Jersey Shore Breweries: Ship Bottom Brewery Review

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Since we discovered it last summer, Ship Bottom Brewery has become one of our favorite NJ craft breweries. After starting in Pennsylvania, Ship Bottom Brewery moved back to its roots on Long Beach Island, opening in the Bay Village of Beach Haven.

They have a nice big tasting room, which is very lively during the summer and has live bands on the weekends. There is a large selection of beers to taste (and they offer comprehensive 8-beer flights!), you can buy some of them in cans, and the rest are available as crowlers or growler refills.

So during my June 2018 visit I had the pleasure of trying most of their line-up – no less than 8 different beers. Here are my thoughts:

• Barnegat Lager is a classic German lager, very crisp and with a bit of a kick at 6.3%.
• Blueberry Bikini Bottom Wheat Ale: while I don’t usually like fruity beers, this 4.7% wheat ale was nice, without a strong blueberry flavor.
• Beach Patrol Hefeweizen: again, I’m not a big fan of hefes, but this was one of my favorites from Ship Bottom’s line-up. It’s light, refreshing, and slightly fruity, exactly what you need on a hot day at the beach.
• Stupid Paddle Boat IPA: one of their standard beers, this is like a light ale, a session IPA of only 4.7%, another great choice for a summer day on LBI.
• New England IPA: moving on with the IPAs, this has the hazier texture of NE beers and a nice citra hop flavor.
• The Shack IPA is another Ship Bottom tradition, a great IPA with an aromatic combination of hops.
• Chicken or the Egg IPA is one their more interesting beers: a spicy 7.5% IPA brewed with habanero and cayenne peppers. Feels a bit weird at first but then you can’t stop drinking it!
• Belgian Tripel: at 8% it was their strongest beer, with the strong but sweet flavor you’d expect from a tripel.

To sum it up, it’s rare that I do a small brewery tasting and I like all the beers on tap, but this happened at Ship Bottom Brewery! We strongly recommended whenever you visit LBI… take a short break from the beach, do a 4 or 8-beer tasting, and then grab some cans or crowlers to go!

Don’t forget to read about 10 Fun Things to do in Beach Haven, LBI!

If you’re looking to rent a house at the shore, check out ShoreVacations.com, Jersey Shore’s biggest vacation rentals resource. It lists hundreds of rental homes and condos from Sandy Hook all the way down to Cape May (including Belmar, Point Pleasant, Seaside Heights, Ocean City, Long Beach Island, Atlantic City or the Wildwoods). It’s a one-stop website for planning your Jersey Shore vacation, featuring beach information, weather updates and more! And of course, it has a full list of all the Jersey Shore events this year.