North Carolina to Phoenix

Double Jack is 100 trillion times better than Union Jack.

Just sayin'

 

Oh, and to answer your question... I don't think any of these are available in bottles (that's weird, right?) but the best local DIPAs in AZ are, in order...


Sarcosuchus ... Dragoon (Tucson)
Fuck You in the Mouth... Cartel Coffee (Tempe)
Fate Imperial IPA... Fate Brewery (Scottsdale)
Double Knot... Four Peaks (Tempe)
Sophomoric Imperial IPA ... Arizona Wilderness (Gilbert)

Also, I would put a big gap between the top 3 and 4-5.

 

Fuck you in the mouth? That's awesome! Haven't seen that.

To go off Arizona Wilderness..
-Refuge IPA
Dos Cabezas IPA

Do you get Bear Republic there? Snagging a few of the Racer 5's would not be a bad idea.

 

Racer 5: C+
Racer X: A-

 

Four Peaks Hop Knot, Lumberyard IPA, Huss IPA, Hess IPA, Marble IPA, Ska Modus Hoperandi, Breckenridge 471, Great Divide Titan, Port Wipeout, and growler fills of Alpine Nelson and Sun Up IPA to name just a few.

 

Are they driving? If so, all of those are widely distributed in Texas.

 

Not sure what is/isn’t available where you’re from. However, I would recommend stopping by a Total Wine while you’re here. They have close to a thousand beers to choose from and the staff is very helpful. Each beer class is broken down even. There locations are scattered throughout the valley. While you’re here I would recommend also hitting something like a world of beer restaurant before you make your haul. This restaurant has probably 500+ beers between taps and bottles. They have at least 50 taps running at one time with almost any of the local beers you want to try somewhere in there. I would recommend going with your buds and getting multiple different samplers and then hitting total wine to pick up your favorites. Also hit some of the new breweries that don’t bottle but have great stuff like gilberts wilderness brewery.

Hope this helps!

 

The guy wants IPA's. I would avoid Total Wine at all cost unless you are buying canned beer. Most of the beer at Total Wine is not refrigerated and it is left out on store shelves warm and exposed to light which is the #1 enemy of hoppy beers. Go to someplace like Papago that keeps all the beer cold and behind UV protected windows if you care about quality. I'd also recommend going to the Sun Devil basement, Tops or GCM and picking out cold stored beer over Total Wine.

 

I totally agree with you for people who live in AZ and need a place to shop for beer. I do A LOT of shopping at GCM for example. However, the reason I think total wine is best for him is that I assume he wants to bring some back home. If he doesn’t, I recommend what you said. However, if he does want to transport them, having them warm, not chilled, is more of a benefit than dealing with the hassle of keeping them cold throughout transport. Additionally, Total wine has one of the best beer selections in the Valley, so if it isn’t there, it probably isn’t in the valley (obviously there are always exceptions). Total wine also allows him to try more beers than he would normally even if the beer isn’t stored at its prime. There’s a give and take to just about every choice.

 

Only recommendation I would have....visit the WF in Chandler and fill one of their 32oz cans with a tap offering to toke home......nice selection of limited brews....

 

What??? The places I mentioned all sell beer to go and have mixed 6 pack pricing. As far as trying beers he cannot try beers at Total Wine but he can at Papago, Tops and Sun Devil and if these places don't have the beer he is looking for than neither will Total Wine have it. These places all get their fair share of allocated beer. Plus the money spent there stays with local owners and doesn't go out of state and goes to places that treat the product better than Total Wine does.

 

I love Tops, but I'd hardly suggest the beer there gets treated any better than TW. Same with GCM. True enough, they probably have somewhat more sixers in coolers, but all of the shops mentioned keep the majority of their product on warm shelves. Hell, in the case of Tops and GCM, those shelves are perilously close to front doors that are often wide open this time of year, with a heck of a lot of light streaming in. Now, I'd still patronize them over TW, but it's not like they're immune from warm storage issues.

 

Papago keeps 100% of the beer in coolers, which is just one of the reasons I suggest them over Total Wine. They also do not overbuy and have beer sitting around on the shelves gathering dust and their prices are more than fair and often even cheaper than Total Wine. Plus they have 30 taps and are great beer ambassadors for the state. Same beer-same price and not exposed to light and kept cold. I get it that if a beer is a new arrival a couple of days on a store shelf wont hurt it much but you have no idea how long most beers have been on the shelves in stores exposed to light and warmth. At Sun Devil I go downstairs to pick out my beer, its all in coolers down there.

 

Yeah, I purposely didn't include Papago because they do cold store everything (which is rad). Re: dating, I think the huge variety of stuff on shelves these days increases the chance of finding less-than-fresh beer. I check bottle codes wherever I shop, whether that's a local mom and pops spot or a major chain (as I've been burned by both with OOC bottles).

