How do you like your bottle shop's beer to be organized?

By hype.

 

By brewery. IME, so much easier to find exactly what you're looking for.

 

^what he said + alphabetically.

 

By country, then alphabetically.

Total Wine has like 4 different ways they arrange their sets in their beer section, so annoying.

 

Alpha by brewery, definitely.

 

Mostly by Brewery just easy to find. Sometimes im in the mood to just try a new IPA or Sour and would rather see them by style. Oh well beggars cant be choosers

 

I prefer all the rarities be segregated into the "philbe311 only" section... I slay me... In all seriousness, I don't have a preference as long as there is some sort of organization (any of which you mention would be fine)... I like to be able to find something specific if I'm looking for it...

 

I've only been to TW once. The selection was beautiful, the arrangement was horrific.

 

Chaos. I love hunting.

 

I'm somewhat surprised by this. Then again, its BA.
I typically buy based on the style I want to consume, first. Once in the, say barleywine, section I will then scope the brewers. To me, going by brewery alphabetically is where some of the cool offerings by smaller and lesser known guys get missed. If I wanted to have several barleywines to try and they had a few from well known breweries that would be great, but showing me a couple other in the same style from smaller or more local guys would be awesome too.

 

Just like my record and book stores. Chaotic and spread out all over the place. I love to just get immersed in it all.

 

Alphabetically by Brewery, separated by Region

 

i don't like organization. i am an agent of chaos. i want to see the world burn.

 

autobiographically

 

My local shop categorizes by style, which becomes a pain if you're looking for something specific. Often times a beer won't fit into a specific style, and will get thrown somewhere that "kind of" fits.

 

I like when it's sorted by state/country because I'm currently trying to drink mainly California brews (at least as long as I live here). Although I will say it's always nice when a beer store puts all of the highly sought after/limited releases on the same shelf or in the same cooler; I don't want to sort through all of a brewery's offerings to find the release I'm looking for.

One thing I've never seen that I'm sure exists is a shelf only for seasonal releases. I'd imagine that would boost sales of seasonals as well; if people felt like they could only get a given beer during the current season they'd probably be more likely to purchase it.

 

my local shop does both: shelves are grouped by brewery, coolers are grouped by style

 

I look at everything so I guess I don't care. And lots of stores have a cold section separate from all the shelf beer. At the very least by country is best.

 

Total Wine used to organized by brewery and country, they still do that for imports, but for American craft they go by style, which makes it take a lot longer to find something from a particular brewery. For example when Boulevard came to town a couple months ago, instead of having their lineup all together so I could pick it up at once, I had to go through each style until I recognized the label, I guess this organization may be more helpful for noobs who know a style they like, but for a hardened BA, just go by brewery.