Alcohol-free advent calendars 2026: every one worth buying, and how to build your own
Two retailers sell a 24-door alcohol-free beer calendar this year. Here is what’s in them, when they ship, what each door costs and what to do if they sell out.
By Rich, founder of Unhopped | Published October 2026 | Prices checked 7 October 2026
Wise Bartender Beer Calendar, £85Mixed Drinks Calendar, £85NOMO Creamy Choc, £5.50
The short answer
The best alcohol-free beer advent calendar for 2026 is Wise Bartender’s: 24 different alcohol-free and low-alcohol beers for £85 with UK delivery included, shipping through November. Its Mixed Drinks calendar costs the same and swaps some of the beer for wine, cocktails and soft drinks.
Choice is tight this year. Unhopped searched the UK’s specialist alcohol-free retailers, beer calendar sellers and seven alcohol-free breweries on 7 October 2026 and found only two 24-door alcohol-free beer calendars, and Wise Bartender says its calendars sell out every year. Missed out? Build your own: we’ve picked the 24 beers for you.
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An advent calendar is the one Christmas purchase with a hard deadline. Miss a birthday and you can blame the post; miss door one and the whole thing is just a box of beer. So here’s every alcohol-free calendar we found on sale in the UK for 2026, with the price, what’s behind the doors and when it ships, plus a full 24-door calendar you can build yourself from the highest-scoring beers in our reviews.
Every price and date below comes from the seller’s own page on 7 October 2026. Pre-orders move fast at this time of year, so if one catches your eye, don’t sit on it.
Alcohol-free advent calendars for 2026 at a glance
Eight calendars made the cut, plus the one you build yourself. Two are 24-door beer calendars, one is a 24-door mixed drinks calendar and one is a 24-door chocolate calendar. The other four count down twelve days.
Prices and dispatch dates from each seller’s product page, checked 7 October 2026.
Price divided by the number of doors. Wise Bartender’s £85 includes UK delivery; Beerhunter offers free delivery on orders placed before 31 October; Happy Days adds delivery at checkout. JOMO Club’s doors hold full-size bottles and gifts, not single cans, so its figure isn’t like for like.
Wise Bartender is one of the two specialist alcohol-free retailers we use most, and this is the calendar we’d buy. You get 24 different beers from UK and international breweries, spread across IPAs, lagers, pale ales, stouts and a few seasonal brews, in a festive presentation box.
It wins on three counts. It is the cheaper of the two 24-door calendars sold as alcohol-free beer, the £85 already includes UK mainland delivery, and it comes from a specialist alcohol-free retailer whose range we already know well.
What’s inside
24 different beers, one per door
Alcohol-free and low-alcohol
UK and international breweries
A secret line-up, so no spoilers
Expected dispatch: throughout November 2026
Sent separately from the rest of your order
Wise Bartender describes the line-up as alcohol-free and low-alcohol beers, so if they only drink 0.0%, the build-your-own calendar is the safer bet. Delivery outside the UK mainland is £1.99 extra.
Twenty-four beers in 24 days is a lot of beer, even for us. The mixed calendar spreads the load: alcohol-free beers, wines, ready-to-drink cocktails, sparkling drinks, craft soft drinks and botanical drinks, with a different one behind each door.
It is the one to buy for a household where two people will share the doors, or for someone who is exploring alcohol-free drinks in general and hasn’t settled on beer yet. Wise Bartender describes the selection as fully vegan-friendly.
What’s inside
24 different alcohol-free drinks
Beer, wine, cocktails, sparkling, soft and botanical drinks
Described as fully vegan-friendly
Expected dispatch: throughout November 2026
Same price and same included delivery as the beer calendar, with some seasonal festive treats among the drinks. Which drinks? That’s the surprise.
The other 24-door alcohol-free beer calendar for 2026: one beer behind each door from 1 December to Christmas Eve, with alcohol-free ales, lagers and IPAs.
If Wise Bartender’s sells out, this is the like-for-like alternative, and it’s currently £10 off at £89.95.
Order before 31 October and delivery is free. Calendars go out in the week of 16 November.
