Huge store with a nice beer selection and some of the best prices anywhere. Warehouse style setup with plenty of singles available as well as some harder to find beers like Brandy Barrel Angels Share ($26/750ml). Not much of the beer was kept refrigerated, so I wondered a bit about some of the freshness of the beer, but if their turnaround is high enough it shouldn’t be a problem. Definitely worth stopping in if you are nearby.

The latest place for Orange County beer geeks to shop. Very good selection of Orange and San Diego county brews. Huge, clean, upscale store with very reasonable prices for the area. I hit this place first, then run down to Hi Time.

I went to Whole Foods so I figured I would stop here as well as it’s just back on the other side of the 5. Large warehouse type store, tons of liquor and wine to go along with two aisles of beer. Pretty good selection of six-packs on one aisle, but the singles aisle is where this place really shines. I ended up getting way more than I anticipated buying, Black Butte XXI, Consecration, Lips of Faith Biere De Mars, Ten Fidy, Victory Storm King, and another Old Rasputin XII. Besides having a pretty impressive selection, the prices here are great. The Consecration was $19 and the OR XII was $18.50, for example. They also had Mirror Mirror for $10. While they do have a great selection and good prices, the service was definitely lacking. I do not really need much when it comes to buying beer, but the only human interaction I had in the store was answering a question of a family that was also in the beer aisle and then when paying for my items.

Nice looking store with a pretty darn good selection. They must use a chain based distributor, because they have stuff I haven’t seen elsewhere on the west coast - RJ Rockers, etc. Prices are good, not great, and don’t expect to land a whale here, but its a good place to shop.