You’ve got your home bar, you’ve got friends coming over this weekend, and you need someplace to keep all the beer cold. You need a good man cave fridge to keep the brews cold.
No one wants to give up room in the food fridge for all that beer (well maybe you do), so you need a quality beer fridge you can keep right in the home bar. I also tend to prefer bottled beers over cans of beer. Just a personal preference but I am sure some of you share that preference.
I’m no fridge expert, so I did some research on my own. These are the results and how I ended up choosing the best mini fridge for beer bottles.
If you don’t care about the selection criteria or the runner ups, then let’s cut right to the chase. The Danby DBC120BLS Mini Beverage Center is the best mini fridge for beer bottles that we could find. It combines all the features you need with a style that will look great in any home bar.
You can see my detailed review along with some other options below…
Contents
What To Look For In A Beer Bottle Fridge
If you’re like me, you knew very little about choosing a beer fridge until you actually decided you wanted one.
So I set out to do some research and find out what matters most when choosing a mini-fridge to keep my beer cold. In hopes of saving you some time bouncing around from website to website, I’ll share some of the things I’ve learned as well as the things I found to be a big factor when choosing the best one.
If I missed anything that you think is important, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to add your insights to this page.
Also, remember that not all your guests drink beer, so check out our guide on the Best Margarita Machines.
Temperature Control
Depending on what kind of beer you like, how cold you like it, and whether you plan on using the fridge for anything other than beer can all change what temperature you need at any given time. Even if you are using it exclusively for beer, keep in mind that different kinds of beers have different ideal temperatures.
So an adjustable temperature control is a necessity. Also, you should consider picking up a thermometer to keep in the fridge to confirm the temperature. The thermostats in smaller fridges are notoriously spotty, even the good ones. It’s always a good idea to have a backup to check.
Storage Capacity
You came here looking for a fridge that can easily store beer bottles for you, so of course storage capacity is the most important characteristic to consider.
But when it comes to beer bottles, there is more than just size. What makes a mini-fridge work for beer bottles is making sure each shelf has the height to safely store bottles standing up.
You don’t want to lay the bottles down. First, you just can’t fit as many that way. Second, they will tend to roll around and a shaken beer bottle is not helpful to anyone (especially you if it’s your home). So the choices below have enough height on each shelf to let you stand up the bottles and enough capacity to satisfy your party needs.
Versatility/Movable Shelves
Have you ever tried to fit a larger bottle or something out of the ordinary into a mini-fridge?
If the shelves aren’t movable then it can be near impossible.
At some point in time, you are going to need to use the fridge for something other than beer bottles. Or you may find a beer you love that has larger than normal bottles or odd-shaped bottles. Either way, versatility is important.
Appearance
If you are hosting a party at your home bar then your man cave beer fridge needs to look good.
Though probably the least most important factor in choosing a mini-fridge, looks matter. Full disclosure, I am quite fond of the glass door on beer and wine fridges. In addition to looking cool, they let you see what’s in there before opening so you can quickly grab your selection without leaving the door open.
That being said there are plenty of non-glass mini-fridges that also look good. So in the reviews below, I’ll try to touch on the style pros and cons of each option.
Best Overall
Danby DBC120BLS Mini Beverage Center
The Danby DBC120BLS checks all the boxes for me. It has all the features I needed, it has great temperature control, is versatile enough to fit other types of drinks, has a great capacity, and looks great.
Danby got all the little things right with this fridge. The shelves are wire but the wires are closer together than many others. That is exactly what you need if you want to keep beer bottles in here. If you stand them up, this will prevent them from tipping and if you lay them down, this makes it easier to have them laying close to each other so they wont shift when you take one from a row.
Check out the latest price by CLICKING HERE.
The blue light, while not an important feature, is kinda cool. This is most likely the fridge that would be behind your home bar or kept in the party room, so having it lit up like this looks great and lets everyone know where the drinks are.
One feature that I never thought I would care about is the ability to lock the door. Of course it’s always open when I have guests over, but if you have kids at home, a lock can be useful. I’m sure a determined teenager can break the lock if they really wanted to, but at least then you would know they were in there. This might also be useful if you have some expensive bottles that you want to keep chilled but don’t necessarily want anyone to grab during a party.
While we are talking about the door, you can switch how it opens. In the standard setup, it opens to the left (as do most mini-fridges). However, you can switch it to open from the other side. If you just have the fridge sitting out somewhere, this may seem like no big deal, but if you ever tried to incorporate a mini-fridge into a bar (especially a home built bar) then you know that the ability to switch the way the door opens can be a lifesaver!
