Best Craft Beer Store in Cottage Grove

In continuing with the second post for my "Best Craft Beer Store" series, I just traveled a little bit north of Hastings, to the city of Cottage Grove. I have friends that live there, so I was already familiar with a few of the local liquor stores. However, I decided to be thorough and visited a few of the main contenders in one evening, to refresh my memory. I had also heard great things about a store that I had not yet visited, so I needed to stop there. Good thing I did, because that store turned out to be the winner: Dennis Brothers Liquor.

Dennis Brothers is located on the back side (or east side) of Cottage Grove, in a strip mall just off the intersection of 70th Street and Keats Avenue. I call that the back side because it's far away from most of the other retail businesses, I rarely drive back there, and you can see open fields where the housing ends. In the strip mall, the store is situated towards the corner of the L-shaped building, right next to Subway. I'm going through all the trouble of describing where it's located for 2 reasons: 1) It's hard to find unless you're looking specifically for it, and 2) You need to make the trip there if you're a fan of quality beer!

The second I walked into the store, I couldn't believe my eyes. Why had I not been here before? There were shelves and shelves of spectacular imports and tasty American craft brews. It's not very often that I walk into a liquor store and see many beers I haven't tried before, but at Dennis Brothers, I hadn't tasted 75% of the beers on the first section of shelving! They definitely have a great selection.

As far as customer service is concerned, Dennis Brothers nailed that as well. In my awe of the number and variety of brews, I was looking over every bottle carefully. From the front counter, I heard man ask, "How are you doing over there, sir? You've been awfully quiet since you came in." It turned out to be Steve Dennis, one of the brothers that owns the store. He came over and started talking to me about beer and supporting local breweries and was even good enough to recommend a bottle to me. He told me they have over 700 varieties of beer and have been in business for 9 years. We must have chatted for an hour (it was a slow night because of crappy weather). All this from the brother who handles the wine and liquor. He said his brother would be the better one to talk to about beer...

It was getting close to closing time, so I finished making my selections and said goodbye to Steve and Dennis Brothers Liquor. After visiting some other stores that night, it was the perfect way to end the evening. I will definitely be going back for future visits.

If you're ever in the area of Cottage Grove and you're a big fan of delicious, quality beer, you owe it to yourself to visit Dennis Brothers Liquor, the Best Craft Beer Store in Cottage Grove.