This is the part where I get to talk about breweries. Longtime Twelve Mile Circle readers know I’ve been to a lot of them over the years. Those same readers also know I write beer pages more for myself than for them. In fact, they’re probably the least popular pages on the site. That’s alright; feel free to skip this one if you like. I won’t take it personally. But I still like to revisit them from time-to-time and reminisce about my brewery adventures.
Even so it felt different this time. As much as I could, I purposely tried to minimize conversation about the COVID-19 pandemic in this series of articles. However, that was impossible when it came to the breweries. For those I actually had to interact with society and take calculated risks instead of hiding in the shadows. Thankfully it wasn’t that big of a risk anymore now that I’ve been vaccinated. That’s the only reason I felt comfortable doing it.
In 2020 I visited only five breweries all year, and one of those happened pre-pandemic when I went to Bermuda. The other four were deeply strange, almost scary experiences with protocols that everyone was still trying to figure out on the fly. It went a lot better this time. We went to five breweries in two days.
Alright, I’ll add the usual statement of responsibility. We like to order a flight of 4 or 5 ounce pours and split it. This works out to approximately one regular sized beer per person per location. So these visits are about appreciation not excess. Also this isn’t a beer blog so don’t expect me to talk about the individual beers. You can do that yourself or go to Untappd. I like to focus on the experience instead.
The Path
We did this in two sections using the Embassy Suites in Wilmington, North Carolina as our base. Actually, as far as COVID goes, the hotel frightened me a lot more than any of the breweries because of the shared elevator. But whatever. We hit Front Street and Flytrap on the first evening. Then we hit Waterline, Ironclad and Edward Teach the following afternoon.
Front Street Brewery
We drove up to Wilmington from South Carolina that afternoon. Then we toured the battleship USS North Carolina and retreated to our hotel for a little downtime. Eventually though we got hungry and the Front Street Brewery seemed to be the only true brewpub with a restaurant in the immediate area. Actual brewpubs seem to be harder and harder to find anymore. The business model seems to have switched to breweries without kitchens so we were happy to find one serving food within walking distance.
Front Street — the actual street not the brewery — seemed to be the primary pedestrian shopping and eating destination in downtown Wilmington. And Front Street, the brewery, sat right along the street of the same name and surrounded by all the action. We didn’t go inside but they had a narrow set of tables out front so we did that instead. We had our un-vaccinated son with us and that limited our options.
As I enjoyed my meal and beverages, and of course the people-watching, it dawned on me that I kind of liked Wilmington. I’d never been there before but I wouldn’t mind coming back to explore it more. That’s actually pretty high praise from me. I generally don’t enjoy going to the same place twice.
Flytrap Brewing
We dropped our son back at the hotel and started again. He’d seen his last brewery for the trip. Then we headed over to Flytrap, which I picked solely because it was the closest place with a biergarten. And it was a really nice one to enjoy as the sun began to set, with plenty of open space and a pretty decent Thursday evening crowd.
I had to break my rule because Flytrap didn’t sell small pours. So we each had two beers here to better appreciate the brewery’s range. I liked hanging out here. Maybe it was the scene; maybe it was the grilled cheese food truck stationed about twenty feet away. I’d just eaten a big dinner and even then it tempted me.
Waterline Brewing
We expecting to visit only one or maybe two breweries on this trip, and we’d already accomplished that. I figured we’d just do things differently this time and maybe return to our norm on the next trip. However we didn’t expect the state of North Carolina to close their parks for Good Friday either. So we had an afternoon to kill, and well, more breweries within walking distance called us.
My wife wanted to check out the Wilmington Riverwalk and she bribed me by noting that a brewery sat just down from its southern terminus. That’s how we ended up at Waterline Brewing near the foot of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge. This one also had an outdoor biergarten which we definitely appreciated on a bright, sunny afternoon. As a double-bonus, a ship came up the river and the vertical lift on the bridge rose to let it pass. I’m a sucker for those weird bridges so I was in heaven. I took it as a good omen.
Ironclad Brewery
Then we walked up 2nd Street to the next place on our itinerary, Ironclad Brewing. That path took us past some amazing 19th Century architectural gems along the way. We got a nice walking tour of Wilmington just by trekking between breweries! Someone should package and sell that.
Unfortunately Ironclad didn’t have an outdoor patio so I thought we’d have to skip it. Discouraged, we peeked inside somewhat warily anyway. We saw a massive open space with just a few people because it was an odd time of the afternoon. So we sat at the most distant table in the farthest corner and felt pretty comfortable with that decision. I took the photo from that spot and clearly nobody else got anywhere close. It seemed completely low risk.
Edward Teach Brewery
Next we arrived at our final stop, Edward Teach Brewing (named for the pirate Blackbeard who sailed nearby three hundred years ago). Inside, people filled most of the seats along the bar. It looked like the old days, like a pandemic was the least of anyone’s concern. Thank goodness they had a small outdoor patio because I wasn’t going anywhere near that crowd even with a mask. By then the sun began to drop and a stiff breeze brought a chill in the air. So we huddled next to the fire pit and enjoyed our final flight.
Overall, our brewery adventure seemed to sort-of resemble our journeys of yore, certainly more so than last year. But everything was still just a little off. Some of that was probably my ultra-risk-averse mindset. Hopefully I’ll get over that someday.
I can’t wait for things to finally return to normal
Articles in the Carolina Wetlands Series
- Padding the Count
- All About the Water
- The Great Outdoors
- This Means War
- The Swamp Fox
- Ruins and Tombs
- Breweries During COVID
- Rounding it Out
See Also: The Complete Photo Album on Flickr
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