France 44 Wines & Spirits

DrDoitchbig

Michigan

4.6/5  rDev +12.5%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4.5 | $$

This review is based on my experiences ordering beer from France 44's website.

This was my first time ordering anything from the internet. It was their selection that made me finally bite. To my knowledge this is the only place you can order Surly online. I personally ordered a 4-pack each of Wet, Furious and Cynic Ale. They basically carry every Surly selection that's available. In addition to that they have Odell, Deschutes, Boulevard and few others that I can't get in Michigan.

I'll tie the service and quality into one here. I placed my order on Halloween which was a Monday. The promptly had my order shipped the next day and I received it on Friday, November 4th. You can't really ask for any better than that with ground shipping. Here's what secured me as a repeat customer. As I said I received the package on 11/4. My 4-pack of Surly Wet was canned the day I placed the order. I can't even get Bell's that fresh! In addition to this the Furious and Cynic Ale were less than a month old.

Their prices seemed to be very reasonable to me. A couple things here and there were maybe a dollar or two more expensive then I would expect but this is balanced out by their shipping costs. There is basically no mark up on the shipping, no packaging/handling costs either. I would not hesitate to place another order with France 44.

11-22-2011 16:17:20 | More by DrDoitchbig

mrcraft

California

4.43/5  rDev +8.3%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.25 | service: 5 | selection: 4.25 | $$

I ordered a 4-pack of Abrasive and Furious online late Thursday. I live in California, so I was okay with shipping rates to try these two high quality beers. What I didn't expect was service that went beyond my expectations. Based on my experience with other online beer purchases, I expected my package to be shipped sometime the following week. No, it was shipped the very next day on
Friday!! And, I received the beers four business days later.

I received my shipment today, and I am thrilled. Both Abrasive and Furious are really fresh.

I will not hesitate to order from France 44 again, if they carry beers that I can't easily get my hands on in California.

Very happy customer.

02-15-2013 01:25:24 | More by mrcraft

OriginalMnBeerGuy

4.44/5  rDev +8.6%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 5 | selection: 4 | $$

First off - this place is in Edina not Minneapolis so whoever created this place at first is wrong.

I love this place. One of the best bottle shops in the Twin Cities for beer. The staff is extremely friendly, like crazy nice and spend time with you and are completely unpretentious, and they have a nice selection. They get all of the rare releases and are always in the rare group of stores in the Twin Cities to get the really amazing beers first before anyone else. You can order beer and liquor and they will call you when it's in. This is a great place. I know Edina typically has a fairly stuck-up reputation but this is a very good store and I highly recommend stopping in.

10-16-2012 23:09:25 | More by OriginalMnBeerGuy

mwrecording

Maryland

4.45/5  rDev +8.8%
vibe: 3 | quality: 4.5 | service: 5 | selection: 4.5 | $$

If the score drops low on this one its only because I rated the appearance average, since this was an online purchase.

I put in an order on Saturday for a six pack of Two Hearted, 4 pack of Surly Furious and a bottle of Collage.

Order came Thursday, shipping was fair and probably only slightly more than it actually cost them to ship this.

Box was packed very well, my six pack of Two Hearted turned into a six pack of Deschute's Inversion. I am now elated that this happened because I would've never tried Inversion otherwise living in Maryland. It was excellent but either way, I messaged Carin who handles their online orders and she told me to enjoy the Inversion and shipped me out a six pack of Two Hearted free of charge that'll be here Tuesday. Great service.

I'm incredibly happy to have found this store because I can now get myself Bells/Founders/Deschutes AND SURLY beers whenever I want from the comfort of my home.

Bonus points? Yes. The Surly 4 pack I got was canned on 5/29/2012

06-09-2012 02:25:40 | More by mwrecording

morimech

Minnesota

4.19/5  rDev +2.4%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 3.5 | selection: 4 | $$

A clean, spacious store with an ajoining cheese shop/deli that may be worth checking out in forthcoming visits. All the beer is kept in the cooler and most of the domestic craft located in a walk-in cooler. Not exactly the best enviroment to look around but you know the beer has been stored correctly. Not the most extensive selection as it is surpassed by many stores in the metro. Did not see any employees helping customers but they were friendly and helpful at checkout. Prices are at or just barely above the cities prices. Good store for the neighborhood, but not really a destination store.

