How to Shop for Beer, Part 2: Where to Shop for What

Availability and viability at the three main types of packaged beer retailers

A couple of weeks back, at the suggestion of one of my beer heroes, Brian Hunt of Moonlight Brewing, I published How to Buy Beer Part 1. If you haven’t read that yet, I recommend starting there. It’s the foundation—the part where we unlearn a half-century of phenomenally resourced miseducation that encouraged consumers, distributors, and retailers to interact with beer as though it were a relatively homogeneous, imperishable product, differentiated primarily by brand and packaging.

Until your audience is disabused of this notion, not much else matters. So, knowing that you are already checking dates, buying only cold-stored beer, and never buying more than you can keep cold at home, we can move on to part two:

Where to Shop for What

We’re going to look at three main retail settings — brewery taprooms, grocery stores, and specialty bottle shops — and what each does best. No one stop does it all, but each can be the right place if you know how to work it.

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I. Brewery Tasting Rooms & Satellite Taprooms

Why shop here:

• A brewery-tasting room should offer the best possible freshness.

• The staff should be better informed about the beers on offer.

• Often, the draft and to-go selections will closely mirror one another, offering the chance to taste before making your selection.

• 100% of your money goes to the brewery.

• Access to brewery-only releases and pilot batches you won’t find elsewhere.

The chance to drink beer that may have been kegged or canned just days ago is, for me, the biggest draw of drinking at a brewery or its satellite taproom. That said, “at the source” doesn’t always mean “at its best.” I’ve purchased shockingly fresh cans from my favorite pizza joint and a year-old can from the brewery that made it. The difference? Velocity. That pizzeria only carried three different beers, and the 72-hour-old Hazy IPA I was served was their most popular offering. Meanwhile, the brewery where I was sold an undrinkable can of Rauchbier had about 40 different brands on offer, and as one might expect, the Bamberg-style smoked marzen wasn’t exactly flying off the shelf.

This is one of the reasons that I encourage folks not to be afraid to buy a brewery’s flagship beers at the source. When I was running the sales department for HenHouse Brewing, I’d conclude ride-alongs with any newly hired East Bay sales rep at Drake’s Dealership, a satellite beer garden in downtown Oakland, operated by Drake’s Brewing Company. Before new co-workers could even look at the beer list, I’d order two pints of 1500, Drake’s flagship pale ale. Many were surprised—“Can’t we get this anywhere?” But on several occasions, halfway through the pint, they’d say, “Are you sure this is 1500?” It was. It was just the first time they’d had it exactly as the brewer intended.

This brings me to my second reason for tasting a brewery’s flagship at the source. Many breweries take advantage of the higher margins from retail sales —and the control they maintain over the beer’s handling—to make subtle, otherwise impractical changes to the recipe. I know of more than one brewery that does the “pub batches” of their flagship IPA with a heavier dry-hop, Sierra Nevada used to pour keg-conditioned “Pub Pale” in their taproom, and Trumer’s “Keller Pils” is reason enough to make the trip to their Berkeley tasting room.

Best Practices When Shopping At A Brewery Tasting Room:

• Check The Date (you might be surprised)

• Try before you buy. Most breweries these days offer tastes for a nominal fee. Some might even comp them when it is clear you are there to make a to-go purchase.

• Don’t be afraid to buy the flagship(s)

Cons Of Shopping At Brewery Tasting Room:

• Lack of variety

  • Even the most evolved breweries tend to have a house character. This can be due to a variety of factors, ranging from fermenter size and shape to a brewmaster’s prerogatives.

  • Most breweries will not be excellent at all styles. There are certainly exceptions, but even here in the East Bay, where I am surrounded by some of the country’s most accomplished breweries, I have ones I go to for Hazy IPAs, others for West Coast, others for malt-forward beers, and others still for pale lagers.

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II. Grocery Stores

Why shop here:

• Convenience and price

• Variety: Regional craft, small breweries, and imports

• Velocity = freshness (sometimes)

• The wider variety of formats leads to value. 12 packs have a better price per oz than 4pks, and <$5 a single 19.2 oz can is sometimes all you need.

When I started my career in beer, the idea that the breweries we cared about would be represented in these bastions of one-stop convenience seemed far-fetched. Now, entire end-cap coolers at a Safeway get dedicated to local breweries. While this represents a massive victory for craft beer, it doesn’t mean that the beer in those coolers will necessarily be in good condition.

