Tag Archives: brewpub

Cigar City Brewpub

Beer, Food, , ,

We finally made it down to the Cigar City Brewpub recently.  It opened in April, and we’ve been down to Tampa a few times since then, but it didn’t work out until last weekend.

I was a little worried, since I read some pretty mixed reviews online, including complaints about lackluster food and spotty service.  As it turned out, we all enjoyed it and had no complaints.  The food menu had a lot of variety and some nice Cuban influences (we had black bean cakes and a picadillo meat loaf sandwich with yuca fries).  Everything was very tasty.

The beer menu had a handful of standards from the main brewery, but was mostly the beers brewed at the brewpub, including some special variants and one cask option (that sold out just before we got there, natch).  Wind had a light, crisp beer/cider mix (kind of like a shandy/radler), and I had a rich, spicy golden ale and (my favorite) some Beer Myth Bock, which was a lot like a sweet stout.

The atmosphere was nice and relaxed.  The decor was very typical pub — mostly dark wood and fabric, but there was enough natural light coming in to keep it from being cavelike.  They did have a couple of TVs playing sports, but luckily without sound.

We were also happy to see they had a cooler of bottles by the front door, well stocked with Cucumber Saison and Good Gourd.  I’d called all over town earlier in the week looking for Marshall Zhukov Stout and Good Gourd — and the few places that got any sold out in less than an hour, even with 1-bottle-per-customer limits.

Water Street Brewing

Beer, , ,
Water Street Brewing Flight

We stopped by Binghamton this afternoon, on the way back from visiting Howe Caverns.  The neighborhood has seen better days (we got asked for change every block or so), but we enjoyed walking around and doing some shopping anyway.  We really enjoyed browsing in River Read Books.

We had dinner at Water Street Brewing, and really enjoyed it.  Their menu is somewhat limited, but we liked everything we got.  They had 8 beers on tap, and we tried them all:

  • Their Munich Helles was light and smooth, the way a Helles should be.
  • The Cream Ale was a good example of one of my favorite styles — just a light pale ale, with medium body.  Cream ale is one of my favorites to drink on a hot summer day, and we got a growler to take home with us.
  • I didn’t care for the Southern English Mild — I think I’ve only had dark mild, and this was very different.
  • The Weizenbock was very good, spicy and malty.  There was none of the wheaty tang that often spoils wheat beers for me.
  • The Beyond Blonde ale was a solid Belgian blonde — not my favorite Belgian style, but nice anyway.
  • I didn’t like the Thousand Year Porter much (nice name though).  It was dry and roasty, so not my thing.
  • The Harvest ale was rich and satisfying.
  • The beer I liked best was their Wee Heavy.  It’s one of my favorite styles, and theirs wasn’t too peaty and had a nice caramel note to it that I really liked.   Of course, this was their special small-batch beer, in a small glass and not available for growlers.

All said, a very nice place for dinner and very solid beers.  They had a good variety, and everything was at least a solid effort if not my favorite style.