Craft Beer Christmas Gifts

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A PairingwithBeer Wishlist: Craft Beer Christmas Gifts

As a craft beer lover, approaching Christmas produces visions of wonderment about what craft beer Santa might be bringing for under the tree, but when family and friends ask me what I want for Christmas, “Beer,” of course, is not always the most acceptable response – nor is craft beer the easiest for them to figure out what beer to purchase for me that I’m most excited for.

Rather, to answer their question and provide a good answer, I need to ask myself what I really want for Christmas if it can’t be beer – “What are the most appealing craft beer Christmas gifts this year?”

Here, I dive deep into my craft beer desire to bring you all the trendiest, hippest, hoppiest, and to-die-for craft beer Christmas gifts that I’d like to find under my tree.

Craft Beer Christmas Gifts: All the Swag

Swag is an easy answer for great craft beer Christmas gifts. All you really need to know is the recipient’s favourite brewery, and then swing on by and find the coolest t-shirt, hoody, or hat. This is a great way to support the local brewery as well.

This is a fine strategy, but if you prefer to get them something that isn’t directly linked to a specific brewery, then there’s plenty of great local companies that produce craft beer fashion not linked to a brewery. These are some unique, locally produced craft beer swag lines that provide tons of options for great quality and original craft beer Christmas gifts.

High Gravity Supply

High Gravity Supply Co. combine a love of art with the science of beer for the inspiration of their original designs. It’s premium quality apparel that represents both craft beer lovers and home brewers with a real sense of fashion.

What I love about their designs is that they are not always obviously about beer. Many are, but if you aren’t fairly familiar with beer, then some of these designs are not going to be so obvious. Wearing a t-shirt that says “kveik” is essentially meaningless to the average person. I like that. It either remains meaningless, or it perks their interest, and they then ask, “What the heck is ‘kveik’?”

Such fashion is not only stylish, but also conversational, and allows the craft beer drinker to show off some of their beer knowledge when prompted: “Kveik is a Norwegian strain of yeast that is incredibly versatile and often imparts a citrus flavour to the brew.” Trust me when I say that any craft beer aficionado is going to love any High Gravity Supply swag.

Smiles Apparel

Smiles Apparel is another fashionable clothing line, this one coming out of Guelph, Ontario. With some designs made specifically for women, this may be the perfect line to grab fun and unique craft beer swag for the lady craft beer drinker in your family – and then you might also find the perfect match for the man in her life here as well.

Myself, I’ve always loved the “Celebrate Diversity” t-shirt in particular. It focuses on the very thing that most craft beer drinkers identify as what got them into craft beer: the many different flavours beer can actually have – it’s diversity. When one first recognizes that, generally speaking, that’s the moment one really starts to get into craft beer. This shirt asks us to celebrate that moment.

This t-shirt design though also makes clear how diversity is a good thing – that that’s what we are celebrating. Ren Navarro’s project, Beer.Diversity, works to promote diversity within the craft beer industry, and we see Ren in the collage above, second from the left in the top photo, modelling the Smiles Apparel t-shirt that speaks to the same message as she does. That’s a super-cool t-shirt. And that’s also a gift your recipient can wear with some serious pride, regardless of their favourite beer style.

Society of Beer Drinking Ladies

Of course, if we’re talking about ladies and craft beer in Ontario, then we certainly cannot fail to mention the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies (SBDL). The group focuses on craft beer events especially made for ladies or those identifying as ladies. This is the biggest group of its kind in any specific location across the world.

Purchasing craft beer Christmas gifts like tickets to the next SBDL “Bevy” (their 6th birthday bash at the beginning of February) for the lady craft beer drinker in your family is certainly an excellent idea (and the sort of gift you can join them on!), but SBDL also produces their own craft beer swag more than trendy enough for any lady – or gentleman! – to rock on the daily.

I already have a sweet hat from SBDL, but every time I bump into them, they have a newer, (suddenly) cooler hat that I kinda want all over again. That’s not your problem though: buy a SBDL hat for the craft beer drinking lady (or man) in your family to love, and then let them, like me, worry about the SBDL hats to come.

