Liquor Depot

Store

687 W Main St
New Britain, Connecticut, 06053-3969
United States

(860) 223-7140 | map
liquordepotinc.com
PLACE STATS
Average:
3.83
Reviews:
11
Ratings:
14
pDev:
14.88%
View: Place Reviews
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Photo of von_kaiser
Reviewed by von_kaiser from Connecticut

4.26/5  rDev +11.2%
vibe: 3.75 | quality: 4.25 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4.25
my honey hole. jay and the other dude w/ the beard know their shit and are more than happy to yenter it up w/ you about anything. you'll stumble upon some of the goods from time to time.
Feb 03, 2017
 
Rated: 3.75 by grahuba from Connecticut

Dec 06, 2014
 
 
Rated: 3.5 by SimonPuggle from Connecticut

Jul 03, 2014
Photo of victorioborges
Reviewed by victorioborges from Brazil

4.16/5  rDev +8.6%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 3.5 | selection: 4.5
This is the best Place with the best selection in the hartford area and more specificly new britain. They have a large wall of imports and micro brews alot of them being singles and they dont mind if you break up the six packs, if you do they just take what was left and put them in the front which is the section I usualy go to first. They also have a good selection of glases neer the craft beer most are about 2 dollars.

The back wall is a fridge that has all their macros but half of it is dedicated to craft beers. they also have a small fridge of craft and import singles. and on the right side of the store thay have large cases of beer mostly macros. there are a lot of Polish people in the area so they have alot of polish beers in the store (most i havent heard of)not to fond of the ones i tried but havent tried all of them.

the prices are the best i have seen in connecticut and have never seen an out of date bottle (unlike the connecticut beverage mart)

The service is good as they always ask me if I am looking for anything specific when I take longer than 5 minutes but most of the time im just browsing their selection.
Aug 27, 2012
Photo of Donsmitty
Reviewed by Donsmitty from Connecticut

4.14/5  rDev +8.1%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4
I find the pricing at Liquor Depot to be the best (lowest) around. They do NOT gouge you when they get that small allotment of DFH or new releases. I've never paid less at any other package store for beer that I've bought at Liquor Depot.

Their selection is OK as they carry pretty much my staples (DFH, Lagunitas, North Coast) and they usually get the new releases at the same time or before other stores in CT.

The people are always very friendly and the guys that manage the beer section are very helpful.
Feb 07, 2012
Photo of Homebrew35
Reviewed by Homebrew35 from Colorado

4.01/5  rDev +4.7%
vibe: 3 | quality: 4 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4
I had to return some empties at first when I got here, its a separate door from the main store, quite large and quick service.

The store has one main isle of craft and a one isle of cases of BMC and craft. Half the refrigerator cases are craft, the rest is BMC. A nice cozy seperate refrigerator had BBC, and a few others. I picked up some BBC Raspberry barley wine. I also found some limited Ommegang in the main beer isle. Overall it looks like they have a good selection, most basic styles are covered. There are some things here that I haven't seen at other CT stores.
Service was great, a few staff members asked if they could help.
I'll be back here in the near future.
Feb 22, 2011
Photo of xanok
Reviewed by xanok from Connecticut

4.5/5  rDev +17.5%
My new favorite place. This place has a pretty good selection of large craft bottles and a huge selection of six packs. The standard crafts that are available in CT are represented, however this is the first place I've seen the Stone 13th Anniversary. There's a large quantity of Smuttynose, Weyerbacher, DFH, Great Divide, Rogue hangin around.
Pretty good amount of local stuff represented including Farmington River.

Great fridge area, but about half is BMC or other garbage.
Staff is very knowledgeable about beer. I've talked to 3 or 4 different employees, and all of them were beer geeks.
They also have a good, cheap selection of glassware with different beer logos.

My one complaint is a friend of mine bought a 12pack full of Great Divide that were all gushers.
Dec 12, 2009
Photo of pittvkyle7
Reviewed by pittvkyle7 from Connecticut

3.55/5  rDev -7.3%
I stopped in to get some local beers. I had never been here before this visit.

There is a small section of craft bombers and some six packs out on display. It looked like you could get some singles of beers that are normally in six packs. The selection was very high quality stuff. there were also beers in here that I don't normally see at CT Beverage Mart.

The prices seemed lower than other places!

A great selesction of glassware, most of the glasses were 1.99!

I didn't check out the coolers in the back, but I'll have to make a point of that next time I visit.
Jan 07, 2009
Photo of CharlesRiver
Reviewed by CharlesRiver from Connecticut

3.85/5  rDev +0.5%
I just happened to be driving around this area during my lunch time and decided to pop in. I am glad that I did. First off, I love to collect glassware. This place has a great selection at pretty good prices. If you are in the area and collect glasses, go.

Beer selection is on the small side but the prices are some of the best I have seen in the area. Higher end beers are located in the second row on the right. Coolers are in the back along the wall. Selection is solid. Belgians, French, English and German. American micros include the likes of Southampton and some Avery.

Overall a solid store. I would not go out of my way to go here UNLESS I was seeking some great glassware.
Feb 28, 2008
Photo of Ralelen
Reviewed by Ralelen from Connecticut

3.7/5  rDev -3.4%
Seeing as this place has not been reviewed in quite a bit, Ill give it a shot.

Over the past year, the beer selection has greatly improved. This have increased the amount of smaller American brewries, and have increased their selection of Belgian imports. The one problem I do have is once they sell out of a seasonal beer, they will not order more. Although the distributor may have it still in stock, they will not order it. ON the plus side they do keep a selection of local New England beers; such as Trinity from RI, New England from CT, and others.

