Yes. The caveat is temperature: wine fridges floor at roughly 40-46°F depending on cooling type, which is cellar-cool rather than ice-cold. That is genuinely good for craft beer, which is usually served too cold, and underwhelming for soda. Shelves shaped for bottles also waste space on cans.
This page sits in Wine Storage Guides, where the rest of the category is compared the same way.
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Our picks
If mixed use is the plan, the floor temperature and the cooling type are what decide it. The Newair reaches 40°F; the two thermoelectric cabinets floor at 46°F, which is a real difference for anything you want properly cold.
How this page is funded. Cork & Cool earns a commission if you buy through the Amazon links below, at no extra cost to you. It never changes the order of this list — see our editorial policy and affiliate disclosure. We do not publish prices, because a stale number helps nobody.
#1 — The 24-inch slot
Newair AWR-460DB
Forty-six bottles across two zones in a 23.4-inch cabinet rated for built-in or freestanding use — the default answer for a standard kitchen opening.
Illustrative photograph — not an image of the Newair AWR-460DB.
Published specifications
Capacity
46 bottles
Zones
2
Cooling
compressor
Temperature range
40–66°F
Noise rating
Not published by the manufacturer
Installation
both
· Exterior: 23.40 in W x 22.40 in D (24.00 in with handle) x 33.00 in H
Rated for built-in installation, so the front vent is designed for an enclosed opening
23.4-inch width drops into a standard 24-inch cabinet run
Two independently set zones across the full 40-66°F span
What does not
No published dB rating, so noise cannot be compared numerically against rivals
46 bottles is the manufacturer's count using standard Bordeaux bottles — heavy Burgundy or Champagne bottles reduce it
Who should skip it. Skip it if your opening is under 24 inches, or if you need more than about four dozen bottles — stepping up to a 160-bottle cabinet costs less per bottle.
No compressor means no start-up thump and no vibration path into the wine
65 W is a fraction of a compressor cabinet's draw
46°F floor is cold enough for sparkling service
What does not
Thermoelectric cooling works against ambient temperature, so a warm room raises the achievable minimum
Freestanding only — it must not be enclosed
Who should skip it. Skip it if the unit will live anywhere that gets hot: a garage, a conservatory, or a cabinet run with no air gap. Thermoelectric units lose the argument above roughly 77°F ambient.
A wine fridge is built to reach cellar and serving temperatures for wine, not to get things cold. Its published floor is typically:
Compressor cabinets: around 40–41°F. The Newair AWR-460DB runs 40–66°F.
Thermoelectric cabinets: around 46°F, and higher in a warm room. The Whynter WC-201TD and the Koolatron WC20 are both 46–66°F.
A kitchen refrigerator, by comparison, runs around 37–40°F, and a dedicated beverage cooler generally goes lower still. So the honest framing: a wine fridge is cellar-cool, not cold. Whether that is a problem depends entirely on what you are putting in it.
Beer: genuinely good
For anything other than mass-market lager, a wine fridge is better than a kitchen refrigerator, and this is not a consolation prize.
Most beer styles show their flavor and aroma well above refrigerator temperature. Ales, stouts, porters, Belgian styles and barrel-aged beers are all routinely served far too cold, which suppresses exactly what you paid for. Conventional serving guidance puts many of them in the 45–55°F range — which is precisely a wine fridge’s sweet spot, and a temperature a kitchen refrigerator cannot hold.
If you cellar beer — barrel-aged stouts, lambics, anything meant to develop — a wine fridge at a steady 55°F is close to ideal, for the same stability reasons it suits wine (wine storage temperature). A dual-zone cabinet handles both jobs: one zone for wine, one for beer at its own temperature (dual-zone settings).
Soda: underwhelming
Here the answer is less happy. Soda is expected to be properly cold — most people want it below 40°F, and part of the appeal is the shock of it.
A compressor wine fridge at 40°F gets close enough that you would not complain. A thermoelectric one at 46°F will be a mild disappointment every single time. It is cold, but it is not cold, and no setting will change that.
Same for water, mixers and mass-market lager: all of them are wanted colder than a wine fridge’s floor.
The shelf problem
Less obvious than temperature and more annoying in practice. Wine fridge shelves are contoured to cradle round bottles lying on their side. Cans do not lie in those contours efficiently: they roll, they stack badly, and you lose a substantial share of the cabinet’s usable volume to air.
A beverage cooler uses flat or wire shelving designed for cans and standing bottles, and will hold far more drinks in the same exterior size. If cans are the main cargo, this is a real consideration rather than a quibble — the full comparison is in wine fridge vs beverage fridge.
Two smaller notes. Cans of anything carbonated should not be stored below freezing, which is not a risk in a wine fridge — a genuine advantage over a garage refrigerator in winter. And removing shelves to fit cans often means you cannot put them back without unloading the cabinet, so decide the layout once.
So which appliance?
Wine fridge or beverage cooler, by cargo
Mostly storing...
Choose
Why
Wine
Wine fridge
It is the only appliance that holds cellar temperature steadily
Craft beer, ales, stouts
Wine fridge
45–55°F suits them, and a kitchen refrigerator cannot hold it
Beer you cellar and age
Wine fridge
Stability at 55°F is the whole requirement
Soda, water, mixers
Beverage cooler
You want below 40°F, which a wine fridge cannot reach
Mass-market lager
Beverage cooler
Wanted properly cold; also more cans per cubic foot
A genuine mix of wine and cans
Dual-zone wine fridge
Wine in one zone, drinks as cold as the cabinet manages in the other
If wine is a real part of the mix, buy the wine fridge: it is the appliance that does the thing nothing else does. If wine is incidental and it is mostly cans, a beverage cooler is cheaper, colder and holds more.
Questions people actually ask
▸ Can you put beer in a wine fridge?
Yes, and for craft beer it is better than a kitchen refrigerator — ales, stouts and Belgian styles show best around 45–55°F, which is exactly a wine fridge’s range and colder than most fridges allow.
▸ Does a wine fridge get cold enough for soda?
Not really. Compressor cabinets floor around 40°F, which is borderline acceptable, and thermoelectric ones around 46°F, which will disappoint. For cans you want properly cold, a beverage cooler is the right appliance.
▸ Will cans fit on wine fridge shelves?
They fit, but inefficiently — shelves contoured for bottles lying down waste space on cans, which also roll. Expect to hold noticeably fewer drinks than a beverage cooler of the same size.
▸ Can I store both wine and drinks in the same fridge?
Best with a dual-zone cabinet: wine at its own temperature in one zone, drinks as cold as the cabinet manages in the other. In a single-zone cabinet you are compromising one or the other.
