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After finding the truck stop we were going spend the next two days at was full, we had to fork out $100 to park at a Comfort Inn in order to cut our Jeep loose and head to this place. We finally got bellied-up to the bar after spending 15 minutes in an underground parking garage trying to find a park and quickly ordered the Yoga Pants pale ale and Kilty By Association scottish ale. Both beers were delightfully freshing after all the hastle of parking the bus and the Jeep!

This is our first post since our trip to Hawaii as well as our first brewery on this summers tour. We left Apollo Beach around noon today and landed at the Mandarin Moose on the south side of JAX. After a quick set up, we made our way into the bar where some regulars suggested this brewery but warned us of the kids. By were they right – there almost as many curtain-climbers running around here as adults! The good thing is it is a nice day and a lot of space outside for the kids to run around. We grabbed a table next to the outdoor centerstage where chaulk was provided for the kids to entertain themselves while the adults watched the Kentucky Derby coverage. We drank a Kolsch and Irish Red which were awesome but a little higher ABV than we prefer.

Surfer dude meets industrial. This place has a little bit of everything – decor and beer. Steel, red sandal wood, concrete, beach/ surf gear, outdoor beer garden and coconut beer. We drank the Kewalo’s cream ale and the Parking Ticket red ale along with their famous mac & cheese. Yummy!

So it looks like they don’t do happy hour here: a $15 round of beers. Well, at least they were awesome and the tap room was pretty cool. Offering up a dozen beers, we kept an even keel with a Crush german helles and a Breaktime blonde ale. We were considering having a snack but a patron at the last brewery convinced us to eat at the next brewery so we will hold out for the famous mac & cheese w/ bacon.

Stop #2 of our O’ahu brewery tour brings us one block east of where we just left. People in Kauai told us you could practically do a “pub crawl” to a bunch of breweries by Waikiki and they are right. Brewing onsite, we popped in at the right time to take advantage of their happy hour special of $5 beers. What a great deal for their Aloha Spirit blonde ale and their Craft Light lager although the lager was really light with an ABV of only 4% and IBU of 8. Yes, I said 8. Any lighter and it would have been flavored water although both beers have great flavor!

Aloha from O’ahu! There is nothing like visiting some breweries in the great state of Hawai’i. After arriving this morning from Kauai then stopping at the Pearl Harbor Memorial, we worked up an island thirst and headed to the closest watering hole. Sipping on a Blonde Ale and a Black Pils, we were wondering what our “Brandon crew” was doing back in Florida as the sun was probably setting there about now. This place has a nice variety of beers – nothing exotic, just good beer. Mahalo!

This place is crazy! For those of you who are familiar with brewery lingo, this would be considered a “mega taproom”. With a small tastinging room in the front, the “back room” has a large indoor picnic area with darts, cornhole, several bars and even an arcade/game room for the kids. We were also impressed with the great beer menu – well balanced and leaning too much toward one style of beer. A couple of blondes (three to be exact; get it?), IPA’s, a sour, a kolsh, a hefe and a stout, basically something for everyone. We had the Beach Blonde and the Hollerbach Kolsh along with a soft baked pretzel & cheese – yum! We even stuck around and had a Brut Blonde.

What a fun place. Lots of dogs and no kids. A little more “hip” than what we like since it is on the main party strip downtown but an awesome beer selection. Lots of german-inspired beers to choose from so we had their St. Petian american pale lager and their Vandelay vienna lager. Both beers were delicious!

After 487 breweries, sometimes its hard to come up with something interesting to say especially if its your first stop/beer for the day. Like talking to strangers, writing just seems to get easier after a beer or two. This busy brewery has everything you would expect for a Saturday afternoon: dogs, kids and crying babies. We blocked out the kids and babies with and Irish Red and ESB which basically tasted the same while watching the cute animal video clips on the Chive channel.

We’ve been spoofed again! After driving 20 minutes from the last brewery, we discovered this place doesn’t serve their own beer either. Grr! Since we have driven to 4 places and only two were actually breweries, we decided to sit down with a round of New Belgium 1554 (not to be confused with Kronenbourg 1664) to talk about how to lobby our local politicians to pass a law against calling a business a brewery and not serving your own beer. BTW, the 1554 is delicious!