Happy Days Drinks sells 12-door “12 Cheers of Christmas” boxes, which makes them the cheapest way in. Three are relevant here. The Lager & Ale Alcohol Free Advent Calendar holds a mix of alcohol-free and low-alcohol lagers, pilsners, IPAs and stouts. The Alcohol Free Variety Advent Calendar swaps the beer for alcohol-free cocktails, mocktails and ciders at the same £34.95. The Guinness 0.0% Christmas Advent Calendar holds twelve cans of Guinness 0.0: the simplest present there is for a Guinness drinker.
Not a beer calendar, but a lovely one for someone who prefers a cocktail. JOMO Club sends twelve numbered, hand-wrapped gifts to open from 14 December to Christmas Day: full-size alcohol-free drinks, cocktail-making bits, snacks and one of its own gift boxes.
JOMO Club values the contents at over £300.
It’s on pre-order, so order early to have it in hand for the first gift on 14 December.
A beer calendar for the grown-ups tends to raise a question from everyone else in the house. NOMO’s answer is a 24-door chocolate calendar that is free from dairy, gluten, egg and nuts, so it works for vegans and for most allergy households.
We’ve written about NOMO before in our NOMO chocolate review, and its bars turn up in our stout and chocolate pairing guide. A square of this with whatever is behind the beer door that night is no bad way to spend December.
NOMO’s shop has a £20 minimum order and charges £4.99 delivery under £50, so a single calendar can’t be checked out alone. The Advent & Creamy Christmas Bundle (£38.00, was £46.50) pairs one calendar with a case of 14 large bars and clears the minimum. There is also a Bluey calendar at £6.00.
Pre-order calendars are sold weeks before they exist as a box on a shelf, so the useful dates are the dispatch windows, not the day you order. Here is the run-in for 2026.
Pre-orders are open at Wise Bartender and Beerhunter.
Beerhunter’s free-delivery offer ends.
Wise Bartender starts sending calendars out.
Beerhunter dispatches its calendars.
Door one. Build-your-own orders need to be in by mid-November.
First gift in JOMO Club’s twelve days. Door 24 follows on Thursday 24 December.
Neither Wise Bartender nor Beerhunter had published a last-order date when we checked. Pre-order calendars are gone when they’re gone, so the sooner the better: anything ordered in the last week of November is cutting it fine.
Build your own alcohol-free beer advent calendar
A bought calendar gives you surprise. A built one gives you 24 beers you know are good. Unhopped’s catalogue covers more than 220 alcohol-free beers, and the 24 below are drawn from the highest scorers in our reviews, arranged so the style changes most days and the month ends dark, on our top-rated stout. Their average score is 8.4 out of 10.
Each door links to our review, where the buy buttons show which retailer stocks that beer today. Door 24 is Big Drop Galactic Milk Stout, which scores 8.6 with us, the highest of any stout on the site that is still on sale. Don’t open it early.
How to put it together
Choose your 24. Use our list as it stands, or swap in favourites. If you’re buying for someone else and don’t know their taste, our Beer Finder narrows it down in five questions, and the Crate Builder fills a twelve-beer crate from a ready-made theme or your own picks.
Order in two boxes of twelve. Dry Drinker’s build-your-own page sells boxes of 6 or 12 that you fill yourself, and Wise Bartender sells single cans and bottles too. Spend over £69 at Wise Bartender or £79 at Dry Drinker and delivery is free.
Number them. Brown paper bags and a marker pen do the job. So do 24 luggage tags and a ball of string. Shuffle the order if you want the surprise back.
Store them cool and dark, and put the next day’s beer in the fridge when you take today’s out.
Would rather someone else did the choosing? A ready-made mixed case gets you halfway: our guide to alcohol-free assortment boxes compares eleven of them, and two different twelve-packs make a calendar.
Looking for a different calendar?
If the calendar you had in mind isn’t above, here’s why, and what to buy instead.
Dry Drinker: no calendar listed this year, but its build-your-own boxes of 6 or 12 make it easy to put one together. If a calendar appears, we’ll add it here.
Brewery calendars: none of Lucky Saint, Big Drop, Mash Gang, Athletic Brewing, Nirvana, Impossibrew or Days had one on sale when we checked on 7 October 2026.
Wine, cocktails and spirits: the ones to buy are Wise Bartender’s mixed calendar, the Happy Days variety box and JOMO Club’s twelve days.
