The Brass Tap

Great happy hour. For someone who usually enjoys only Coors Light I was impressed with their generous samples. I had the opportunity to realize what a beer whimp I have been and I finally found a great craft beer on tap. Can't wait to go back.

We're regulars of the Brass Tap in Wesley Chapel, so when friends suggested a place to meet up and drink and socialize, we gladly drove the 25 minutes to this shiny new location. This spot is big, almost twice the size, it seems, of ours. The stage is located in the back corner, and there are a variety of different types of seating throughout the place. Their patio is pretty small, I think wrapping it around the other side of the building would give more seating options as this place gets more popular. They were pretty busy around 9pm on a Friday night, but had mostly cleared out by 11pm or so.

Very large selection, both drafts and bottles, along with some overpriced wines. I wanted some Moscato, but could not bring myself to pay $9.50 per glass when the bottle is $10.99 in the Publix a few doors down. I was surprised to see that they have a food menu here! Ours serves pretzels, but this one has pretzels, nuts, hummus, paninis, and a few other things. The menu might seem small to some, but if you're used to Brass Tap in other locations, you think it's like the jackpot! If I hadn't just eaten, we might have tried something. Maybe next time.

Service was weird. I mean, the waitresses were nice and all, but I couldn't figure out what the problem was. We got there at 9, grabbed a table close to the band and our waitress served us our first beers. We asked to move to another table farther from the music so we could talk and she transferred us to someone else. This I can understand, because maybe she's assigned tables. But then we got one girl who introduced herself, and within 5 minutes another girl came and said she'd be taking over our transferred table. Huh? Then by about 10:30, that girl got cut, and had us tab out so that another waitress could take over. Couldn't keep up with what was going on! And our friends ordered pretzels and the chick totally forgot about them. Doh!

All in all, looks like this will be a successful entrance to the market. I still haven't tried Cigar City, so next time I'm in this area I'll check that out for comparison.

GREAT draft beer selection (especially beers from Florida breweries) and very clean inside.  I love the seats outside that face into the bar because you get to be outside, but at the bar which, to me, is the best of both worlds.  Decent outdoor seating (more than the one in Trinity or the one at Wiregrass).

We also had the pizza on a pretzel, which was pretty darn good for pub food.  Their menu is rather limited, but I think it has all you need when you're having pub food with your delicious beers.  They have live music on weekends & some evenings, but there was no band when we were there since it was earlier on in the afternoon on a weekday.  They were rather slow the day we were there so I hope they get busier because I want that place to do well & stay there!