I'm going to be heading to Tucson in a couple of weeks and wanted to ask for recommendations for good regional beers that are generally readily available at bottle shops this month. I particularly like stouts, porters and Belgian-style ales. Not such a fan of IPAs. Also, if anyone wants to suggest any bottle shops, I'd appreciate it. I'll be staying just about 5 miles east of UA's campus. Cheers.
Just southwest of the campus is Tap & Bottle which easily has the best selection of beer in town. Great bar too with an excellent tap selection. Dragoon is the best brewery in town and possibly in the whole state and they make excellent stouts, porters, English Dark Milds and Belgians, so essentially everything you're looking for, but they don't package their beers. Tap & Bottle will probably have something from them on tap though. Otherwise you'll have to trek over to the brewery.
Tap & Bottle and Plaza Liquor are your best bets for bottles. Tap & Bottle also fills growlers. Total Wine has a big selection (and cool growler fill station). Bevmo is terrible.
I used to always stop at Rum Runner, and I think it's relatively close to campus. It's a smaller spot, but I found some gems there on occasion. This was 6 years or so ago. AJ's Finer Foods was also a favorite of mine.
Most Tucson breweries are still draft only, but there's some great dark beers such as Dragoon Scout Porter, Ten55 EXO coffee stout, and Pueblo Vida American Stout. Beast Brewing from Bisbee also makes good dark beers, and if you see Sandman Pecan Porter, it's definitely worth a try. In addition to the recommendations above 1702 is a great pizza place with 40 plus taps, and a bottle shop with limited hours. The Whole Foods on River is also a decent place for bottles and a great draft selection. As far as packaged stuff... You should be able to find Borderlands Noche Dulce vanilla porter in cans. From Phoenix area, you should be able to find SanTan cans of Sex Panther chocolate porter or Mad Czar, imperial stout. That's about it as far as local breweries with darker offerings.
I checked at Total Wine here in PHX and still no Mad Czar there.. very disappointing. They still have a bunch of the Winter Warmers (sooooooo good) They do have it at Papago Brewing Co. though on tap. I can't wait to try it again!
I lived about a 4 minute walk from Plaza liquors when I was going to U of A. Great bottle selection from what I remember (was about 9 years ago).
From all the suggestions and checking the web, Total Wine and Plaza Liquors look like definite stops while there.