Like I said, I'd choose mom and pop over TW in most cases, too. I just think people need to be honest/realistic about the benefits. In many cases, mom and pop still deal with the same storage issues chains do -- warm shelves, OOC beer, etc. The difference is that at least the cash stays local.

 

All else being equal, there's another way to look at benefits of "local" vs. "chain" on the area economy.

-- Say "LOCAL" store - the "mom & pop" - has ~5 or 6 employees (full and part time) who live and work in that community.
-- Say a large "CHAIN" store, just one of their store locations, has ~30 to 40 employees (full time and part time) who live and work in that community.

Q: Which store is contributing more payroll dollars into the area (local) economy, which are then spent in the local economy?

And on a broader level, which one is therefore contributing more to the U.S economy and federal tax coffers overall?

Other areas of the beer business to consider include:
-- Where does the product (beer) you're buying come from? Doesn't it come from all over the country (and perhaps world), and thus most of it's not brewed by local businesses? Unless buying ONLY locally produced beer, one is not supporting "local" with most beers, even if bought at the "mom & pop".
-- And this beer that both the "local" and the "chain" stores carry comes from a middle man -- a distributor business -- which in many cases is the area operation of a large national corporation that owns and operates alcohol distributor operations all over the country. Not supporting "local" in that case, and this applies to MANY (most) beers.

I DO get the "local" thing entirely, and by choice I also support local businesses, such as the local hardware store, local restaurants, etc. in the town I live in whenever I can. But I also know that by shopping in stores in my community, whether one-off "mom & pops" or franchises or chains, I'm supporting local residents who have JOBS in these businesses, and they in turn spend their money in my community.

Capitalism has many benefits on all ends of the spectrum.

Respect Beer.

 

That's all fine and good but another thing to consider, especially here in Arizona is that it was but a handful of locals, Sun Devil, Tops, and Papago, these three most notably led the craft beer charge here in this state. We would not have Cellars, GCM, Magnums, etc or the chain stores like Total Wine or Bevmo really if these three didn't push the distributors to bring in craft beer and help create the market here. These three and now a number of other fine bottle shops like GCM, etc do it clearly not just for the money but because beer is their passion. I cannot say that the owners of Total Wine or Bevmo are passionate about beer. To them it seems like beer is just another SKU that they can put on their shelves and a product which they clearly have no respect for as do the small local independents.

 

Hello BigBelcher,
Fully understanding and appreciating your point of view as well as the history relating to the local stores you name, and their being on the forefront of carrying craft beer in the PHX market, there is a history with the owners of Total Wine & More that you may not be aware of that disproves your follow-on comments regarding craft beer, passion, and respect.

Total Wine & More has been selling craft beer since before craft beer was called "craft beer". Literally. What is today called Total Wine & More began in 1984 with a single beer store (yes, beer only) in Pennsylvania. The private owners carried every beer they could get in the market, including all "micro beers" then available. Beer, beer, and beer only was their life, growing to multiple beer stores in PA, until the early '90's when they expanded into Delaware and could also sell wine and spirits.

In Delaware in the mid '90's, a young guy named Sam Calagione was welcomed into the store to set up a table and peddle to customers his funky, weird beers that he was beginning to bottle. See, there was a relationship with Sam because a few years prior the owners of Total Wine had met with Sam and put him in contact with their lawyers (who were familiar with navigating the alcohol laws in DE) so Sam could get his brewpub open. Sam at Dogfish Head and the owners of Total Wine have seen their respective companies grow ever since.

Beer has always been in the DNA of Total Wine, and there are plenty of other stories including the TW owners continued investment in craft beer by spending their own money on legal counsel and lobbyists in both North and South Carolina (independently) to get the "cap" on beer ABV raised so that stores in those states could sell the beers that you and I take for granted on a daily basis. This was the mid 2000's! With ABV caps in the area of 6% in these states, most craft beers couldn't be sold. Total Wine & More...advocating for beer and putting their money where their mouth is.

Kudos to Tops/Sun Devil, which is also family owned and started in the early '80's...similarities there with family ownership and an early '80's start, and their passion for beer is awesome. Papago; TW happily carries their beer and I'd presume they're happy to have TW carry it. Symbiotic, and again awesome they've been out front of the craft beer charge in PHX since 2001.

At the end of the day it's consumers who win by having more choices and more options for purchasing beer. Craft breweries win by having more outlets to carry their beers, and therefore more opportunities for their products to be seen by more consumers.

Competition is good; the existence of great stores such as Tops/Sun Devil make Total Wine have to continue to improve and be the best it can be. The same holds true the other way around. All the while, both types of stores can co-exist and be successful.

So, that's the way I look at it. Sure, I'm biased, but I'm also a craft beer enthusiast and consumer, and I like having beer shopping options.

Cheers,
Rob