One of Us

Don't judge a liquor store by its exterior.

I was in Ocean Beach yesterday visiting a good friend. We walked to People's Co-op to buy some groceries for dinner and then stopped into the OB Quik Stop on Voltaire at Bacon. I had wandered into this place once before when I was in the area and starving; while I was waiting for my sandwich to be made I checked out the refrigerated beer section and was quite impressed with their bomber selection and made a mental note to tell Reed. So yesterday I decided to stop in and find something nice to pair with dinner; I had wine in mind. There is a full aisle of floor to ceiling wine bottles, all of which looked lovely. However, when we rounded the corner into the beer aisle we found this, and any thought of wine disappeared.

750mls of Duchesse de Bourgogne! I've never seen these on sale before, and to find it next to the assorted nuts in an inauspicious shop in OB completely blew my mind. If you've never had the duchesse before, it's a red ale that gets the balance between fruity and sour exactly right. Needless to say we bought one (why just one I have no idea) and it paired quite excellently with our gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade coconut chipotle corn chowder.
Apparently I am not the only one to notice the excellent selection here, as it has its own entry on Beer Advocate. Below is a quick picture I took of some of the bomber selection, as you can see lots of local breweries are represented. There are of course the standard MGDs and Bud Lights, but the shelf space taken up by macrobrews is the least I've ever seen anywhere.

As they say, everything we really need to know we learned in kindergarten. Don't judge a book by its cover. You'd never know this convenience store from any other just by pulling into the parking lot but the treasures that wait in its beer selection are really quite amazing, and a great find. I will definitely be back - especially since I just looked them up on Twitter and most of their tweets announce sales of 50% off wine and 22oz beers, sweet!