I'm travelling to Northampton, MA next weekend and would like to know the place with the widest selections. Specifically looking to score some of the Clown Shoes beers.
Liquors 44 has a good/large selection but your biggest selection by far will be 15-20 min south at Table & Vine in W. Springfield. It's just a couple hundred yards off I-91
There's also The Beer Shop in East Longmeadow which is alittle bit out of the way but carries alot of beer. I'm a little biased since I work there but its a great little shop that sells everything that we have in singles so you can mix and match everything in the store. We carry tons of stuff like Singlecut and Nightshift but for Clown shoes in particular we have Space Cake, Exorcism of Rachel Wall, Bluegrass Billionaire, Galactica, Luchador Enfuego, Mexican Sombrero, The Barista, Blaecorn Unidragon, Undead Party Crasher, Clementine,Flight Of the Angry Beast, and Amandine Exorcism. If you stop by ask for Matt and Id be glad to help you out.
The good folks at provisions will take care you. Great friendly store with excellent selection in noho.
I'd recommend Provisions or Liquors 44. It's true you'll have more selection at Table & Vine, but it's not like that necessarily means you'll find anything "better". A stone's-throw away in Easthampton, there are three great breweries. Abandoned Building has a top-notch saison and a couple good pale ales. Two doors over, there's New City, which I'm less familiar with, but is always packed. And down the road by about a mile is Fort Hill that does a handful of traditional lagers with a couple new IPL-type things. These days they also have a hefeweizen on that's one of my top beers this year. Unfiltered and traditional - very yeast-driven like a good hefeweizen should be.
Don't let the secret out but Coopers in Florence is your best bet. They just had the new Clown Shoes stout. You can follow them on Facebook and they are pretty good with updates. Just don't tell your friends...
If you want Clown Shoes, you'd be wasting your time going anywhere other than Coopers Corner in Florence. Like others have said, other stores might have more "selection" of beer overall, but the quality at Coopers can't be beat, plus it's only a couple of minutes from downtown Northampton.
Thanks to all those who sent their suggestions. Visited both Coopers Corner and Provisions. Picked up 3 bottles of CS Exorcism of Rachel Wall, Luchador en Fuego, a bottle of Big Bad Baptist, and 2 bottles of one of my faves that I can never find in Philly: World Wide Stout. A very productive weekend!!