Temperature Control
This fridge has a mechanical thermostat can be programmed from anywhere between 6°C and 14°C (43°F and 57°F). This is all the range I really need for drinks. There is no freezer section for ice but that is not really the purpose. Plus, adding a freezer section always seems to make the temperature colder in some parts of the fridge than others. So you end up with ice chips in the beer at the top. From what I can tell with a thermometer, the temperature is relatively consistent throughout.
Some buyers have reported some variance in the calibration of the thermostat adjustment knob. This would result in the fridge not getting cold enough even with the knob on its coldest setting. This happens with a lot of mini-fridges and you can always return it to get one that is better calibrated. But if you are more of a DIY person then save the hassle of returning it and keep reading…
EXPERT HACK: (1) Find the thermostat on the back upper left corner of the unit. (2) Set the dial to the middle and remove the knob. (3) Remove the cover of the thermostat by removing all 4 screws. (4) Locate the small phillps head screw on the left side of the control module and turn it counter-clockwise about 3 or 4 full turns. (5) Let it sit for a while and check the temperature. Adjust as needed (around 45° Fahrenheit or 7° Celsius is great for most beers).
Features
- 3.3 cu. ft.(120 Can) capacity
- Temperature range of 6°C – 14°C (43°F – 57°F)
- Keep beverages frosty with the easily accessible mechanical thermostat.
- No tip wire shelf – tight knit shelf wires keep beverages standing upright
- Smudge resistant stainless steel door frame on black cabinet
- Tempered glass door with stainless steel trim
- Recessed side mount door handle
- Integrated lock with key
- Energy efficient and long lasting blue LED light illuminates the interior
- Seamless pocket door handle and convenient reversible door swing
Capacity
The listed capacity is 120 cans, but you came here because you wanted a fridge that holds bottles. For this, it really depends on how you want to arrange the shelves. That is actually what I liked best about this fridge. You have a lot of flexibility with the shelves.
I prefer to have the bottles standing up. I was able to fit about 25 bottles standing on one shelf comfortably. More if I wasn’t worried about them getting too close to the front end. If I made all the shelves high enough to fit standing bottles, that gave me three shelves for a grand total of 75 bottles. I’m sure someone out there is more creative than me and can devise a way to fit way more. By all means, let us know in the comments, I’m sure there are better ways than mine.
Durability
This fridge is very solidly made. It consists of a tempered glass door and stainless steel trim. This thing will last a long time.
Best Value
Igloo 3.2-Cu.-Ft. Platinum Fridge
The Igloo 3.2 Cu. Ft. Platinum is a good fridge for a good price. Where it falls short of the Danby is that it is not a dedicated beverage fridge. If you are looking for a good quality refrigerator for a college dorm or as a second fridge in a room in your home, then this is probably superior to the Danby.
But if you came to this page, then you are looking for a fridge to stock with bottles of beer (and maybe some other drinks). This is a good quality, great value, all purpose fridge. If you think that you may want to also store ice cubes, some cans (rather than bottles), and even some food. This is a great choice for you. In fact, I would argue that if your bar has only one fridge, then this is probably more useful than the Danby. However, if you are looking for a fridge dedicated solely to hold your beer bottles (or even cans) then the Danby is the better choice.
Check out the latest prices by CLICKING HERE.
Features
- 3.2 cu. ft. capacity
- Adjustable Temperature (1-10 scale…not actual temperature setting)
- Fridge & Freezer
- Clear Crisper
- Reversible Door
- Adjustable Thermostat
- Slide-out Glass Shelves
- Invisible Door Handle
- Platinum Finish
Capacity
The 3.2 cu. ft. capacity can be misleading if that if your goal. This fridge contains a freezer and a crisper. The crisper is basically just a drawer at the bottom so you could put beer in so it’s not that big of a deal. But, like I said above, I don’t like to have a freezer if I am using the fridge exclusively for drink storage. It tends to unbalance the inside temperature, making the top colder than the bottom.
On the plus side, it contains a little can dispenser on the door. Just be sure to let the can sit for a minute if you’ve grabbed a few in a row…no one like a shaken beer.
Durability
This is also a well built fridge. I did not choose this one for my home bar but after reading many of the reviews online, I could not find too many instances of the fridge itself failing. Most of the complaints (of which there were very few) seemed to relate more to user error or problems with the delivery service (I wouldn’t blame Igloo when the box falls off the truck or something!).