It is still extremely rare for grocery stores to refrigerate “back stock” (the beer inventory that has not yet made it to the floor). If you are able to ascertain from your grocer which breweries have negotiated a corner of the dairy or floral fridge for their back stock, then I highly recommend buying those brands over ones that were allowed to sit at ambient temperature.

Whether or not you can determine how your grocer treats the beer that hasn’t yet hit the shelf, you will want to be sure and check the date. Grocery stores can be incredibly high-velocity for well-marketed and presented brands, they can also leave lesser-known brands in limbo, languishing anonymously on the shelf.

During the pandemic, many small breweries understandably rushed to secure grocery store placements. But getting beer on the shelf is only one-third of the battle. After a sales team lands the account, the marketing department must drive the initial sell-through, and the brewers and merchandisers must ensure the product’s quality is high enough to win repeat purchases. Too often, breweries enter mainstream retailers before they’ve done the work of familiarizing the mainstream beer consumer with their brand. Once their beer is competing against more than a hundred other options, they struggle to achieve the sell-through needed to keep their products in proper condition.

For me, the mainstream grocer is the only venue where I regularly shop for beer from the larger artisan breweries of the world—Sierra Nevada, Firestone, Guinness, Allagash, etc. Of course, I still check dates, and I have been pleasantly surprised to frequently find Sierra’s Torpedo IPA and Pale Ale with “born on” dates in the past 60 days waiting in the refrigerated beer aisle at my local Safeway. When all else fails, I look for exceptionally durable beer styles. At my corner liquor store, I will frequently grab bottles of Guinness Extra or Foreign Extra Stout, or fermentation-driven beers like Allagash White.

What to buy:

• Beers from breweries that actively manage their cold chain and aggressively merchandise their shelves

• Recently dated six-packs or 12-packs

• Styles that are more shelf-stable (as discussed in Part 1) - e.g., bottled Guinness

*A sad caveat for hot climates: I live in Oakland, CA, where highs rarely hit the mid-80s. If you live somewhere like Las Vegas, Sacramento, or Phoenix, be ruthless about avoiding warm-stored beer. Unfortunately, this may mean avoiding the grocery beer aisle entirely.

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III. Specialty Bottle Shops

Why shop here:

• The place to try new things

• Curated selections with knowledgeable staff, especially compared to most grocers

• Access to harder-to-find options

In 2020 and 2021, I spent a lot of time learning about how customers shopped for beer. I talked to retailers, merchandisers, and colleagues, and spent hours observing beer aisles. This research yielded lots of valuable conclusions, including my favorite finding: many customers had started treating the beer aisle like a video store.

I found that this was especially true in stores that kept a special section for “local” beer. I would watch as customers would quickly grab their “go-to” (say, a 12-pack of Sierra Pale), and then, they would step to the section of “local” 4-packs and take a step back to survey the whole shelf, the way we used to at a Blockbuster. This was the opposite of how people usually scour a shelf at the grocery store. They weren’t looking for a product they were familiar with; on the contrary, these customers were looking for something that they had never seen before. I’d watch delighted as they’d pick up a few different 4-packs, spin the cans, and wait to be enticed enough to commit.

The independent bottle shop is the superior venue for this sort of shopping. Find one in your town that allows you to build mixed 4-packs. Get to know the employees, and make a weekly trip just like you did at Blockbuster.

What to buy:

• Mixed 4-packs of fresh beers you’ve never had before

• Go-tos from breweries you can’t find elsewhere.

• Something on draft. *Most of these spots also serve draft beer, and the draft beer is where they get the velocity and margins that allow them to keep the doors open. So, if you want your beer video store to avoid Blockbuster’s fate, make sure you regularly enjoy a pint or two there as well.*

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Conclusion

There’s no one-size-fits-all beer shop. Every setting can be great if you know what to look for. Freshness is still the most critical factor, but your environment will dictate what’s available and viable.

As drinkers, we cast a vote with every dollar. Reward the breweries and retailers who take steps to improve the quality of their beer as it shows up in your glass. Know where your great local breweries are. If your routine takes you near them, stop in. Identify a couple of “go-to” products you can reliably find in good condition at your regular grocery store. And find a bottle shop you can treat like a video store.