Do you have a friend or someone special in your life that has an abundance of craft beer, says words like “re-fermented” with glee or quotes vintages when describing beers they enjoy? Odds are they may just be a beer geek like me and you may find it intimidating to buy a beer related gift that will impress them! 

Avoid the awkward present face moment and pay attention to this “Gift Giving Guide for Beer Geeks” below for some ideas that will make them cheerful and beerful at the same time.

Small Gifts – gifts for $20 or less for stockings, a casual friend or distant cousin

1) Beer soaps

Beer geeks drink lots of beer and quite frankly we love to wash ourselves in it (both inside and out) so these soaps make a nice little stocking stuffer. Be sure to go local with this one, lots of places sell beer soap and if you find one that’s made with a local craft beer it’s even better.

Price Range – typically about $5 per bar of soap

This is one I bought recently from www.sadiessoaps.ca 

2) A cool looking bottle opener

Beer geeks  always need more bottle openers, we loose them, break them and often love to collect them. These days you can get bottle openers shaped like Lightsabers, like the Starship Enterprise, like Deadpool, Cats, Dog Bones, Bullets and Ninja’s. Find out what your beer geek is into and look for a cool fun bottle opener that matches their other passions. If you put a bit of effort into it you can’t go really wrong here.

 Price Range – $15 to $20 per opener

Buy this one directly from amazon.com

3) Spiegelau craft beer glassware

These are great glasses, albeit a touch fragile, as they really do enhance the drinking experience and make a great addition to any beer geek’s glassware collection. Made in Germany, these fancy beer glasses go through a rigorous testing process intended to deliver the best possible drinking experience for the style of beer they are meant for. Currently they have a Stout glass, an IPA glass and a recently added American Wheat / Wit Beer glass set on the market.

Price Range – $20 for a set of two glasses

These can be found in some bottle shops or online quite easily

Mid Range Gifts – gifts between $20 and $75 that say “I really like you a lot” 

4) A bottle or two of barrel aged craft beer

Buy the beer geek in your life one or two of these and when they say “oh you shouldn’t have” they’ll be lying through their palate in anticipation. The obvious choice here is to buy them more beer, but if you want to make it special look for the words ‘barrel aged’ and try to find a beer that has a a 100 point rating on www.ratebeer.com to really get their attention (or something local and rare!). Any beer geek out there will be more than happy to get one of these, pretty much no matter what the brand, even we’ve had it before it’s expensive to buy multiples for one’s self and they taste great. Popular choices pictured are Fifty-Fifty Eclipse Imperial Stout, Freemont Bourbon Abominable Winter Ale,  Firestone Walker Sucaba Barleywine, Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout, and Deschutes The Abyss.

Price Range – $20 to $50 a bottle for something really worth it

Look for wax seals, corks and the words “barrel aged” to impress

5) A Belgian beer gift pack with fancy branded glassware

Pretty much any beer geek has a hard-on or lady-boner for Belgian beer. Generally around Christmas time there are some great Belgian beer gift packs out that contain some pretty darn cool glassware. Belgian glassware is so important to beers from Belgium that often places won’t serve you a particular beer unless they have a clean, branded, specifically shaped glass to serve it in. It feels awesome to pour a Belgian beer into the proper glass it was meant to be enjoyed in, which is what makes these gift sets so special.

Price Range – $20 to $40 depending on the beers

Look for these gift packs in the holiday section of any store that carries beer

6) A membership to the local beer club in town

Beer geeks tend to like to hang out with or talk to other beer geeks so why not get them involved in a local club or membership as a gift. Do be careful, they may already be a member so it’s a good idea to call the club in advance and see if you can buy a gift membership or renew theirs for them. Local club memberships generally come with discounts, exclusives and are a great way to connect with the local craft beer community. CAMRA (BC or AB), WABL (Washington) are a few examples available on the West Coast.

Price Range – $25 to $40 for a one year membership

Go here to sign up in BC or search around for a local club

7) That fancy growler they’ve had their eye on, or a custom growler

Beer geeks have lots of growlers, but they all look kinda similar. Break the monotony with a fancy ceramic growler or a stainless steel one as, well every beer geek secretly wants one of these! Walking into a place to fill fancy growler is a great conversation starter and wouldn’t you love to be the headline of that story as the gift giver. They’ll think of you every time they fill it with the beer they love and a connection over craft beer lasts forever.

Price Range – $30 to $60 depending on the growler

Click these links to buy a Hydro Flask or a Shine Craft Vessel

Expensive Gifts – gifts $100 or more that say “you’re a keeper”

8) Rare beer of the month club membership

Any beer geek would be thrilled to receive a monthly shipment of rare beers that might be hard or impossible for them to find locally. Give them a gift that keeps on giving throughout the entire year and ships to their doorstep. Some local stores also offer “craft boxes” every month or two if you want a local option, but you’ll have to search around for one.

Price Range – $150 to $600 depending on the length of the membership

Click this link to join the club

9) A wine fridge (aka beer cellar)

Odds are the beer geek in your family likes to save certain beers and let them age over time so that the flavours mellow, combine and develop just like fine wines. Temperature control and moisture control are very important to the quality of the aging so give them the gift of a beer cellar. Unfortunately there are no specific beer fridges designed to do this, however a wine fridge can be easily be turned into a beer cellar – just make sure it has removable shelving, temperature control and enough room to stack at least two rows of 22 oz bottles upright and you are good.

Price Range – $200 to $3000+ depending on size and features

Here’s a whole list of places to get this one

Beer geeks are generally friendly, happy craft beer lovers who enjoy everything related to craft beer. I hope this guide helped you find that perfect gift for the that special beer geek in your life. Please share, tweet, and re-blog if you like this list. I’d also love to hear your feedback on any ideas I may have missed or other examples of cool products on the market that would be “beer geek approved”.

***I am unaffiliated with any of the vendors on this list, although they are pretty cool.***