06-02-2012 21:08:34 | More by morimech

Rickythejeweler

Maryland

4.86/5  rDev +18.8%
vibe: 5 | quality: 5 | service: 5 | selection: 4.5 | $$

I just ordered 2 Mikkeller Weasel Calvados and 1 Mikkeller Black Buffalo from France 44's online shop. I had an easy time navigating through the site. Once I placed the order they were very good about emailing me progress and it arrived in 3 days, which is pretty fast since I live in Maryland. The shipping was pretty reasonable and the prices of the beers were the cheapest for any online sourrce I could find. Overall my experience was excellent and I will definately be shopping at France 44 online again!

05-12-2012 00:24:28 | More by Rickythejeweler

sevenarts

New York

4.88/5  rDev +19.3%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 5 | selection: 5 | $$$

I've only had experience with France 44 by placing orders online on their website. This is a fantastic online shop for getting brands I can't get in my area, like Bell's, Surly and Deschutes. I placed an order and everything got here a week later, beautifully packaged to make sure that everything gets here safely and intact. Everything's very fresh, too.

The price is perhaps a bit high with shipping, but that's to be expected, and in fact they're much more reasonable with shipping costs than most other online shops I've seen.

Online ordering isn't something I'll do too often, but now I've found a great shop for when I want these brands that don't normally get distributed to my area.

04-06-2012 15:44:56 | More by sevenarts

jsprain1

Minnesota

4.14/5  rDev +1.2%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4 | $$

A- A big, fairly spacious place. Coolers of beer in back right, with a fairly large portion of the beer in a walk in cooler.
Q- All the beer except the mix a six beers are in coolers. This is a bit more of a wine store than a beer one, but there seems to be a good amount of care dedicate to beer.
Ser- Friendly, quick, knowledgable.
Sel- Selection is a step behind Four Firkins or Zipp's but still pretty solid. American bomber selection is strong. A pretty strong quantity of regional beers.
Prices on bombers are quite reasonable. The rest of their selection is average or a dollar above.

11-12-2011 20:43:33 | More by jsprain1

nh2032

New York

4.55/5  rDev +11.2%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 5 | selection: 5 | $$

Online only review. I have placed several online orders and have never had an issue. Great selection - most often I'm ordering some combination of Surly, Deschutes, and Odell, but they also have a lot of other midwest brewers. Offerings aren't just the standards either - they had Surly 5 available for a while, Surly Wet, Deschutes Stoic, etc...

Customer service is the real standout though. On my last order they mistakenly had a 12-pack listed online that wasn't in stock. Instead of just removing this from my order as I've had other stores do, they agreed to send it to me with free shipping when it actually came in.

Prices and shipping costs are both very reasonable.

10-28-2011 00:31:06 | More by nh2032

bigfnjoe

Pennsylvania

4.28/5  rDev +4.6%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4.5 | $$

I've ordered just off of their online store, so this is going to reflect that. The site is organized very well, and they have a ton of beer I cannot get in PA (Surly, Goose Island, Deschutes, etc). Prices are about standard for the product...paid 8.49 for a sixer of Black Butte, 16.99 for Surly Wet, 8.99 for Surly Cynic, 19.99 for Surly Five...nothing egregious. Customer service is great, with multiple emails sent on the status of my order from both France44 and UPS. On my most recent order, I actually got an extra bottle with a sticker that said "this one's on us" on it....really cool. Shipping costs are very reasonable....22 bucks for eight cans and ten bottles seems fine, with everything enclosed in a bottle shipper with brown paper in abundance in the box. Another order I got from them featured my order wrapped in a ton of bubble wrap with packing peanuts in the box. Excellent web shop, would recommend.

10-16-2011 15:16:27 | More by bigfnjoe