Also the majority of the beers are kept warm which can really hurt the beers that need to be refrigerated.
Feb 18, 2008
Photo of necoadam
Reviewed by necoadam from Connecticut

3.55/5  rDev -7.3%
Ah yes, my local liquor store. They've actually moved to this new location about 5-7 years ago. Can't really remember how long ago this was. But the place prior before this one was much bigger.
Quality: Can't really complain about the quality in this place. I've never had a bad beer from this place. Granted there's not that much to choose from, but they all seem fresh. The wife wanted some fruit lambics and picked one up and seem pretty fresh. This is a warehouse so things do go pretty fast in this store.

Service: Yeah, service is a downer. I do know two of the people that work there, I went to high school with them, so once in a while we'll talk beer. But overall don't expect people to ask for help here. As stated before, this is a warehouse, so it's a free for all here.

Selection: This one's tricky. I'll give it a 3.5 but once in a while you can find some good stuff here. This is the first place I've found Ommegang's Witte in central CT. They do carry some seasonal beers. They also have a good majority of Klosterbrauerei Weltenburg's lineup. Which seems pretty rare to find.

So overall it's not that bad of a location. This is a perfect place where your beer knowledge pays off. Screw asking questions, if you know your beers, you'll be awarded with some good beers and low prices.
Jul 24, 2004
Photo of paceyourself
Reviewed by paceyourself from Connecticut

2.8/5  rDev -26.9%
On my last visit here i was amazed on what i saw, pallet after pallet of Corona. They easily have over three thousand cases. It will probably take years to sell it but i don't think they are worried about that judging by the age of some of the brews on the selves. The overall selection of micros isn't as large as it was in the past, the selection was much better before they moved to the new location. The import selection revolves around central european countries to accommodate the large polish population here. They have stacks of cases of Okocim, Hevelius, Zywiec and Krakus and the like and all are available in singles also. The service here is almost non existent but that is not what this place is about. The main reason i stop here is the prices, i bought a case of Celebration for $24 and Storm King for $35 recently. I wouldn't suggest anyone go out of the way to go here but i'll keep going here for the lowest prices locally.
Feb 25, 2004
Photo of Hagbard
Reviewed by Hagbard from Connecticut

2.85/5  rDev -25.6%
Located in a large space within a shopping center off a main drag (West Main) in New Britain. Right next to a CVS and there is a Stop & Shop in the same plaza. Downtown New Britain can be a confusing place, but West Main St is a fairly easy street to find.

As you walk in, the first thing you notice is the size of the store...it's huge. If it was solely a beer store, it would be heaven. Alas, this is not the case.

The first thing you see on your right, is a shelf full of six packs of craft beer. Among the staples (Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, etc) you can also find some harder to find selections. For instance, a few months ago they had Victory Storm King and Old Horizontal. Now they have Victory Golden Monkey and HopWallop. The selections in this section of the store seem to change fairly often so it seemed pointless to note them individually. Unfortunately, it is a bit small and it is the only domestic craft brew section in the store. The coolers in the back contain cold six packs of some of the selections, but nothing that isn't displayed in front. A larger section of domestic craft beer would improve this store greatly.

As you walk down the first aisle, it is mostly random liquors that are on sale. However, they also have a few stands set up to display "special" beers. Currently it is the Sam Adams Chocolate Bock, which they sell for $13.99. Over the holidays, it was Rogue's Santa's Private Reserve and a few other holiday offerings.

At the end of the aisle, you catch your first glimpse of the coolers and the mountains of 12-packs. The coolers are almost all macros, but there are a few domestic craft choices. The mountain (and it truly is a mountain) of 12-packs and 30-packs are also mostly macros, but there are also Sam Adams, Red Hook, etc. In fact, my wife found a Sam Adams Brewmasters 12 pack for me hidden inside the mountain.

As you turn the corner to the second aisle, you hit the import section. This is the store's bread and butter. For those of you who live in the area, you probably know that there is a very high population of people from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, living in New Britain. The store's biggest section of beer is from these countries...specifically Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia. I've never heard of 99% of the beer in this section. Many of them were written with a different alphabet system (Russian), so I wasn't even able read what their names were. This section was very interesting to look at, but I was out of my element, because I didn't know what I was looking at. All of these beers were sold as singles.

As you look to the left of this section, they sell singles from other European countries...Germany, England, Belgium, but the selection of these choices is underwhelming. There are maybe 3 different Belgiums, all of which are common. The usual suspects from Germany and England.

After the 2 beer aisles, there are 4-5 remaining aisles. 2-3 have a lot of wine and the rest have liquor. Their wine/liquor selection seem to be top-notch.

I rated the service fairly poorly because the employees seemed to be either unknowledgeable about everything or just knowledgeable about wine. No one was asking me if I needed help while I was in the beer aisle (even though I was there for 20+ minutes), but someone approached me only a minute or two after entering the wine aisle. I felt like a second class citizen perusing the beer aisle.

This store's saving grace, in my opinion, is that it has the lowest prices I've seen in the area. It was selling Old Horizontal and Storm King for $2 less than other stores in the area. The Chocolate Bock is only $13.99, when I haven't seen it for less than $14.99 anywhere else. This is what will keep me coming back here in the future.

For those of you who know about Czech/Polish/Russian beers, you may appreciate this store more than I do. It's worth a look. Otherwise, give it a shot if you're looking to save a few bucks on a few six packs of easier to find beer. Otherwise, there are better stores in the area.
Feb 05, 2004
Liquor Depot in New Britain, CT
Place rating: 3.83 out of 5 with 14 ratings