Serious Pig + Hawkstone Gift Set Review: a pub night in a box (with a price that bites a bit)

I tried the Serious Pig + Hawkstone Gift Set as a treat for a Friday night in with a mate. On paper, it sounds spot on: 4 beers, a branded glass, and a pile of meaty, crunchy snacks. Basically a mini pub night in a box. I wasn’t expecting anything life-changing, just something that feels a bit nicer than grabbing a random multipack from the supermarket.

First impression when it turned up: it looks like a gift. The box is chunky, has a bit of personality, and feels more premium than your usual supermarket beer set. You can tell it’s aimed at people who like Clarkson’s Farm or just want to give a “craft beer plus fancy snacks” present without overthinking it. I didn’t feel like I’d been catfished by the photos, which is already a good start.

I opened it straight away and laid everything out on the table. You get four Hawkstone drinks (lager, IPA, pils, cider), ten snack packs (cheese, pickles, salami, sausage crisps, corn scratchings) and the glass. So the count is right, but once you actually see the portions, you realise this is more of a tasting selection than a full-on feast. It’s enough for one or two people to graze, not a party.

Overall, my first reaction was: nice idea, nice presentation, but I was already wondering if the £40-ish price is pushing it for what you physically get. Still, I decided to treat it like an experience box: crack a beer, line up the snacks, and see if it feels special enough to justify the cost.

Let’s start with the Hawkstone drinks. I’m not a beer snob, but I drink enough to tell when something is decent. The lager was my favourite: more flavour than the usual cheap fizzy stuff, but still easy to drink while watching TV. The IPA had a bit more bitterness, as you’d expect, but not so harsh that it feels like a chore to finish. The pils was clean and straightforward, and the cider was on the drier side compared to the sugary mainstream ones. Overall, I’d say the drinks are solid: nothing mind-blowing, but definitely nicer than basic supermarket lagers.

The snacks are where things get more subjective. The Snackalami was the standout for me. Good hit of flavour, not too greasy, and it worked really well with the beers. The only issue is the portion: it’s pretty thin and there’s not a lot of it, so it disappears fast. The snacking cheese was a bit divisive. I found it okay, quite strong and crunchy, but after a few pieces it got a bit heavy. Someone else in the reviews flat-out didn’t like it, and I get why – it’s one of those things you either enjoy or you don’t.

The sausage crisps and corn scratchings are properly crunchy. The flavour is there, but they’re definitely not light snacks. You feel like you’re eating pub food, not some healthy alternative, which is fine if you know what you’re getting into. Just don’t pretend this is diet-friendly. The pickles are a nice change of pace between the heavier stuff, but again, the pack sizes are small, so you’re tasting, not feasting.

In practice, sharing this with one mate, we had enough to try everything and feel like we’d had a proper snack session, but I wouldn’t bring this out for a group of four and expect it to stretch. Taste-wise: beers are good, snacks range from very nice (salami) to “ok but not for everyone” (cheese). If you know you like Serious Pig snacks already, you’ll probably be happy. If you’re picky or expecting big portions, you might feel a bit underwhelmed once the novelty wears off.

Let’s talk about the bit that will probably decide it for most people: is it worth around £40? In my view, it depends what you’re expecting. If you’re looking purely at the amount of beer and snacks per pound, then no, it’s not great value compared to just building your own selection from a supermarket or bottle shop. Four 330 ml drinks and ten small snack packs is not a mountain of food.

Where it makes more sense is if you treat it as a gift experience. You’re paying for the branding, the nice box, the glass, the variety, and the fact that someone can open it and feel like they’ve been given something a bit special. In that context, it’s easier to swallow the price. I’d be fine buying this once or twice a year as a present for a beer lover or a Clarkson’s Farm fan. I wouldn’t buy it regularly for myself as a casual weekend snack box – for that, it’s simply too expensive for what you get.

The biggest downside value-wise is the portion size of the snacks. They’re good quality, and the flavours are decent, but the packs are small and disappear fast, especially the salami. You don’t get that sense of abundance you might expect from the product photos. After going through everything with a friend, we both said the same thing: nice, but we’d have liked just a bit more of each snack to feel fully satisfied.

So in terms of value, I’d call it acceptable as an occasional gift, average if you’re buying it for yourself. If you catch it on a discount or around £30–£35, it starts to look a lot more reasonable. At full price close to £40, you’re clearly paying for the brand combo and the presentation as much as the actual contents. If that’s what you want, fine. If you’re just hungry and thirsty, you can build a bigger spread for the same money elsewhere.

Design-wise, there are two things to talk about: the layout of the box and the actual beer glass. The box itself is well thought out. The bottles are in individual cardboard sleeves, which makes them easy to pull out without knocking everything else over. It feels like they actually tested how people open it, rather than just chucking everything in. For storage, it’s a bit bulky, but this is a gift box, not something you keep around, so that’s fine.

The glass is decent. It’s branded, has that slightly quirky pink design mentioned in one of the reviews, and it’s sized right for the bottles in the box. It’s not some heavy, pub-style pint glass, more of a standard beer glass you might happily use at home. The branding is bold but not ridiculous. After washing it a couple of times, the print still looked good, no peeling or fading, so at least it’s not cheap transfer that disappears straight away.

