Big and little, common and remote, colorful and camouflaged. Is this a column about animals? No! This is a column about the bottle shops of Madison, a wild kingdom indeed.
I’ve already given you the tale of two bottle shops — Alpine and City View — and how the latter moved into the former’s shell, à la the majestic hermit crab. (Things didn’t turn out so well for Alpine’s Oregon store; it closed abruptly in early June.)
Back in April, I promised that I’d talk more about my favorite shops in a future column. The future is now, my friends.
Bottle shops are, for me, a lot like coffee shops. I hit some more than others, depending on my typical traffic patterns, but I have no overriding loyalty to any one store. If the selection is good, or the price is good, or it’s just close to wherever I am at the time, I’ll check it out.
The little guys won’t like that I’m mentioning the big guys first, but let’s address the 800-pound gorilla: Woodman’s. It’s such a big company and moves so much product, that I’ve listened to more than one small beer retailer complain about the way Woodman’s skews local distribution of high-demand beers like KBS.
Of the three, I prefer Woodman’s Sun Prairie for the favorable combination of parking, selection and remoteness. All of those work in the customer’s favor for “chase” beers. West and East are fine, and they’re all more or less alike for everyday beers. Grocery stores are otherwise typically best for quotidian beers — your macros and Spotted Cows and Mike’s Hard Lemonades and whatnot.
Little Jenifer Street Market, my favorite old-school neighborhood grocer, punches way over its weight compared to Woodman’s and HyVee and other big grocery stores. If you’re a current or recently graduated student, get out and discover what the residential east side is hiding. Almost every bottle in the tucked-away beer walk-in is cold, and you’ll find both standby beers and limited releases. Jenifer Street also has solid tweet game, regularly posting new arrivals alongside the day’s hot bar lunch specials.
Star Liquor on Williamson has a tendency to put out its rare stuff in the middle of weekday mornings, so be prepared to come up short by 5 p.m. Keep an eye on its Twitter page all the same. Trixie’s on East Washington has been very accommodating about putting people on waitlists for desirable beer. As long as you’re okay giving your phone number, you can stop fretting about when the new Toppling Goliath drop might happen.
The Harley’s shops are home to small selections but the occasional unexpected find. Unlike the aforementioned stores, which are typically first-come, first-served on limited beers, Harley’s likes to play a little coy. You may at times be asked to reach a certain dollar amount of purchase before you’re eligible to purchase a single bottle of KBS, for example. Word to the wise: The main Atwood shop is better for limited releases than the Cottage Grove Road location.
Another great shop — and I’m kicking myself, giving up the goods like this — that definitely can sniff out the randos from the regulars is Sadhana at 36 S. Bassett St. It has a decent selection of regular beer (and an even better selection of pricey, highly desirable whiskeys and bourbons). Build up your cache with the boss there, show that you’re not just there for the Bourbon County Stout, and you’ll be rewarded when the time comes for whale hunting.
When you’ve gone from whale hunting to full Ahab mode, though, you’ll want to safari outside the greater Madison area. Put the following locations on your map, but realize that these places are used to (and probably a little tired of) us Madisonians trolling their waters for beery riches: Trollway Liquor in Mount Horeb, Village Liquor in Cottage Grove, Stoughton Spirits and McFarland Liquor.
You don’t have the time to hunt but you want a shot at big game? You’d better get yourself on the Riley’s email list. It’s been a little quiet lately, but when the unicorns come to town — Abraxas, Assassin, other rare beers that don’t start with A — Riley’s will typically hold its stock for a lottery drawing, send out a link, and all you have to do is click one button to enter. Good Twitter here, too.
The Steve’s shops, with independent locations on University Avenue and Junction Road in Madison and McKee Road in Fitchburg, are a little microbiome version of the Madison-area bottle shop scene. They all have good regular selections. University handles chase beers with minimal fanfare; they’re in, they’re up for sale, they’re gone. Junction and McKee both usually do lotteries of one kind or another, typically requiring in-person registration sign-up. And if you’re a fan of European beers like Tilquin or Mikkeller, these are your shops.
If you want a lottery, you can get lotteries in Madison. Want to be treated like a regular if you show loyalty? You can get that too. Don’t need any frills? Absolutely, there are low-key shops. There’s very little price-gouging in this scene. Friendlier than the average bears, our bottle shops.
And there are still more out there than I’ve covered here. Chime in on Twitter with your favorite beer retailer, and use the hashtag #twocentpint.
