Brewin' at the Zoo

I'll tell you what - I was a little bit worried that I had built up Brew at the Zoo too much in my head. After all, it had been six years since I had last been to Brew and a lot could have changed.

I worried for nothing.

Brew at the Zoo was exactly as awesome as I thought it was going to be!

Patrick & I had it carefully planned out. We started the night out right after work with some snacks/dinner at the house. Who wants to drink on an empty stomach? They did have food for sale there but we wanted to spend our time tasting the beers rather than tasting the food.

We also opted for taking an Uber there rather than driving so that we wouldn't have to strand a car somewhere overnight. Plus the zoo had a deal with a local taxi company to pay the first $15 of your fare if your final destination was a residence. Win-win! We called the Uber fairly early and arrived at the zoo about 15 minutes before the gates opened. If you ever go, definitely get there early! There had to have been several hundred people milling around outside waiting for the gates to open promptly at 7pm.

Once we got in the gates, we grabbed our sampler glasses, and bypassed the first section {Palmetto Plaza} of beers. We headed straight for the back of the zoo to the Carousel Plaza. Everyone else stopped at the first section so when we got to the back, it was much less crowded. Here, Patrick & Andrew found their favorite beers of the night {Benford Brewing Problem Solver IPA and Seminar Craver Peanut Butter Porter} and it's where I found my favorite Charlotte beer {Olde Mecklenburg Brewery Hornet's Nest Hefeweizen}.

Our next stop was back up to Palmetto Plaza at the front entrance.

Surprisingly, I've never had the RJ Rocker Son of a Peach beer before. With my new found addition to peach flavored things {hello, peach bellini, I'm looking at you!} I had to try it. It became my favorite beer of the night.

Has anyone else jumped on the Not Your Father's Root Beer band wagon? I have no idea where this beer came from but it popped up out of nowhere earlier this summer in SC and everyone I know is obsessed with it. Did you know it was made by Pabst? We had no idea until we saw it at their tent & Patrick made a beeline for it.

Once we realized it was already after 8, we booked it to the last area of the night, Safari Camp.

Y'all, by the time that we got here, most everyone at the zoo was a little bit tipsy. Just a tiny bit. But this area has a lot of great beers left to try. There were some local beers from both Conquest and Swamp Cabbage {but no River Rat? Still can't figure that one out} and my all time favorite beer... Goose Island 312!

We heard a rumor that they were going to stop serving beer at 9 {even though the event wasn't over until 9:30} so we walked back to the Carousel Plaza to get some more of our favorite beers before they stopped serving. There was one vendor, however, who must not have heard the stop serving at 9pm rumor because they kept pouring beers for us until almost 9:30. Luckily, it was one of the ones I liked a lot so I had no complaints about the extra serving time.

Finally, we made our way back to the entrance of the zoo to catch a cab back to the house. We quickly changed our mind and called an Uber instead. Y'all, the line for the cab was ridiculous! It must have been 100-200 people deep. We probably won't plan on doing that cab thing again next year even though it was a good deal. I'd rather pay a few extra dollars for an Uber and not have to stand in line.

All in all, we had a great time at Brew at the Zoo and will absolutely be doing this again. Now I'm just looking forward to Zoofari in September & cooler weekends so I can go wander around the zoo without it being miserably hot!

Here's what I ended up trying...

Palmetto Plaza

Blue Moon Belgian White

RJ Rockers Son of a Peach

Sweet Water Water Keeper

Thomas Creek River Falls Red

Carousel Plaza

Holy City Washout Wheat

Olde Mecklenburg Brewery Hornet's Nest Hefeweizen

Tradesman Bricklayer's Red Ale

Safari Camp

Conquest Artemis Blonde

Goose Island 312

Magic Hat #9

Palmetto Huger Street

Shock Top Apple

Swamp Cabbage Sabal Palm

& if you're interested, here's the complete list {with circles around the beers that Andrew liked}