Bottle Shops that sell singles / mixed 6ers

I found singles to be a very fun aspect of craft beer. In some stores it is a dumping ground for old beer and in some shops they are pricey as heck. BUT in the long run singles are a wonderful addition to your beer purchases that can spotlight a style you have not tried before or a brewery, and that can lead you to you next love in beer!

 

4 out of 5 shops in my area that offer "mix a six" have dates that need to be looked at before throwing them in your six pack. Most of them simply don't do the business they should to have the turnover. Sucks when you have to take a gamble and the bottle is old.

 

In my former life as a retailer, I had a couple shelves in one cooler door that I put in the smaller sliders for 12 oz singles and did a "mix six." I used as a spot to put the 5 other bottle from a sixpack that some other dipweed had taken the 6th bottle from Seriously, it was a great spot for me to put singles of some new beers that I wanted to get consumers to try. By selecting beers that were close in cost, I could just price them at "Any Six for $6"... yes this was about 15 years ago. So I wouldn't recommend making ALL the beers in the store available in this format, but it's a good way to start out.

 

I applaud the owner you spoke with. Obviously he's in business to make money first and foremost, but he also understands that he needs to deliver what his customers want, in this case fresh beer. In my experience, places that do mix a six have a lot of stale beer on the shelves. Of course, most places have a lot of stale beer on the shelves, so that's not saying much. Nevertheless, whenever I check dates of stuff on the mix a six rack it's not very fresh. If he's true to his word and wants to keep up with freshness, then I think he represents the new breed of bottle shop owners. Personally, I've moved past the mixed a six stage where I just want to try all sorts of stuff. What I really want now is styles I love, or new beers I want to try, all of which are as fresh as possible. If you can do that, you get my dollar.

 

True story... went into my local bottle shop just last Thursday specifically looking for SN Bigfoot. I got said Bigfoot (which really is world class, btw!) then he keeps a little grocery cart of $1.00 bottles. I was going to grab a few out of there and I casually mentioned that I wanted to try Ellicottville Stainless Steel Obsession and that I would get it next week. He said that as long as I was getting some of the dollar bottles go ahead and make a six pack and he'd throw in a Stainless Steel Obsession! I also ended up with a Goose Island 312, Breckenridge amber ale, KA-BAR brown ale, and two Saranac Prisms... for a buck each! That six pack (and one of the Bigfoots - those are sippers!) is about gone and they were all very good beers. Another plug for Ellicottville Stainless Steel Obsession - that is an extraordinary IPA - too bad for the rest of the world that its pretty much available only in upstate NY.

I am now a fan of the make your own six pack and I have a new best friend

 

Most bottle shops I have been to do not allow breaking up of sixers. They have a six pack area and a separate mix a six area. In my experience, this arrangement does nothing to ensure freshness (not to mention the sixers are usually refrigerated and the singles are not, which is a whole other discussion).

If a bottle shop had nothing but refrigerated sixers, four packs and bombers, all of which were reasonably fresh, I'd have no problem paying a little bit extra money. Heck, you could scrap the bombers and just sell cold six/four packs and I'd be a happy man.

 

I have the best of both worlds, there's a local small shop called Beer30 that mainly deals in full 6packs and bombers, but still has a small refrigerated section of select singles; single section is expansive enough to meet demand for new mix 6s while still small enough to keep track of freshness.

 

Where I purchase my beer, if you're a regular and ask nicely, they'll let you create your own mix six even if it's not in their singles selection. They just throw what you break up into their singles selection for someone else to try.

 

I have found old beer in stores that sell single bottles and mixed 6ers and I have found old beer in distributors that sell only cases. I think that any place stocking a wide variety of beers is susceptible to having out-of-date beer. That's why I check the freshness dates whenever possible - buyer beware!

 

pick six can be a difficult thing to control. once its out of the six pack you can forget supplier help on expired beer and THERE WILL BE EXPIRED BEER. its just the nature of the beast. You create a mix six section to allow customers to try beers they may be hesitant on trying if forced to by a 13 dollar 6 pack.

The way I handle it is I created its own section, break open 1 6/4 pack at a time, pay close attention to what people are and are not trying, rotate what beers are there, NEVER seasonals (sorry but as soon as the season changes the consumer stops buying it and now you're guaranteed expired product. been there done that), and manually track inventory from the rack. yes the last part can be very time consuming but its a business...it takes work! Each beer is priced individually and when a 6 pack in completed I give a 10% discount on the sixer (allows people to try just one but gives incentive to try 6).