In use, the glass feels comfortable in the hand. The thickness is somewhere in the middle: not a chunky tankard, but not so thin that you’re scared to wash it. I’ve used it a few evenings now, not just with the Hawkstone stuff but also with other beers from the fridge, and it’s become one of the regular glasses in the cupboard. That’s more than I can say for a lot of branded glasses that feel like pure promo tat.

On the downside, there’s nothing particularly special or collectible about the design. If you’re a hardcore glass collector, this won’t blow you away. It’s simply a functional, decent-looking glass that matches the set. For a gift, that’s enough. You’re paying more for the full experience than for some limited-edition glass you’ll brag about. It does the job, it looks fun on the table, and you’ll probably keep using it, which is all I really wanted.

On the packaging and protection side, they’ve done a pretty solid job. The set arrived in good condition, no broken glass, no leaking bottles, no crushed snack bags. The use of individual cardboard sleeves for each bottle is smart – it stops them clanking into each other during delivery, and it also makes it feel a bit more premium when you open the box. You can tell some effort has gone into making sure this survives the usual courier abuse.

The inner layout is neat. The glass is snug in its spot, not rattling around, and the snacks are stacked logically so you can see the variety without digging. If you’re giving this as a present, you can basically just stick a label on the outer shipping box or wrap the main box, and you’re done. No need to re-box or hide cheap-looking packaging. For me, that matters, because I hate buying “gift sets” that arrive looking like a warehouse clearance item.

From a practical angle, you’re not going to reuse the outer box unless you’re really into keeping packaging, but it does its job. It’s thick enough to protect everything but not so overbuilt that you feel guilty throwing it out. The only minor downside is that it’s a bit big compared to what’s actually inside, which adds to that feeling that the portions are smaller than the box suggests. When you first open it, there’s a bit of “oh, is that it?” just because there’s a lot of air around the items.

Overall, I’d say the packaging is one of the reasons this works as a gift. If this same content arrived in a plain brown box, I’d be a lot harsher about the price. The fact that it looks and feels like a proper, thought-through gift set does carry some weight. Just go in knowing that a chunk of what you’re paying is clearly for the presentation and safe delivery, not just the raw amount of food and drink.

This set is very clearly pub-style food and drink, not something you buy if you’re watching calories or trying to eat clean. The main thing to flag is allergens: the listing clearly says it contains gluten, and with things like cheese snacks, salami, sausage crisps and corn scratchings, you’re also looking at a fair amount of fat and salt. If you’ve got specific dietary needs (gluten-free, low-salt, etc.), this is probably not for you.

One thing I did appreciate is that the packaging for the individual snacks is straightforward about what you’re getting. There are clear notices about things like needing strong teeth for the corn scratchings, which made me laugh but is also fair – they are very crunchy and not great if you have dental issues. Some of the snacks are suitable for vegetarians or vegans (like the sausage-flavoured crisps in one of the reviews), but overall, the set leans heavily towards meat and cheese, so plant-based eaters will be quite limited.

The beers themselves are pretty standard in terms of ingredients for craft-style drinks: nothing weird or gimmicky, just your usual mix of water, malt, hops, yeast (with mention of champagne yeast in the marketing). Alcohol content sits around 4.5%, so you’re not dealing with super-strong beers, just normal session strength. You can comfortably drink a couple without feeling wiped out, but obviously it’s still alcohol, so same usual caveats apply.

In practice, when I had this over an evening, I treated it as a full-on treat: salty snacks, a few beers, no calorie counting. If you approach it like that, it makes sense. If you’re the type who reads every label and tracks macros, this box will probably just stress you out. It’s classic bar food in small packs – tasty, satisfying in the moment, but definitely something for occasional indulgence, not a weekly habit.

The presentation is clearly one of the strong points of this set. The outer box feels sturdy and well put together, not like the flimsy cardboard you get with cheap supermarket beer bundles. When you open it, everything is well organised: the bottles are protected in individual cardboard sleeves, the snacks are laid out neatly, and the glass is properly secured so it doesn’t rattle around. Nothing arrived broken, dented, or split, which is already better than some gift sets I’ve had delivered.

Visually, it does the job if you’re giving it as a present. You don’t feel like you need to re-wrap it or hide it in another box. I could hand this over as-is for a birthday or Father’s Day and not feel tight. The glass with the branding and the slightly loud colour gives it a bit of character. It’s not super classy, but it’s fun, and that fits the whole beer-and-snacks vibe.

In practice, when I laid it all out on the table, it looked like a curated selection rather than a random pile of stuff. You can clearly see the four different beers and the variety of snacks, which makes it feel more like a tasting experience. The downside is that once you look more closely, you realise the snack packs are on the small side. The presentation kind of promises a big spread, but the content is more like several little nibbles.

So on the presentation side: very solid. As a gift, it hits the mark. As a personal purchase, the nice presentation helps soften the price a bit, but it also sets expectations that the quantity doesn’t fully meet. Still, if you care about the “wow” moment when someone opens it, this set does that better than many others in the same category.