Craft Beer Christmas Gifts: Accessories

Accessories are always easy purchases and make for practical craft beer Christmas gifts. Again, popping by your recipient’s favourite brewery and grabbing a bottle opener or reusable growler is a quick solution, but if you really want them to say, “Wow – I wasn’t expecting you to figure something like this out!” then you’ve got to get a little more creative and head elsewhere…

Thankfully, I’ve got your creativity covered: you just need to keep reading.

Small Batch Glassware

I love my glassware collection. Glassware is a special thing for the craft beer drinker: they are a serious aid to having the proper drinking experience. Your first, obvious stop is (again) to your recipient’s favourite brewery to purchase one of their branded glasses. You need to know what style of glass is best though. I’ll always, off the hop, suggest a sommelier glass: versatile, trendy, and definitely appreciated by the recipient. If they’re heavy on the IPAs though, then a proper IPA glass may be better. Talk to your recipient, and speak to the brewery to get their thoughts.

But then again, they may already have branded glassware from their favourite brewery; or maybe the brewery doesn’t have the best variety of glassware to begin with; and maybe this would be too easy anyways. Instead, I’ll suggest looking into Small Batch Glassware. Small Batch supplies “small batch” runs of unique beer glassware. This is me taking you out of Ontario and all the way to California, but what Small Batch is doing down there, I can’t find anything close to equivalent up here.

These are seriously special runs, and you may be on a waiting list to get your hands on them, but, for your recipient, it also may very well be worth the wait – and the coolest gift they may get for Christmas.

Or wait – let’s take this one step further, shall we? What your recipient really wants in their craft beer Christmas gifts is a collection of glasses that hits all the main styles. This gives them the appropriate glass for every type of beer – and if they’re the sort that likes to post pictures on social media, then this gift idea is just all the better. If you can get a variety of glassware styles from Small Batch, then the recipient is going to drop their jaw down to the basement – or maybe even all the way down to California.

Books

Books are always a good, practical gift. Depending on the knowledge of your recipient, you of course want to chose a book that will suit their level of understanding and their interests. Here are some craft beer books that I’d like to find under the tree.

Tasting Beer by Randy Mosher covers a lot of ground and is both approachable and sessionable. The book should be suitable for anyone new, but stands as a great staple and reference for the experienced as well.

Josh Bernstein, in The Complete Beer Course, encourages you to drink while reading his book. He pairs beers with each of his “Boot Camp” tasting chapters. The book is more for the beer geek than the novice, so if your recipient is a little more experienced, this book could be a great gift for them – especially if you can gift the beers to pair with the chapters as well.

Tasting beer is fun, but doing it with food can be even better, and Garret Oliver takes his time to show the reader how that is the case in The Brewmaster’s Table. Making its way through historic breweries in Europe, the book provides an accessible and insightful read that fits on any craft beer lover’s shelf.

The Beer & Food Companion by Stephen Beaumont is a second book about pairing beer and food, and is structured in a way that any novice can begin and understand where they are at by the end, while anyone with experience can skip a bit ahead and still get tons of value.

If you want even more suggestions, keep reading: there are more books suggested below, but with the homebrewer in mind…

Pretty Pennie Jewellery

Ok, this one isn’t a practical accessory like the above – it’s far better. Realistically, something from Pretty Pennie Jewellery is very much at the top of my craft beer Christmas gifts list (and probably the same goes for whoever you’re looking for a gift for).

Inspired by craft beer, Hilary Pennie designs, hand-carves, sands, and polishes gorgeous craft beer jewellery right in her Cambridge studio. To be perfectly honest with you all, these are quite frankly the dopest possible item you can buy a craft beer lover.

Her popular “hoppy line” is the obvious winner, but if the craft beer lover you need to purchase a gift for also happens to be a home brewer, then Hilary also makes mash paddle pendants, which are some kind of special for a brewer. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, cufflinks, and rings can all be found in a number of styles.

And you may be able to knock off two gifts here: Pretty Pennie also produces coffee and outdoors lines of jewellery, equally as beautiful as her hoppy line. This may in fact be a place you could find gifts for a number of family and friends – and probably for yourself while you’re at it.

Craft Beer Christmas Gifts: well, Beer, of course

I did mention this at the outset: beer is always well-received from the craft beer lover. Of course, grabbing some beers at the local brewery can work, but we’re here to encourage more lasting gifts that will make the recipient quite impressed with your selection. So start drinking as many beers now, so that you can determine the best one’s to buy.