Overall my pick six has been a great success especially transitioning BMC drinkers over to the craft catagory. Its business so I roll with the punches but the one thing I wish the consumer would understand is the pick 6 requires extra attention (all while running a million other sections and day to day business) and an expired beer or 2 is bound to happen. I will always gladly make good on that error but understanding that errors will occur is a must.

TLDR: pick six is great but comes with challenges. a little understanding from the consumer is nice if they want the convenience of getting to try beers that they would otherwise be forced to buy by the 6/4 pack without knowing if they like it.

 

Love buying singles, if nothing more than to taste something new. I do like to pick up two of any given beer and drink them back to back. It's just a personal preference but I like to make my review/tasting on two, less chance of an odd bottle...and sometimes a second beer even in the same lot is better or worse than the first.

I have a local bottle shop that will break up sixers if I ask, that is a real help, gives me several options and it also helps with the freshness issue.

 

Out of the two shops (Lighthouse in Wrightsville Beach, NC and Wakefield Liquors in Wakefield, RI) in the many places that I have lived that have sold mix-a-six, I have learned a few things:

(1) Yes, quite often you find beers past their freshness date. Sometimes, many months passed. However, if you are lucky, you can find some old beers that are meant to be aged. For instance, found a 2009 Avery Beast recently in the back of the pile.

(2) Always check the date of IPA's when you buy them in a mix-a-six! If you are lucky and the store owner/manager lets you pull a single out of newer 6-packs if you mention that they IPA you want is a bit old.

(3) Never be afraid to ask the manager/owner of the store if you can take a single from a 4/6 pack that isn't available in the mix-a-six selection. Most of the time I have found that they are more than willing, and in most cases, will often put the rest of the pack in the single ection since they can't sell it as a 3/5 pack. This makes it easier for you to obtain a few more if you like the beer but don't want to spend the price on a full 4/6 pack!

 

i work in a store that sells over 500 singles, its really hard to keep up with whats fresh and whats not, then when you do find beers past their date the store has to eat the cost. sure we are supposed to be credited by the distro's for cases like that but if i sell 3/4 of a case of beer before its date then i cant get any credit back on it because its not the whole case( i have a giant section of my back room that is allocated to "out of date" beers that we'll probably never see a credit for). in my 4 years of working in the store i think i've seen a brewery rep come in and swap out old bottles ONCE. thats not even getting into the amount of times distro's have sent me beers that are already waaaaayyyy out of date. that being said i had bottles of SN&RR Brux that sat on the shelf and no one purchased for two years. those were phenomenal. its just something you have to deal with if you want the selection at a good price. if we marked up to cover the cost of those bottle we were gonna lose due to date people would be standing at the door to burn us at the stake for overcharging/gouging them.

so you have option 1.) pay a higher price and be sure your never gonna get an out of date bottle
or option 2.) check bottle dates your self.

also yeah im cool with people snagging bottles out of 6/4 packs if they ask first so i can replace the bottle people do it all the time in my cold case, i only trip shit when its the last 4 or 6 pack in the store and there are no singles to replace it in the pack and no shelf space in the cooler to put the singles

 

People buy beer in multipacks?

 

Yeah, I really enjoy stores that sell singles and mix/six sections. Woodman's in Waukesha lets you snag singles of New Glarus thumprint series, and their mix/six section is solid. Riley's in Madison has an incredible singles/mix-six section, I've gotten the likes of BCBS, Hopslam, Lagunitas Sucks, Central Waters BBS, among others there.

 

there are a handful of these in my area and i have been lucky to not have a problem with buying or seeing very much old beer.

 

I love to see singles sold but not pick a six. I used to cheat in our Kroger (grocery) when you can pick a six . I would make my own not from their selections. That's when 2 hearted ale was 11 dollars and rj rockers bell ringer was 9 dollars and that Dogfish 90 4 pack came in handy. I would have the expensive ones in my six and left the half empty ones for their disposal in the discounted bin. And I can't forget to throw in there Ode to Mercy, tasty! Selling singles especially in World Market is a great idea, I had a dream I opened up a sampling shop where you could take certain amounts of beer home at a minimum of 6 ozs and pay a certain price for each one kinda rebottling it, but not sure how I would keep each opened bottle under carbonation. I guess that's why someone started Growler shops.I know I'm crazy but creative. Keep the singles coming, it saves us money just in case the taste buds hate the 9 dollar six you brought home. Forgot to mention I can buy any bottle in our local Tower package store. But, it's pricey.

 

Charleston Beer Exchange allows you to break any 4/6 pack and purchase singles. They charge the same per unit price as if you were buying the entire pack. Yeah, it's a little more that way, but the expertise, customer service, and quality selection can't be beat. They pack a lot in their little shop and are guaranteed that you aren't going to get stuck with something old (like IPA's).