch those foam can holders they've been holding onto since college; this is the best beer koozie money can buy. The Yeti Colster is a double-wall vacuum-insulated can holder, including a "Load-and-Lock" gasket that twists on top of the can to keep the whole thing completely covered. It keeps cans ice-cold for more than 2 hours. The Colster also comes in many colors for a more personalized gift. (If you buy it on the Yeti website, you can even have it custom-engraved with text or images.)

This one is for those lucky enough to have a kegerator or entire built-in home tap system: a customized tap handle! The CustomBrewGear option is personalizable to a huge degree, with your choice of walnut and cherry woods, more than a dozen different graphics, and custom text on three sides. You can create a full logo for your friend's home bar. There's also a chalkboard on one side of the handle, so they can always identify what's on tap.

This thoughtful gift basket includes four pints of craft beer, plus all the salty snacks you need to accompany them. With beef jerky, garlic sausage, cheese made especially for melting into queso dip, and water crackers, it's a full weekend kick-back in one convenient crate.

Now your favorite beer lover can use their face to open their bottles! Send a photo, and FantasticBobbleheads will sculpt a custom topper onto a classic metal opener. You can order multiple at once, making this a perfect gift for a wedding party, bachelor/bachelorette weekend, or any other group event. The options aren't limited to humans, either: You can also get a pet portrait bottle opener.

For the gift that keeps on giving, try this customizable beer-of-the-month club. Beer Drop's monthly subscription plan includes 10 beers from five different breweries, with upgrades that substitute standard brews for special-edition and taproom-only options.

Beer Drop also makes giving a subscription to someone else super-easy with its gift cards: You pick the length (1, 2, 3, 6, or 12 months), the recipient can decide when their beers start arriving, and you don't have to worry about anything auto-renewing. Shipping costs are included in the price, and giftees can always skip or customize their monthly drops as desired.

Stanley may be known best for insulated water bottles like the famous Quencher Tumbler, but the viral brand makes awesome drinking vessels for any beverage. This handled stein is traditionally huge — it can hold two 12-ounce cans at once — and its double-walled insulation can keep the contents cold for up to 5 hours. As with many Stanley items, there are lots of colors available, some of them collectible limited editions.

Our overall favorite cooler in testing, RTIC's massive model kept ice fully frozen for 24 hours, with 70-plus cans inside staying ice-cold the whole time. The brand makes extremely well-insulated coolers of many shapes and sizes, and this 52-quart model has an excellent balance of cost and capacity. It's one of the most practical gifts for beer lovers since it can be used for many occasions or social settings, from camping to backyard barbecues.

A glass that has been in the freezer for a couple of hours is a great way to enjoy a frosty pint, but it's not the most comfortable thing to hold. Rabbit solved the problem with a simple silicone sleeve around the glass. A freezable liquid inside keeps the beer colder longer while insulating your fingers. The borosilicate glasses are super-strong and dishwasher-safe (though the removable sleeves are hand wash–only).

Wine and cheese get all the attention, but beer and cheese also pair perfectly. If the beer lover in your life has the brews covered, this gift treats them to a monthly delivery of hand-picked artisan cheeses. You can add optional specialty crackers and go with the default choices or specify preferences for milk type and funk level. Cheese Grotto is one of our favorite cheese subscriptions for its great selection and because the cheeses always arrive packaged beautifully and chilled thoroughly. If you're feeling extra-generous, throw in one of the brand's namesake cheese storage boxes to keep all the dairy in top condition.

We've pitted Yeti and RTIC against each other, and in the end, we can't pick a single winner. Both brands are at the top of the heap for beverage insulation. This easy-carry Yeti model is our favorite soft-sided cooler. It may not be as large as the RTIC above, but it's convenient to bring to the beach, an outdoor concert, or a party at a friend's place. In testing, it kept beer cold for 24 hours with ease, but what impressed us most was the zipper's leak-proof seal. We turned the bag full of half-melted ice on its side and didn't notice any drips.

Our overall favorite beer glass in testing, the Libbey Craft Pub glass is reasonably priced but noticeably fancier than a standard pint. The slightly tapered top helps to concentrate aromas so you sense them more strongly while you sip to suss out every flavor note. The 20-ounce vessels have plenty of room for foam, and the large size also makes them excellent everyday water/soda/iced tea glasses.

If you're gifting a book called The Beer Bible, you better give this leather-bound heirloom edition. At over 600 pages, it's equal parts reference book and history, a deep dive into all things beer. It delves into 10,000 years of history, walks through dozens of styles with tasting notes and technical details, and shares fun stories about beer. It's a thoughtful gift for beer lovers who are also bookworms.

