Wine cooler or standard fridge? can only pick one

[bottlerocket]

Hey everyone, well my wife has officially decided its time to evict my beer from the kitchen fridge and I need a new home for them ASAP. I had done some searching around to see what worked best. I found a 38 bottle dual zone wine cooler for a few hundred bucks or I could get a regular full size fridge for the same price. I only really have the spare cash to get one right now, maybe the other in the future. I'm fairly certain my beer will easily fill up that 38 bottle wine cooler, but from what I've read its better for higher ABV or heavier specific gravity beers. I mostly enjoy those types such as quads, dopplebocks, porters, stouts, belgians, etc. but I also have a healthy collection of lighter beers (not LIGHT beers) like wheat beers, IPAs, reds, etc.

What would be the best way to go for all of my beer? The wine cooler gets down to about 37 in one zone and 48 in the other zone whereas a full size fridge gets much colder (obviously). Opinions?

 

[Mirkin]

For flexibility I'd go full fridge, you would be able to store other things as well like bottles of washed yeast, various sizes of bottles etc. also most wine coolers are designed for horizontal bottle storage, where as beer, especially bottle conditioned, is best vertically stored.

 

[jmendez29]

I vote for the full size fridge. The freezer can be used for storage of hops, and the fridge part can also be a lagering chamber, yeast storage, etc. you won't get that kind of versatility out of a wine fridge, even if it is dual zone.

 

[dfc]

If the dual zone is your selling point on the wine cooler you could always just let your bigger beers warm up to 50°-60° by pulling them out of the fridge for a short while before you drink them.

 

[TxBrew]

Full fridge. You can always put other stuff in it.