NYC Bottle Shops

Doing a search of the board will help a lot, but the first two that come to mind are Top Hops and Good Beer. They're both in lower Manhattan (south of 14th St.) and pretty accessible from Midtown if that's where you'll be.

 

Top Hops
Good Beer
Beer Culture (Hell's Kitchen area)
Whole Foods Bowery (best of the WF in NYC if you ask me)

 

Forgot about WF Bowery, duh.

In fact, if you make a path starting at Good Beer, you can hit there, then WF Bowery, then New Beer, then Top Hops all via walking.

 

This is the way to go. If you want to walk less, cut out Good Beer. Plenty of good beer to drink along the way as well.

 

WFs on Houston is my favorite spot too, but be careful with the beers in the corner (Houston/Chrystie) window. That corner of the store baths in the sunlight and the beers in that corner pay the price. Mentioned it to the employees several times, they could care less.

A sleeper spot is Met Foods up on 2nd Ave between 6th and 7th. This is where I get my Zywiec Porter for $2.19 per bottle, ZP is excellent.

 

Yes, definitely hit up One Mile House on Delancey. Great place.

 

Top Hops, Good Beer, City Swiggers

 

To elaborate on my other post -

This is a really great trek. If you want variety and less marathon, taking the F train to Delancey and hitting Top Hops - New Beer - Whole Foods... and then catching the F at 2nd Ave is a really great shopping trip. You'll experience a boutique, a warehouse, and a chain supermarket. The catch is figuring out how to limit your purchases so as not to carry so much beer around with you.

If you want to just pick one place from these -
Top Hops if you want to drink while you shop. New Beer if you want access to lots of imports that you won't find anywhere else (that are dying on the shelves - but that's not a knock). Whole Foods if you want six packs / 22s / imports. Good Beer if you want singles.

On my more recent trips, I bought more at Good Beer than the other places, but I've spent good money at all of 'em.

 

Top Hops is an interesting place. I like it, but like other *destination* places it's unlikely you'll find gems there. it's the first place people go when a KBS or BCBS variant comes to town so it's pretty bad for really limited stuff. but they have a solid selection of basic stuff there.

 

New Beer isn't really temperature controlled, sells old product, and engaged in super shady stuff.

 

Check out ABC Beer Co on 6th street and Ave C. Extremely competitive prices (for NYC)

 

Bruekelen Bier Merchants is only one stop on the L train outside of Manhattan in Williamsburg.

In fact you can hop on the L train 5 blocks away from Good Beer.

 

Used this information today. Whole Foods was great. New Beer was OK. Great selection. A lot of stuff that was very old and I saw a BCBS and a 2012 BCBCS for $15 and $50.

Total Hops was great. A very friendly guy named Eric was working the bar.

Went to Blind Tiger on Blecker and it was great. The sister bar to one of my favorites in VT, The Worthy Burger

 

Yeah, I saw that vintage bomber of BCBCS. I can't imagine the coffee held up well. And you can find BCBS all over Westchester for around $25 a 4-pack, so don't waste your time in the city.

Top Hops is fun, because they usually have a nice tap list. Also, they have all these rare empty bottles decorating the store.

 

And, as much as I've defended them in the past (which Franch can attest to), a recent visit yielded prices that were average at best and extremely high at the extreme, including selling 2012 BCBS for $16 and FW15 for $45. Even newer-released stuff didn't really demonstrate any value, given the less-than-ideal storage conditions.

On a side note, the sad truth is that Westchester is becoming the ideal shopping location in the area - they seem to more regularly get a wider variety of product, and there isn't as great a dog-eat-dog mentality to seeking out rarer beers.

 

There was a case and a half of BCBS at the back of Top Hops buried under other cases of beer. I think I saw some at New Beer too

 

Yes, yes, but very expensive, like $15 a bottle. I should have said "don't waste your money in the city."

 

Wow $50?? Haha a few months ago the woman in the front offered it to me for $35.

 

Yes but now it's "vintage" and "cellared." Smooths out all those harsh bourbon and coffee notes.