Best IPA Beer Clubs of 2023

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You’ve likely seen or heard of plenty of different clubs for beer lovers, but if you’re looking exclusively for IPAs, the pickings can be rather slim. There’s a reason for that.

Because IPAs have such a brief window of freshness, clubs are obligated to keep a much closer eye on stock than they would with other beer styles, and members simply need to consume their orders in a timely manner. With the latter in mind, if you love hoppy brews and are game to go through your cans or bottles relatively quickly, an IPA of the month club might be perfect for you. Here, we explore a select few of the best on the market.

Best IPA Beer Clubs of 2023

Best Overall: Craft Beer Kings
Best Value: Half Time
Best Customizable: The Hop-Heads Beer Club

Best Overall : Craft Beer Kings

Craft Beer Kings

Craft Beer Kings, a Los Angeles-based retailer, and beer club is perhaps the most well-rounded in the game. The online shop’s selection is impressive—you can peruse a boatload of different beers, including Hazy IPAs, Sours, Dark Beer, and more—and the variety doesn’t end there.

On the subscription front, Craft Beer Kings offers 9 different themed boxes that together cater to every kind of craft beer enthusiast out there, and you’ll find IPAs in several of them. Whether you opt for the general IPA club or Hazy IPAs, or a combination box (choose from the IPAs and Sours or Stouts and IPAs monthly subscription plan), you know you’ll be getting a fresh and fun assortment of 16-ounce cans each month based on your tastes.

Some of these offers a choice of six- or 12-can boxes, and others only offer a six-can option. Six-can shipments are roughly $50 (a little more than $8 per can for the latter) and 12-can boxes are around $95 (approximately $8 per can).

Shipping is included with all Craft Beer Kings orders, which is a huge plus as alcohol delivery costs are notoriously pricey at times. While there’s no fixed-month option at signup, you can simply subscribe to any of these clubs and cancel without penalty whenever you’d like.

Craft Beer Kings ships to the lower 48 states.

Best Value : Half Time

Great beers and reasonable prices always make for a satisfying combination. With Half Time’s Hop Head Beer Club, you can look forward to a monthly delivery of 12, 12-ounce cans of craft ales from six different breweries at roughly $80 per box maximum (you get a slight discount if you sign up for one of the longer plans).

With shipping included, this club makes its way around the map with selections from England, Asia, Belgium, and the United States. As far as the beer selections go, Half Time does its best to strike a balance between rare beers, unique styles, new releases, as well as breweries big and small.

Choose from a three-, six-, or 12-month IPA club plan; or, if you don’t want to commit right away, you can always shop Half Time’s IPA or general selection on your own via the website’s Domestic or Imported craft beer tabs. Gluten-free options are also available.

Best Customizable : The Hop-Heads Beer Club

The Hop-Heads Beer Club

Use promo code LIQUOR10 to receive $10 off any order of 4 shipments or more.

With a handful of different subscriptions for the food- and drink-obsessed, The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club offers something for just about everyone, including IPA die-hards.

This top-rated club focuses on the breadth of the IPA category and the hoppy beer landscape as a whole. In addition to IPAs, as a member of Beer of the Month Club’s Hop-Heads Beer Club, you’ll receive double, and session IPAs along with IPLs (and imperial and session IPLs), hoppy red and pale ales, and more.

What sets this IPA of the month club apart is how they choose their selection. The company’s beer tasting panel has over a century of experience in the industry (collectively) and they taste everything themselves, rating over 500 different brews annually, only 20% of which end up in club members’ deliveries. These guys also have the added benefit of strong brewer and importer relationships, and through that, they’re able to offer an abundance of exclusive club beers that nonmembers won’t be able to access.

Seasonality is also a big factor in club selections. When it comes to tailoring the logistics of your club experience, Beer of the Month Club’s various themed subscriptions each offer plenty of shipment flexibility, which is something you won’t see with a lot of other beer clubs.

Choose the number of boxes you or the recipient will be receiving (the options range from two to 12 bundles, or you can select an ongoing membership). Then, select when you would like the membership to begin. From there, you can decide how often you’d like the shipments to be sent out (monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly) and whether you’d prefer to be billed upfront or by shipment.

Pricing ranges from about $110 for two boxes to roughly $670 for 12; these numbers reflect box prices with shipping and handling included. Bonus: Order three shipments or more, and you’ll receive a pro bottle opener at no cost.

Final Verdict

While we made sure to tick all the boxes here, it really comes down to you following your personal preferences, and if you’re not quite sure what those look like yet, a subscription with a healthy variety (such as one of Craft Beer Kings mixed IPA clubs or Beer of the Month Club’s Hop-Heads Beer Club) should do just the trick.

What Is an IPA Beer Club?

An IPA beer club is like any other beer subscription, just focused on IPAs, either exclusively or as a prominent component of a mixed selection. Some of these clubs charge upfront, and some bill monthly, or they might offer a choice between the two. There are beer subscriptions that include shipping in their pricing and some that charge for shipping separately, so that’s something to keep in mind. If you’ve never tried an IPA (short for India Pale Ale), here are a few things you should know:

IPAs are a subcategory of the pale ale category and are hoppy by definition.
There are several different styles of IPAs: New England IPAs (also known as Hazy IPAs), Session IPAs, Belgian IPAs, English-Style IPAs, and Imperial (or Double) IPAs, to name a few. To determine which style you prefer, consider opting for an IPA monthly beer club with a good variety of IPAs and narrowing it down as you go.
More often than not, you can send this kind of club as a gift, which is great to keep in mind for holidays, birthdays, and the like.

What Is Included in an IPA Beer Club?

The specifics of what is included in your box depends entirely on which club you’ve joined, but you can generally expect anywhere from three to 12 cans or bottles of expertly selected beer, usually a mix (unless you’re subscribing to one specific beer). Often, the beers will be accompanied by detailed information about the beer and the stories behind them, and some also include additional items here and there.

How Much Does an IPA Beer Club Cost?

The IPA beer clubs we’ve featured vary in cost based on subscription but start around $60 per box and go up from there. Pricing is influenced by frequency, the number of cans or bottles in your shipment(s), and whether or not shipping is included. Many of these clubs offer a discount for longer subscriptions.

Methodology

We consider it perpetually important to make sure there’s something for everyone—in this case, that translated to ensuring style variety, international and domestic options, and a healthy price range, to name a few.

The IPA category isn’t as limited as some might think—there’s bitter and then there’s not-so-bitter; high alcohol and less alcohol; and hoppy, and the hop-and-malt combo that is a double or imperial IPA. And, of course, the beer type can take us all over the flavor and mouthfeel spectrums from bitter-forward to fruit-laden and from creamy to sharp and zingy.