Huge saving on this real ale advent calendar - we've dived in for a sneaky preview
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A clever twist on the boozy countdown, this real ale advent calendar delivers 12 proper bottles, smart packaging and a tidy price drop
When the nice people at Not on the High Street offered to let me write a review of their 2025 Real Ale Advent Calendar I was having visions of what my doctor might say.
So far this year I've reviewed a calendar with 24 cans of craft beer, a rum calendar, and a whisky calendar. But this is the one I was most excited about. Obviously, my GP is none the wiser. Let's just say it's shaping up to be a very Merry Christmas.
Refreshingly, this particular boozy Advent calendar doesn't actually include 24 bottles of real ale, but it counts down the "12 Days of Christmas", in a very inventive fashion.
This means your dozen bottles of hand-picked beer are spaced out, unlike the rum and whisky calendars I've been dreading ploughing through. My doctor would be proud of me, I'm sure.
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That's not the only reason I've been excited about exploring this Advent calendar, though. I've been itching to get started on this one because it includes more traditional cask ales, in cask ale bottles.
Unlike keg-style beers, these tend to have more flavour. They're more traditional, but they're fresher, with no artificial carbonation and, served in glass, they offer a more faithful interpretation of what the brewer was aiming to produce.
This, then, is an Advent calendar for the craft ale connoisseurs. We've probably all got one in our lives, and they probably have an unhealthy obsession with old cars, they probably have a shed they retreat to to tinker with things, and they're likely to have a favourite old jumper that's been threadbare for years, but they're loathed to part with it.
This is beer in its most manly form, and I absolutely love the way the calendar's creators, Qwerty Beer Box, have managed to shape the cardboard slots so they marry up with the 12 pop-out "windows" on the top. In a way, it's laughably rudimentary, but it genuinely works. It's very impressive.
And then there's the best bit. This calendar started out costing £92.99, but there's a 20% saving at the moment, so you'd get it for £74.39 - and it'll be delivered for free, well ahead of the December 2 start date.
The beer selection is brilliant, all hand-picked from independent breweries, the presentation is genius, and you even get some fun surprises along the way - I won't spoil them, though.
I can't think of a bloke I know that wouldn't absolutely love to have this for their Christmas countdown. Just don't tell his GP.
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