No spoiler alert: no beers in either of these packs are named in this post.

What you’re looking at in this photo is two advent beer cases – one from Crafty Brew and the other from Bridge Road and friends. Both of them have been opened and all 24 beers sussed out. All before December 1.

f you’re familiar with the advent calendar idea, you’ll know this is totally against the rules. I was supposed to only reveal one beer each day from December 1 to 24. But I had my reasons for rebelling.

I’m on a bit of a health kick and that includes reducing the amount of beer I drink after realising just how many calories I was ingesting. That is taking the form of being more rigid on the ‘‘no drinking during the week’’ rule and also looking to limit the beers I drink on weekends to three a day.

So, if I’m not drinking on weekdays, that makes the idea of popping open one advent flap a day something that won’t be happening for me. I should point out I bought these advent cases before deciding to go on the health kick.

You might think I could have just delayed things until the weekend, opening up the first few flaps on Saturday and Sunday. But these packs include an encouragement to post about each day’s beer on social media. Which means the surprise of each beer would be ruined for me before I got to the weekend.

And so I ripped open each advent flap – I made a concession to at least do them in the accepted numerical order – to see what’s there before someone else ruined the surprise.

While the Bridge Road box is largely well-known craft beers, there are still a few surprises. And one or two that I’ve seen around Wollongong so that’s a plus.

In terms of surprises, the Crafty Brew box is a bit better – there are some beers in this box I’ve never had before. And the Christmas Eve beer was a very good choice.