Beer

The day of your delivery will depend on which option you’ve chosen at checkout.  

• For a standard delivery, we will deliver your order within three working days. Delivery to the Scottish Highlands, some other areas of Scotland, Northern Ireland and offshore islands can take an extra few days.
• Usual delivery times are between 07.00 and 21.00.
• You can select Next-day or Named-day delivery at checkout – but do bear in mind we don’t deliver on Sundays or Bank Holidays.

For the best experience we recommend you subscribe to our Unlimited service. A one-off payment of £29.99 entitles you to free delivery for a year – including free Next-day delivery. There’s no minimum order – you’ll get free delivery even on a single bottle. And you can get delivery to multiple addresses, so it’s perfect for gifting!

We want you to be entirely happy with your chosen wine, so we offer an unbeatable money-back guarantee on every single bottle – even wines you buy on sale.

No quibbles. No questions. Just your 100% satisfaction.

If you aren't happy for any reason, get in touch and we’ll arrange to collect your bottle within 48 hours.

There are seven main types of beer:

• Ale – A top-fermented beer with a wide range of flavours, from fruity to malty.
• Lager – A bottom-fermented beer, typically lighter and crisper, and known for its clean and clear finish.
• Pilsner – A type of lager with a golden hue, characterised by its sharp hop bitterness and refreshing crispness.
• Stout – A dark, rich beer with prominent roasted malt flavours, often accompanied by coffee, chocolate or caramel notes.
• Porter – Dark in colour and balances sweet and roasted malt flavours.
• Wheat beer – Light and airy, often with hints of banana or clove.
• IPA (India Pale Ale) – A hop-forward style that typically features a pronounced bitterness alongside intense citrus, floral or piney flavours.

Some beer can be vegan, depending on the ingredients and how it is made. Most basic recipes, which include water, malted barley, hops and yeast, contain no animal products. However, some beers use animal-derived products to clarify their beer and make it less hazy. This can include isinglass (derived from the swim bladders of fish), gelatin (from animal collagen), casein (a milk protein), and albumin (derived from eggs).

Occasionally, beers are brewed with non-vegan ingredients for flavour, colour, or other properties. Examples include:

• Honey
• Lactose (a sugar derived from milk, often used in milk stouts)
  
• Oysters in some speciality stouts

To be confident that your drink is vegan-friendly:

• Check the label, as some beers will state that they are vegan.
• Consult the brewery’s website or contact them directly
• Use online databases or apps that catalogue vegan and non-vegan drinks.

Beer, in its traditional form, is not gluten-free. This is because it’s made from malted barley or wheat. However, there are exceptions and alternatives available for those seeking gluten-free options.

• Gluten-free beers are made from grains such as sorghum, rice, millet, buckwheat or corn. They do not contain any wheat, barley or rye.
• Gluten-removed or gluten-reduced beers are made from traditional brewing grains, including barley, but have undergone a process to break down or remove gluten to a certain extent.

IPA stands for India Pale Ale. It's a broad type of pale ale that is extremely drinkable and has surged in popularity thanks to the passion of American craft breweries, made famous by West Coast IPA.

IPA is a hoppier, more potent variant of a pale ale, and that's down to two things: the amount of hops, how they are introduced and their typically higher alcohol volume. Hops play a pivotal role in IPA. Each hop variety has its own distinct character and taste profile, and are added to the brewing process at different stages, in different combinations. Adding hops early in the process when wort is being boiled gives bitterness. Later boil additions focus on flavour and post fermentation additions, called dry hopping, and infuses aroma.

There isn't just one type of IPA, and that makes exploring them such an interesting venture. Here are just a few:

• English IPA – Still a very balanced beer with malt and hops in unison. 
• Session IPA – ideal for longer drinking sessions, with lower ABV than standard IPAs. 
• West Coast IPA – say hello to the 80s revival, characterised by lots of US hops giving it a bitter kick and citrusy aromas.
• East Coast IPAs - tend to use a slightly fruitier yeast strain than West Coast IPAs and shift the hop additions towards the back end of the boil and in the dry hop. This creates more aroma and far, far less bitterness. 
• Double / Imperial IPA – More hops. More alcohol. Expect a big, bold, beer with some higher alcohols starting to contribute to the flavour.
• Triple IPA – This is an IPA taken to the edge, and with an abv of up to 10%, it wanders into wine territory.
• Black IPA – Thanks to the use of darker malts, the result is a dark, more brooding IPA. This beer can resemble a hoppier, more bitter porter but drier to add to the refreshment aspect.

At its heart, craft beer is based on a straightforward idea. It's a reaction against the boring, identikit, samey beer stacked high on supermarket shelves. It rejects bland tastes and dull flavours. Instead, craft beer is pure brewing modernised, where experiments in flavours by small, independent brewers walk hand-in-hand with the love, care and attention focused on small batches of beer. In short, craft beer is redefining the brewing landscape.

While things in the US are far more straightforward – a craft brewer is generally a brewery that produces fewer than six million barrels of beer per year – there's no such simplification in the UK.

It might be less pigeonholed, but there are some craft beer traits that set it apart from run-of-the-mill mass-produced beers, which include:

• Small breweries – craft breweries in the UK generally produce fewer than 5m litres of beer – equivalent to 30,000 barrels – and don't have access to the same scale of production and distribution of large brewers.Independence – craft brewers are fiercely independent. Often started by a few mates with a passion for brewing, small craft breweries are usually at least 75% independently owned.
• Authenticity – craft brewing uses traditional, time-honoured brewing methods. It avoids some of the murky practices of modern, mass-produced beer, including using additives such as corn or rice. There are no shortcuts here.Innovation – there’s an emphasis on taste and new spins on old recipes, with extensive flavour notes.
• Community – craft breweries tend to spring up in all sorts of places but have their roots firmly planted in the local community, and everyone is usually welcome to pop in for an impromptu tour and natter.
• Provenance – craft beer is about transparency. A refreshing change from mass-produced beer assembly lines in automated factories, craft brewers are open about techniques and take delight in detailing the hops added to imbue flavour and the taste notes you can expect.
• Creativity – the craft doesn't stop with what's inside the can or bottle. Artistic, edgy, arresting designs transform tins of beer into cylindrical art forms, adding genuine character and energy to each brew.