Ok, I’m kidding (but only sort of). There’s a much better way to provide the craft beer drinker in your family with a great selection and a lasting gift, beyond the obvious gift card or mix pack.

Toronto Brewery Tours

Sometimes, the best gifts to give are the ones you can enjoy along with the recipient. That’s the case with this suggestion here: Toronto Brewery Tours (TBT). TBT takes groups of craft beer drinkers around to Toronto breweries on a (more than) weekly basis.

Each tour hits 3 different breweries in the Toronto area, supplying each participant with a guided tasting tour featuring samplings at each stop. It’s mobile, so you don’t need to worry about transportation between stops – and you get a loot bag of souvenirs at the end of the journey. It’s a great day that any craft beer lover will appreciate.

If walking and Toronto history is more your recipient’s thing though, then try the Rolling Hops Beer Tours, who work to connect the visited breweries to their local community and its history.

Of course, if you’re not in Toronto (or not about to make the trip), then you’ll want to figure out who in your town provides such a service. If you’re in and around Collingwood and the south Georgian Bay area, then take a look at the Beer Bus. If you’re looking in Ottawa, then check out the Brew Donkey tours. For Kingston, try Marshall Limo‘s craft beer tours. Finally (at least as far as I’ll go with this), look to Niagara Craft Brewery Tours for the Niagara region.

That all said, be sure that the craft beer drinker you’re buying for hasn’t already been to most of the featured breweries on their own. The information, tastings, and history provided are usually more for the novice craft beer drinker, so if your craft beer Christmas gift recipient is familiar with the stops along the way (or a more experienced connoisseur), they may not be as thrilled as we’d like them to be. This is fun for both of you (or more!) to do together, but only you know whether your recipient will be as excited as you intend them to be.

Lost Trade

Lost Trade Craft Beer Club is a craft beer subscription service. Every month another box full of craft beer arrives at the recipient’s doorstep. There’s a few things great about this as a gift. For one, every box is different, and curated by someone who understands beer very well, so you don’t need to worry about what beers to purchase for your recipient.

Receiving a beer subscription box is like having Christmas once a month. This gift keeps giving (depending on the length of the subscription you choose – and yes, a one box subscription is possible, and still totally appreciated!), and it gives in the way a craft beer lover wants it to give: with rare, new one-off brews in every box – the stuff they have difficulty getting their hands on.

Now, Lost Trade offers another, even more popular beer mail subscription: the Lost Trade Advent calendar. Granted, your recipient needed this on December 1st, so it’s too late this year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sign up now for next year. Just let your recipient know that they’ll have to be patient. When the box of 24 one-off craft beers stashed in pockets for each date on next year’s Advent calendar arrives, your recipient is going to have the funnest 24 days leading up to Christmas that they’ve ever had. In fact, they may not want Christmas to actually arrive at all.

Craft Beer Passport

This one is more for the craft beer novice, although it will still be appreciated by a seasoned vet. The Craft Beer Passport is an excellent way to get into craft beer and explore as many flavours as possible.

The way the Passport works is that it’s an app on your phone you purchase vouchers for craft beer samples. The user can then use a voucher to buy a 12oz pour for $2 at participating venues. This includes bars and restaurants, along with breweries. The passport is accepted in most major areas across Ontario, and a lot of establishments are participating – and it continues to expand.

You, as the gift-giver here, simply need to purchase the $30 “All Venues” pass, and your recipient will have access to cheap craft beer all over the province for the 6 month duration of that pass. Your recipient will also have fun stamping all the locations off their passport. The app really works well to introduce someone to craft beer and the fascination of exploring within it.

Craft Beer Christmas Gifts: for the Homebrewer

Now, if your craft beer Christmas gift recipient is into homebrewing, then you might feel you need something directed more that way, rather than a cool t-shirt, necklace, or brewery tour.

We could march straight back to High Gravity Supply Co., as they also provide a large list of equipment and accessories for the homebrewer. This may be a good place to start looking, but not if you don’t know what piece of equipment you’re looking for.

This could be a situation where a gift card might best be served. You now just need to know your recipient’s favourite supply store, but here’s the Canada HomeBrew Network’s directory for supply shops to get you started on the one in your area.

Of course, it’s always sweeter to get them an actual something though. So, let’s go through some craft beer Christmas gifts for the homebrewer that may be practical, could be unique, or may just be that gift that the homebrewer really wants, but won’t think to buy for themselves.