Edinburgh Beer Box’s “low & no” calendar (£69.16 plus delivery) is a good one for someone cutting down: 24 cans from Edinburgh breweries, including Jump Ship. Most are 0.5% or below, but some go up to 3.5%, so it isn’t one for anyone avoiding alcohol altogether, which is why it isn’t in the table. Our explainer on alcohol-free versus low alcohol covers where the lines sit.
How to choose an alcohol-free advent calendar
Beer only, or mixed?
Buy the beer calendar for someone who already drinks alcohol-free beer and wants to find new ones. Buy the mixed calendar for a couple, or for anyone newer to alcohol-free drinks who would enjoy a sparkling wine one night and a pale ale the next. If you’re not sure, mixed is the safer present.
Twenty-four doors or twelve?
Twenty-four doors is the full advent, at around £3.50 a door. Twelve-door boxes cost less than half as much and suit someone who would rather have a beer every other evening. They also make a better secret-Santa-sized present.
Does it need to be 0.0%?
Most alcohol-free craft beer sold in the UK is 0.5% ABV or below, and none of the ready-made beer calendars promises 0.0% behind every door. If the person you’re buying for only drinks 0.0%, build your own from our guide to the best 0.0% beers. The differences are set out in 0.0% versus 0.5%: what’s the difference?
Is it good value?
You’re paying for curation and a box, not a discount. The comparison that matters is the price per door: £3.54 at Wise Bartender and £3.75 at Beerhunter. A built calendar lets you set the budget, and takes an evening to assemble. Our piece on why alcohol-free beer costs what it does explains the rest.
Questions people ask
Which is the best alcohol-free beer advent calendar for 2026?
Wise Bartender’s Alcohol-Free Beer Advent Calendar 2026 is Unhopped’s pick. It holds 24 different alcohol-free and low-alcohol beers, costs £85 with UK delivery included, and ships through November. At £3.54 a door it was the cheaper of the two 24-door calendars sold as alcohol-free beer on 7 October 2026.
When do alcohol-free advent calendars go on sale, and do they sell out?
Pre-orders for 2026 were already open in early October at Wise Bartender and Beerhunter, with dispatch in November. Wise Bartender says its calendars sell out every year. There were only two 24-door calendars sold as alcohol-free beer when we checked, so ordering in October is sensible.
Is there a Guinness 0.0 advent calendar?
Yes. Happy Days Drinks sells a Guinness 0.0% Christmas Advent Calendar with twelve cans of Guinness 0.0 behind twelve doors for £34.95, and a variety version with Guinness chocolate, a bar mat and snacks for £39.95.
Does Dry Drinker sell an alcohol-free advent calendar?
Not for 2026: Dry Drinker had no advent calendar listed on 7 October 2026. Its build-your-own boxes of 6 or 12 beers are the simplest way to make your own.
Are the beers in an alcohol-free advent calendar 0.0%?
Not necessarily. Wise Bartender describes its beer calendar as containing alcohol-free and low-alcohol beers, and most alcohol-free craft beer is up to 0.5% ABV. If you need 0.0% only, ask the retailer before ordering or build your own calendar from 0.0% beers.
Is there a vegan alcohol-free advent calendar?
Wise Bartender describes its Mixed Drinks Advent Calendar as fully vegan-friendly. For chocolate, NOMO’s Creamy Choc Advent Calendar is free from dairy, gluten, egg and nuts and costs £5.50, though NOMO’s shop has a £20 minimum order.
How much does an alcohol-free advent calendar cost?
From £34.95 for a 12-door box to £89.95 for a 24-door beer calendar. Wise Bartender’s two 24-door calendars are £85 each including UK delivery. JOMO Club’s twelve wrapped gifts are £115.
The verdict
Buy the Wise Bartender beer calendar if you want it done in one click: 24 beers, £85, delivered. Buy its mixed calendar if two of you are sharing the doors. And if you’d sooner know every beer is one you’ll enjoy, spend an evening with our 24-door list and a roll of brown paper.
Whichever you choose, order in October. There are two real options this year, and December doesn’t move.
How we put this guide together. We searched the websites of the UK’s specialist alcohol-free retailers, beer calendar sellers and seven breweries on 7 October 2026 and included only calendars with a live product page and a price. We have not opened this year’s calendars, because they don’t ship until November; scores quoted for individual beers are from Unhopped’s own reviews. Sellers change prices and stock without notice. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
Wise Bartender Beer Advent Calendar£85 with delivery. Pre-order, ships November.
