Phoenix Beer Scene Inquiry

JFC, it takes all of three minutes to take the breweries mentioned in this thread and plug them into Google Maps, folks. Do it. I believe in you.

 

Thanks. I will be down by South Mountain Park area. I will check out your suggestions online.

 

And any beer trading groups in the Phoenix area? I couldn't find any on FB.

 

Some great stuff in this thread. I’ll be staying with my family on the NE side of Mesa tomorrow and it’s looking like not a lot of close options for stores ie Bevmo, Total Wine, Whole Foods, etc.

Any places around there with a better selection than the Basha’s or Kroger?

 

Gilbert Convenience Mart is probably your best bet and isn’t too far. Otherwise, I can’t speak for the ones near where you’ll be staying, but the Safeway near me has a couple of better than decent beers, like Tower Station and Elevated IPA from Mother Road and La Cumbre, respectively.

 

Two words. King's Convenience. One of the best bottle (can) shops I have ever seen. I am used to east coast prices so the single can pricing here was awesome. $2-$4 for most 16 oz IPAs. I was able to get La Cumbre, Modern Times and Belching Beaver and Almanac. They also had a ton of Evil Twin but at a higher price point. They had 50+ different beers on tap and growler fills were $6-$9 for most 32 oz fills. Some special stouts were higher. I was also able to find Tower Station in four packs at most gas stations. And a gas station in Sedona had La Cumbre, Modern Times and Mother Road all available as singles. I didn't make it to too many bars but the local restaurants I tried did not have a lot of local beer selections. Still a great visit to the area.

 

Did any of you hooligans get your hands on that Double Dry Hopped Hop Chowdah from Goldwater that was released last Friday? That shit was so fucking good. I gave it a 4.75 on untapped I should have given it a 5.0 .. Really good shit from Goldwater. Salute!

 

Goldwater was definitely a favorite of mine when we visited Scottsdale. Their Hop Chowda and the Intergalactic Experiment were my two favorites. Lochiel was pretty good as well. They were more focused on ESB's, Lagers and Stouts.

 

Hell yeah Gold Water is my go to spot in Scottsdale

My Go to list

Phoenix- Wren House / Wandering Tortoise
Scottsdale - Gold Water
East Valley - AZ Wilderness
Tucson - Pueblo Vida
Anywhere South of Tucson - Tombstone Brewery
Flagstaff - Dark Sky Brewing

 

Coming down for spring training tomorrow and saw there’s a double can release at Wren House on Saturday. There’s a pastry stout and a hazy IPA. Any insight on how long cans usually last? Is it one of those, you need to get there at open releases or do they typically last later into the day? They didn’t post limits yet on either one. Thanks for the help.

 

You should be fine. Seems like most of the IPAs have easily been lasting through the weekend, if not a week or two longer. The pastry stout not sure on (people get all hot and bothered about that sort of thing) but again I’d be surprised if it sold out that day.

Also worth mentioning if you’re at Wren you’re not far from downtown, and the downtown location of Arizona Wilderness just opened up. They had a good selection of cans/bottles (incl their pastry-ish stout) as of last weekend.

 

Thanks for the reply. I’ve been to Wren House before but not on a release day. Looking forward to going back there. My really good friend lives on Central in downtown Phoenix and we definitely will be hitting up AZ Wilderness for their grand opening party on Saturday.

 

I know the hazy IPA is pretty good. I guess they got a bigger set up so they are releasing one of their better beers and they say they are going to be canning more and having it on tap all year. Its called Spellbinder. Its pretty dang good too.

 

After visiting a couple grocery stores and finding the selection abysmal, we ended up stopping at Wren House before our flight out.

So glad I checked out this thread.. unbelievable stuff there- tried 2 IPAs then their imperial porter. My babe loved the beers she had (forget what she got.. Lager and something else- both tasty).

I’m a sucker for stickers for my beer fridge so I got a couple plus a grab bag of label stickers- really cool idea imo. Awesome spot.. would highly recommend.

 

Yeah grocery stores in Phoenix do NOT have good beer selections. Frys, Bashas, Albertsons, all absolutely terrible. Weird coming from NY where Wegman's has killer beer sections and Price Chopper ain't too bad either.

 

Agreed... ended up with a couple serviceable options- lagunitas super cluster or whatever its called as well as a Sante Fe 7k IPA I think, which was honestly great

 

I don’t think the grocery stores have a terrible selection, really. The Safeway right by my house had Dragoon IPA and Elevated IPA, among others. Two world class IPAs in my opinion. Of course, you’re not going to find local hazy IPAs or pastry stouts with sticker labels on them, but it’s a grocery store after all. Sprouts and Whole Foods have an even better selection. If all else fails, BevMo and Total Wine should have something decent, failing several good local liquor stores.

Overall, I think it’s much easier to conveniently find quality beer in Arizona than many other states I’ve visited/lived in. In Indiana, grocery stores can’t even legally keep it cold! At least we can buy on Sundays now...

 

Agreed. A lot of the safe-ways carry the same craft beers as Bevmo and Total Wine, Heck even the Quick Trips on my side of town sell St Archer and Hazy Little Think along with Tower Road IPA and all the other big brands. On top of that the downtown Phoenix area has so many awesome breweries tap houses / bottle shops all of them 10-15 minutes away from each other.

 

Any thoughts on Peoria or Dubina? I'll be in the Happy Valley area this month and these two places are the closest and cheapest Uber/Lyft rides by the hotel I'm staying at. Also, anything worthwhile at Sky Harbor? I found an old thread (closed) but it's 6 years old and more than likely outdated.

Thanks!

 

https://www.skyharbor.com/ShopsFoodServices/Dining

There’s so much good stuff at Sky Harbor. Lots of good local places with outposts there. I’d recommend Los Taquitos or Joe’s for a quick bite, but there are a few other good ones depending on what terminal you’re in and what time of day you’ll be flying in/out. If you’ll be in Terminal 4, and it’s too early for a beer, Cartel Coffee cannot be missed. (Get a single origin pour over, black.)

As far as beer, apparently there’s a SanTan and an OHSO now. I’ve never been to either airport location, but based on my experiences “on the outside”, I’d say hit SanTan and skip OHSO. I’ve also seen good local beers on tap at random airport bars, like Mother Road Tower Station. Just keep an eye out for unfamiliar tap handles.

Edit: Sorry I didn’t address your main question. Never really spent much time in the west valley, and didn’t get to try either of those places. Hopefully someone else will chime in.