SmartBeer

What's in the box: Six bottles of Swiss craft beer from one featured brewery, covering at least three styles, plus a tasting booklet.

SmartBeer is a Swiss craft beer subscription that has been running since 2012 and works only with Swiss breweries. Each month a box of six bottles ships around the 15th. Every box features one brewery and includes at least three different beer styles. A tasting booklet comes with it to introduce the brewery and its beers, which is useful if you like to know the background of what you're drinking. A recent featured brewery was St. Laurentius from Bülach in the canton of Zurich, with a dark lager, a Hell, a West Coast IPA and a pale ale among the bottles. That gives a fair idea of the range you can expect.

The terms are friendly: delivery is included, there is no minimum commitment and there is a satisfaction guarantee. SmartBeer says it has served more than 16,000 customers and shipped over 69,000 boxes, which suggests a well established business. Gift subscriptions are available, and a 24 beer Advent calendar is offered on preorder.

The drawbacks are scope and detail. The service is aimed at Switzerland, the site is in French and German, and the homepage does not show the price of the monthly plan. Six bottles a month is a modest amount, and the site does not say whether you can swap beers if a brewery is not to your taste. For anyone curious about Swiss craft beer, it is still an easy, low risk way to explore.