Books

Didn’t we do this one already? Yes, but one can never use too many books! This time though, I have some suggestions for books geared towards the homebrewer.

One way to go about things here is to approach the situation by beer styles, providing in depth looks at how to brew particular beers. You might try IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of the India Pale Ale, by Mitch Steele for the IPA lover. Brewing Porters and Stouts: Origins, History, and 60 Recipes for Brewing Them at Home Today, by Terry Foster, might be a good option for the porter and stout lover. You could try Fal Allen’s Gose: Brewing a Classic German Beer for the Modern Era, for the gose lover.

You get the point: there are a lot of great books that focus specifically on particular styles of beer, so finding out your recipients favourite style (or two), may make for a different sort of homebrew book.

Other homebrewing books help the brewer by teaching them how to copy existing beers. The advantage here is that this way the brewer can really test their product by comparing it to the original. Clone Brews by Tess and Mark Szamatulski is a good one like this, and provides 200 commercial recipes for your recipient to test.

But if you want to get them something really serious, then turn to the Brewing Elements Series. This is a series made up of four books, each providing a dive deep into the four ingredients of beer: Water, Malt, Hops, and Yeast. These go above and beyond your typical homebrewing books in their expositions of the ingredients and how to work with them to produce beer. Once a homebrewer is serious enough, the Brewing Elements Series is a near-necessary addition to their collection.

Mash Paddle

Wooden mash paddles are the sort of gift for the homebrewer that they always want, but never find themselves buying. There’s always something more immediately required, but this is certainly a gift that will blow them away.

Now, it is tough to find someone that makes them locally, but there’s some options for readymade paddles here on Etsy to get you started. What I would do though is figure out a design idea that would speak to your recipient, and then reach out to a local woodworker. Anyone that works with wood can make a mash paddle if you provide them with the knowledge to do so, and a custom mash paddle with a beautiful design is the sort of gift that will make the homebrewer blush on Christmas morning.

SS Brewtech Brew Bucket

If you really want to go all out for your recipient, then you can’t go wrong gifting them an SS Brewtech stainless brew bucket. These are the epitome of brewing containers, and one can’t brew beer without a good container.

With this gift, you really have very little homework to do, as even if your recipient already owns a brew bucket, they can always use more. These buckets are fermentation tanks for the homebrewer, so once they’ve completed a day of brewing, the bucket is then in use during the fermentation period (likely at least two weeks, if not much longer). Having multiple brew buckets therefore allows the homebrewer to brew more regularly, and that’s something they’ll definitely appreciate.

SS Brewtech’s bucket is not only top of the line, but the design also works so that you can stack buckets on top of each other to save space while your beer is fermenting. These are a dream gift for the homebrewer that you can’t go wrong purchasing.

Growler Works’ “uKeg”

Fresh beer is hard to keep fresh when you’re a homebrewer, but this pressurized, dispensing beer growler from GrowlerWerks, the “uKeg,” helps solve this problem. It also provides a traveling system that allows the homebrewer to share their brews with family and friends.

Sleek and stylish, the uKeg comes in a variety of sexy looks: from stainless steel to copper plating through black matte and black chrome to white matte, it’ll be tough to decide which look suits your recipient best. The uKeg comes in two sizes, a 64oz (about 5 beers) and a 128oz: now, to make your decision, it’s really just about how much homebrew you want your recipient to provide your Christmas party with.

Tap Handles

Finally, if your recipient does have a draught system at home, or if they have a uKeg or dispensing growler, then gifting them a custom tap handle could be a fantastic gift.

You can find custom tap handles made here in Canada at Tap Handles To Go. All you need is to figure out a unique design that speaks for your recipient and the beer they brew. This is the type of gift that every homebrewer wants, but rarely purchases for themselves, so it’ll certainly be a winner.

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And that’s a wrap! Or, at least it should give you some ideas for some craft beer Christmas gifts for you to wrap.

If you think I’ve forgotten something or have any suggestions of your own, please do share them in the comments below, or contact me here. In the meantime, enjoy the remainder of 2019, and Happy Holidays to all of you craft beer drinkers out there!

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A special shoutout to Lindsay Barber and Sheena Strauss for advice on craft beer Christmas gifts for home brewers – thanks so much, ladies: I couldn’t have done this without you!

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