Beer with the Buddha :: Funky Buddha Brewery

I just realized I need to visit more breweries and brewpubs.

After enjoying Hive account@sunravelme's Austin, TX brewery tour post, I dug up some photos from a visit the wife and I made a month or two ago to a local brewery here in South Florida.

Funky Buddha, based in Fort Lauderdale, FL, started in 2010 in a hole-in-the-wall strip mall location. They upgraded to a very nice facility several years ago. Now they're owned by Constellation Brands, who also owns very pedestrian beer brands Corona and Modello. Normally that would turn me off; I'm a bit of a beer snob and hate to see good brands subsumed by the Great Beer Satan brands (Bud/Miller/Coors/etc).

Still, they retain their local flavor, and don't seem to be affected by the purchase...yet.

_{The exterior of the brewery is fun and definitely Florida. The giant silo at the right is full of grain (barley) for their beer.}

_{Inside, we get dropped right into their bar area. No food here, just beer. Food is made one room over, and you can bring the food back to this area to eat. Probably some legal thing.}

_{The place was pretty empty at noon when we arrived for our brewery tour.}

_{They also have a separate glass-door area where private parties can be held.}

_{And food is made here!}

_{But first, the tour. As expected, lots of stainless steel.}

_{Barrels were stashed everywhere. These guys do a lot of really weird beers, and like to try barrels from wine, port, whiskey, etc.}

_{And they bottle their stuff. This was a Saturday, so the bottling apparatus was offline. Probably a good thing, since that seems like it'd be super loud.}

_{Big stack of kegs!}

_{And more barrels. Our tour guy was telling us that once during a tour a barrel sprung a leak, and rather than let the beer go to waste he let people bring their sampler glasses up for as much as the wanted. I tried to break a barrel, but he wouldn't let me.}