How Does Your Bottle Shop Rate?
When assessing the beer scene where you live there are a few things to look at. The first is the local brewing community. Do you have breweries? Are they good? Next you look at the availability of draft beer. Are there any beer bars? Do regular bars have craft handles? The final key to a good beer scene is one of our favorites as beer geeks, the bottle shop. Most people rate a bottle shop based on selection, but there’s more to it than that.
Photo Courtesy of TheBeerSessions.com
Let’s look at the various components of a bottle shop. When I’m done, let me know if I left anything out and also let me know how your local shop fares given these criteria.
- Selection – The easiest measure of a bottle shop, selection is apparent when you walk through the door and into the beer section. Are craft breweries represented? Imports? How deep into the brands do they stock? Are there seasonal, one-offs, or vintage releases available? How experimental do the offers get? Can you find any barrel-aged beers? Sours?
- Storage – Beer needs to be kept properly. Shelf space is nice, but how big is the cooler? Is the cooler stocked with quickly moving beer or with the craft selections that might hang around for a while? What’s the ambient temperature in the store for those bottles not kept in the cooler? How much sunlight reaches the beer section?
- Turn-over – This one relates to the two previous points. Great selection can be hindered by slow turnover as that selection may be old. High turnover can save poor storage conditions. Even if a place has no cold storage, that could be excused if their entire stock is emptied out on a weekly basis. Also, high turnover means fresh beer, so you can excuse a less varied selection if you always know the beer is going to be at its best.
- Policies – Again, this refers in a way to the previous point. Let’s say you’ve got a large selection and low turnover and a customer buys an old bottle. They get home and realize, this bottle is no good. Can you bring the bottle back for an exchange? Will they pull the remaining stock knowing it’s gone bad?
- Staff – How knowledgeable is the staff? How willing are they to help you find that right beer? In a good bottle shop they tend to remember their regular, and some times, their not-so-regulars. There’s nothing better than walking in to a store and having the beer buyer say “Hey, this beer just came in and I think you’ll really like it.” Good staff leads to good purchases and more often than not, good conversations.
- Perks – I wasn’t sure what to call this point, but it basically refers to everything else. Does your bottle shop take phone orders? Can you have beer held until later (next pay day?)? Will they do special orders, even if it means they have to order a case just to get you one bottle?
Finding a good bottle shop in your town is great as it can sometimes feel like a second home. Whether it’s a well-stocked grocery store, a liquor store with an enthusiastic manager or a warehouse-style beverage retailer, your bottle shop is unique to where you live. Now let’s hear about the one in your town and your favorites you’ve run into over the years.
8 Comments to “How Does Your Bottle Shop Rate?”
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Also under “perks”, and in my travels I have only seen this feature in Seattle & Redmond, WA, portland, OR, NYC, and Philladelphia, PA: craft beers on draft and growler fills in the store. This is a great chance to taste a new brew, and sometimes leads to buying that brewer’s bottled fare.
Also, regularly scheduled tasting nights are a good opportunity to try a particular brewer’s whole range of offerings.
And, lastly, a reasonably regularly updated Twitter and/or facebook page for the store is a great way for reaching out to interested customers. For example, Twitter posts from retailers are the only way to even hope to find Russian River Pliny the Elder in the Pacific NW these days.
When put up against the above criteria, Vintner Wine Market in Charlotte, NC does pretty well for itself. It’s a small place, and by the name you would think it was dedicated only (or at least mostly) to wine.
This is not the case.
Vintner Wine Market has a large cooler with a diverse offering of popular craft beers from around the world. You can build your own six-pack from these and take them home, or you can choose to sample them at the bar, behind which are 16 taps. Many of these beers are rare or hard to get, especially in Charlotte, NC.
There are plenty of different barrel-aged beers, sours, and a nice selection of Belgians. Many of these are not in the cooler, but they are kept away from light and I suspect they move pretty quickly.
Vintner Wine Market has really great food on the bar menu, and also local cheeses and chocolates. And the staff is very, very knowledgable about beer and happy to talk about it.
Sorry to go on and on, but you asked for it.
I did ask for it and I hope to get more responses like this. let’s hear about everyone’s favorite bottle shops.
Even though I now live in Nashville, When I lived in Miami I used to go to Sunset Corners regularly.
The lights were very dimmed, and only cases or gift packs were kept by the window, so they were effectively in the dark of their own boxes. By the counter they kept the magnum beers and larger sizes, plus a small line up of what new for the week. Nobody ever bought the magnums ($200 for 3 liters of St. Bernardus).
Individual bottles were kept in the cooler in the back, and bombers were shelved with six-pack. Staff was very knowledgeable (for a liquor store) and treated beer better than any other store in SoFla.
[...] perspective I want to thank Mario Rubio of The HopPress for taking the time to write this blog. I sometimes see reviews of our store that, simply stated, “hurt my feelings.” My [...]
Very good article. I help run a bottle shop and the staff we have are very knowledgeable on beer. Here I will open a bottle of beer just to get a newbie to try something different. We break down 6 packs. We have a shelf with the newest beers to hit the store. Unfortunately, it is against the law in Texas to except returns of alcoholic beverages but we have our way of making up for that. If a customer gets an old bottle we make sure to “Bargain Bin” the rest out, we do not want old beer on the shelf.
Reading this post was the best thing I have done this week! I am a beer lover and I am in the process of opening a bottle shop / sampling bar in Miami. So far a few beer bars just opened but it is still hard to get some craft beers around town. Could you give me your advice on the ambient temperature in the store for those bottles not kept in the cooler? and How much sunlight reaches the beer section?
Ambient temperature, I would say as cold as you’re comfortable with as someone who will be in there all day. The colder the better, but some people aren’t ok with a store being 60 degrees. Plus, in Miami, I am sure the cooling bill could be a bit prohibitive come summer time.
As far as sunlight, all sunlight is bad. There are special filters you can apply to the windows to remove UV and other nasties as well as filters that can be applied to your interior lighting. I would talk to local glass and window folks about what they offer. You would ideally limit the wavelengths below 520 nm.
Other ideas would be to keep as much beer in their cases as possible. For clear or green bottles, move them towards the middle of the aisles where the shelves can help protect them as much as possible.
Hope that helps.