There's perhaps no better beverage and cooking-method pairing than beer and grilling, which is why a set of grill tools makes an excellent gift for a beer lover. Well, this is our pick for the best barbecue tool set. It includes high-end items for both cooking and serving, including a spatula, tongs, meat fork (with a built-in thermometer!), basting brush, corn holders, skewers, and a grill brush, all made of durable stainless steel and silicone. The only thing left is to pick out one of our favorite outdoor grills.

Anyone who loves beer and grilling probably loves barbecue, too, and this class is for them. A MasterClass subscription grants your beer-loving pal instant access to hundreds of topics — from Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie's creative writing advice to basketball drills with Stephen Curry — but we're perhaps most excited about this session. Famed pitmaster Aaron Franklin teaches the nuances of Texas-style barbecue, including detailed tutorials on smoking brisket, ribs, and even veggies. MasterClass has tons of other culinary classes, too, with legendary chefs like José Andrés, Madhur Jaffrey, Thomas Keller, and Alice Waters.

Beer doesn't need alcohol to taste good. Athletic Brewing is doing some amazing things with zero-proof brews, and its chuggable balanced IPA is our favorite nonalcoholic beer. It uses five types of Pacific Northwest hops and a blend of barley, oats, and wheat for a mix of sweetness and citrusy bitterness. Athletic makes a variety of other styles in nonalcoholic form, and they're all quite tasty for weeknight, weekend, or weekday drinking. Give one, or make a mixed case of several — we also like Athletic's intense Free Wave Hazy IPA, malty Upside Dawn Golden, and refreshing Cerveza Atletica.

Want to drink beer like they did in the 1700s? You need this seriously old-school tool. Often known as a loggerhead, the device has a hefty metal tip you heat until red-hot (over a campfire or gas stove, or with a blowtorch), then plunge into a mug of dark beer like stout or porter. The result is a steaming-hot drink with lots of comforting sweetness from the caramelized sugar. For extra authenticity, you can beat a whole egg, some spices, and a little rum or whiskey into the beer first to make a hot ale flip, one of the predecessors of the modern cocktail.

Beer can chicken is not just a gimmick: Suspending a whole bird over a half-full brewski on the grill helps it cook evenly and stay juicy while it's infused with extra flavor. But the setup can be a little wobbly, and we have some qualms about high heat on a thin aluminum can coated with ink — or sometimes a plastic label. This cast iron device solves both problems, with a heavy, stable base that will never tip over while your chicken roasts. The large interior capacity expands recipe options, too: You can pour in beer, wine, cider, or any other liquid, as well as add aromatics like herbs, citrus, and garlic.

The dedicated beer collector needs somewhere to store all those brews. This is the best beer fridge we've found. It can hold more than eleven dozen standard cans, with adjustable shelves to accommodate bottles and specialty sizes. Whynter's fridge is quite reasonably priced, and it can be set up practically anywhere — kitchen, basement, garage, backyard, whatever.

The best way to transport homebrew or special beers from a brewery taproom is with an airtight growler. And a monogrammed growler marks any beer geek as a fancy beer geek. Pottery Barn's tight-sealing growler holds a half-gallon, and its black and stainless finish options look sharp. There are also three monogram styles with one or three letters.

Ice-cold beers and wooden surfaces don't mix, so a set of coasters is always a thoughtful but inexpensive gift for the beer lover. Somewhere between Art Deco and disco, the hand-painted Vintage Vogue Linea design is among our favorite coasters. These look distinctive but can fit into any decor or color scheme, especially with the available black-and-gold, white-and-gold, or pink-and-gold color options. The coasters are flat on the top, so they're not limited in the size or shape of glassware they can hold, whether pint or stein.

Give the ubiquitous pint glass an artisanal upgrade with this hand-blown version. Glasvin's reasonably priced glassware is on our list of the best Champagne, stemless wine, and coupe glasses. Glasvin's pint glasses are the standard shape and size but feel fancier thanks to thin walls and lighter weight. Nonetheless, these vessels are dishwasher-safe. They're part of Glasvin's new GV Home line, a lower-priced selection with the same handmade quality.

This is our favorite backpack cooler for beer lovers who love hiking, camping, and the outdoors. It can tote two dozen cans into the wilderness and keep them cold for more than a full day without any trouble. The materials are strong, thick, and well-built, with comfortable straps for countless hikes and overnights.

Making beer yourself is an impressive accomplishment, and this gift makes things easy and delicious. One of our favorite homebrewing kits, Craft-a-Brew's set includes all the ingredients and tools required (besides a stockpot for cooking the mash) to make a gallon-sized batch. The best thing about this kit is that it's available in more than 30 different styles — from a traditional Czech pilsner to a pumpkin spice latte beer — so you can customize it to the recipient's taste.

