Great distribution in grocery stores

Whole Foods in Indy has an exceptional selection. They also give you a 10% discount on any mixer 6 pack including 750ml bottles.

Kroger in Indy has a great mixer selection as well and they recently added the best value I have found anywhere: $5.99 for a 750 ml bottle of La Fin Du Monde. At least $2 less than you see anywhere else short of Costco and it's a $1 cheaper than the local Costco. Interestingly enough on that note they have Hennepin(one of my favorite Saison's) for $10.99 which is $2 more than any other location including Whole Foods

 

I got 3 day old Jai Alai recently. Was pretty hyped on that.

 

Whole Foods is a doing a smashing job at bringing great beer into their stores

 

Yeah, it all depends on the manager of that department too. I think the ones with people who know craft wouldn't do that. I went last week and they had February Double Jack, still had bottles of Hop Notch, which is now Hop Nosh, so I assume those are old, 2013 Two-Hearted, and best by March Global Warmer. LOL.

 

I watch the grocery stores pretty closely to make sure I am not getting beat out on any seasonals/rares/allocation, and I have yet to see them be consistently cheaper. Rarely they may get me by $1 or less on a few beers, but otherwise, nothing special. Since grocery stores are targeted at a totally different demographic, they will rarely ever carry the range of craft or local breweries that high-end liquor stores like ours carry.
If you do find a grocery store that truly has a brilliant selection at low prices, treasure it. They are rare.

 

You guys are so lucky, in TN beer above 5.6 abv cant be sold outside a liqour store. So i dont see any craft beers in Grocery stores. They only carry the big name fast selling beers. Nothing but Bud, coors, natural light and the such.

 

Has the law changed in Minnesota recently? I thought they could only sell 3.2 beer in grocery stores.

 

It was a little difficult last time I was in America. The Albertsons in Mesa were doing a mixed 6er for $12 with a great selection but a lot of the Craft beers were past their best by date! Managed to pick up some good ones still, but I had to settle for some a week past the date also so I could give them a try! The Liquor store had Dogfish 60min and Dogfish Festina Peche. The 60 Min was still good and fresh, but the Peche was from the summer before (this was in March) I still picked it up and it was still good. Extremely fresh Anchor beers but the Liquor store was in California. Whole Foods in Santa Monica had a great selection but obviously a premium compared to other stores. Picked up a very fresh Dogfish 90min amongst other things however. Hopefully next time Albertsons will have some fresher brews and I'll find a few more stores with a good selection I was pretty spoilt for choice last time anyway compared to what we have in the UK that is imported.

 

Woodman's grocery store has the best bottle selection where I am at. Lots of limited release beers. Plus they are usually a $1-2 cheaper on everything.

 

Sorry for your hardship!

 

Most of the Publix's down here have a pretty decent selection. Every now and then they put stuff on sale, which brings the price down equal to Total Wine. TW sells 12's of Torpedo for $12.99 whereas Publix is around $16.99. Most other sixers are about $1 higher.

 

True, but it's dependent on what gets distributed to the state. Whole Foods in Jersey=wow (I would drive there just to get Terrapin WnB). Their one in Danbury, CT has a very very pedestrian selection. Little novelty and standard stuff.

 

No, we're still in the dark ages. No Sunday liquor store sales either.

 

Deciccos is awesome and fitting for this thread, but off topic, have you been to Half Time in Mamaroneck or Poughkeepsie? The Mamaroneck location will blow your mind if not.

 

Gotta love Fred Meyer

 

True, I was not speaking on behalf of 50 entire states, and some do suck in good markets, but the good WF has pretty awesome beer selections. Little filler, and plenty of variety across styles

 

Harris Teeter and Earth Fare have great selections.

 

I really need to check out Whole Foods. Supermarkets like Kroger and Publix are just awful in Atlanta.

 

Here in Pennsylvania, grocery stores that are allowed to sell beer are few and far between. You need to be selling food for consumption on the premises, keep the sales on a separate register, no single sale can exceed a total of 172 oz. and a whole host of other stupidity. Those supermarkets that do sell beer can thank Wegman's however, as they were the first to push hard enough to get a license. Before that it was only taverns that were allowed to sell less than a case at a time and they normally sold almost exclusively crap beer at HUGE markups.

That said, however, I've experienced the same thing with freshness at Wegman's. You'd think with the lack of competition, they'd move product so fast it would never fall OOC. But that's not even close to being the case. I'd say well over half of the beer Wegman's sells is past it's best-by date. All I can figure is that they're being supplied by a centralized multi-state Wegman's warehouse that does a lousy job of ordering and distributing on a timely basis.

 

My wegmans waxes and wanes. I can't complain.