Not every beer gift has to be practical. These puffy coats for cans are simply some of the cutest things we've ever seen. There are lots of color options, and Puffin's insulated drinkwear (get it?) also comes in many other styles. Choose from life vests, spa robes, Hawaiian shirts, and space suits, and more.

Available at most liquor stores, the 5-liter mini-keg is the perfect beer solution for a party. But it takes up the entire fridge while chilling, and you have to store it awkwardly in a tub of ice to keep it cool. That's not the case with the Koolatron, a compact device that chills a mini-keg as much as 45°F below the ambient temperature. (In other words, it can make beer ice-cold on an 80-degree day, or nice and cool if it's 100 out). The tap works with a gravity-dispensing spigot or pressurized keg, and there's even a drip tray to protect your counters from spillage. The Koolatron includes a 110-volt AC plug for standard home sockets and a 12-volt DC adapter you can plug into a car outlet for tailgating.

When the weather's perfect, a nice casual yard game goes beautifully with a few cold ones. Cornhole is the ideal game to play with beer, as you only need one hand for throwing. This space-saving set is one of our favorite camping gifts because it's so light and portable, which is a benefit whether carrying it through the woods or pulling it out of the garage.

To enjoy a quality brew by the pool, at the beach, or on a picnic, it's not a good idea to use a breakable glass made of...glass. These shatterproof vessels are the perfect alternative, in a shape specialized for IPAs and other hoppy beers. They're some of the best unbreakable drinkware we know of. The Tritan plastic is BPA-free, dishwasher-safe, and won't absorb flavors or odors.

The GrowlerWerks uKeg is the ultimate in long-term beer storage. The double-walled vacuum-insulated stainless steel can keep a brew fresh for weeks. It also lets you customize the carbonation level of the contents, with an attachment for CO2 cartridges, a pressure gauge, and a sealing cap that can maintain up to 15 pounds per square inch of pressure. It's a big upgrade to the standard growler, a good gift for homebrewers or fans of small-batch tap room–only beers. The uKeg is available in copper, stainless steel, or black chrome, and there's a larger gallon size in addition to this half-gallon version.

Why choose between brewing and baking? This cookie cutter is shaped like a beer bottle, so your homebrewing giftee can put those spent grains to good use. (Anybody else can roll out a batch of basic sugar cookie dough.) It’s generously sized at 4.5 inches tall, which gives you enough room to create a cute label out of decorative icing. This heft steel tool has rolled edges for comfort on the side you hold, with a flat cutting edge on the other.

Beer is extremely food-friendly. Assertive IPAs can stand up to the spiciest of chiles and the stinkiest of cheeses; crisp lagers can cut through fatty meats, and rich dark beers pair beautifully with chocolate and other desserts.

But if you're giving a food gift, you don't want to force the recipient to cook a whole meal. Stick with prepared foods and packaged items, things that require little to no preparation and make good snacks. Think pickles, fancy canned fish or other tinned gifts, crackers, nuts, cheese, and other items you might find on a charcuterie board.

Not every beer lover has a single favorite style, but most have preferences — light or dark, heavily hopped or not. If you know your recipient's taste, go for an assortment of beers that fit it. This shows you took some extra time and thought to put together a custom mix, and might help the giftee find a new favorite.

When in doubt, think local. There are small breweries in every corner of the world making all sorts of interesting things. Send a mixed case from a maker nearby to the recipient, or simply a gift card to the tap room.

There are lots of monthly beer delivery services to choose from, including GiveThemBeer, Craft Beer Club, or Beer Drop. These companies often allow you (or the recipient) to customize their shipments to their taste, with options for the length and size. Keep in mind that many beer subscriptions automatically renew unless you cancel in advance; if you're giving one, check for a specific gift subscription option that doesn't include renewals.

Yes, but with some restrictions. US laws about shipping alcohol through the mail vary from state to state, so the locations of both the seller and the recipient matter. Online retailers can generally ship to most states, but each has its own slightly different set of rules. Any seller should have a shipping page with details on its policies so you can be completely sure.

Another thing to be aware of is that packages containing alcohol must be signed for by someone aged 21 or older. It's great to send a surprise gift, but if you're sending beer, you should alert the recipient to expect a package.

Food & Wine senior writer Jason Horn has been writing about food and drinks for nearly 20 years, including as an editor at Liquor.com and spirits columnist for Playboy. He used to love dark beers, but the older he gets, the more he prefers light and refreshing lagers.