Continuing West on my reviews of Woodbridge / Lake Ridge
breweries I stop to drop off a parcel at the US Post Office just off Prince
William Parkway, and with it being a rather warm day, decided a nice beer would hit the spot. Good thing I didn’t have to go
far. Located in the Prince William
Commons industrial park is Growling Bear Brewing Company (directions here). While it is the smallest of the breweries in
these reviews (so far) that should not discourage you in coming. Remember the saying, big things come in small
packages.
Growling Bear is veteran and woman owned and proud. The owner has a picture of himself when he
served in the US Air Force as well as his son who currently serves in the Army
and a photo of his father who was also in the service. They have various events and fundraisers
where they raise money for various causes such as the Prince William County
Animal Shelter and care boxes for servicemen serving overseas. It seems that all the breweries in the area
all display stickers from other breweries and Growling Bear is no exception,
however they are the only one that I have seen that have several patches from
various police agencies and fire department so it seems they are very LEO
friendly.
They are also the only brewery (so far) in these reviews that
sell brewing supplies to the public.
From starter kits to more advance kits as well as various grains, malts
and other supplies. As a matter of fact,
you could even WIN a $900 electric brewing system when they celebrate their two-year
anniversary the weekend of August 25, 2017.
You can review all the brewing equipment they sell at their website as
well as more info about events, etc. (see below).
The place is small, as I stated earlier with around 50
seats, they do have a couple of small tables and some chairs right outside the
front. You order up at the bar and can
choose from around 12 different beers on tap as well as some soft drink options
and a small menu of sandwich’s, wraps and thin crust pizza. There are a few stuffed bears of different
ilk placed around the place and if you are a Steeler or Penguin fan, this might
be a good place for you!
Ok! Let’s get to the
beer!! They have 12 ‘Bears’ on tap. That’s right, I said Bears. All 12 beers they have on tap have the word
‘bear’ in the name… like the “Panda Bear Stout”, or the “Lazy Bear
Saison”. Nice wordplay with the whole
Bear / Beer thing. 😊 A taster flight of four 6oz pours will run you
$12. Average beer prices are easy to
compute here; $3.25 for a 6oz pour,
$5.50 for a 12oz pour and $6.50 for a 16oz pour. They do have premium beers which are a little
more… but that is easy… add the following to the original pour: $0.25 added to
a 3oz pour ($3.50 total) then if you buy a 12oz or 16oz premium pour add $0.50
to the original price. Average growler
prices for a 32oz is $10 and $12 for a premium beer. The 64oz is $18 and $20 for premium.
They also have a club that you can join. The ‘Bear Den Club’ initial membership will
run you $69.99 for the first year then $49.99 thereafter. And for that price you get the privileges
that come with that membership:
- Exclusive use of a 14oz Stainless Steel Numbered Club Mug
- This is larger than their standard Belgian serving glass (12oz) and cost only $5.00 to fill. However, some special release and high gravity beers will come in a smaller glass but members will get 10% off.
- Choice of a Sampler or Belgian Glass
- Choice of a 32oz or 64oz growler
- Growling Bear brewery sticker
- 10% off each growler fill
- 20% discount on all merchandise
- Tap room reservation options for parties, meetings, etc.
- Note: Can use only once per year on days taproom is normally closed and must have a minimum party size of 25 guests. You can find out more info at the brewery.
Alright! Let’s break
it down and see if it is worth it!!
Again, I must stress you must use your membership to benefit from it, so
the 4 beers in a week standard will continue to be used. If you have 4 beers in a week in the 14oz
mug, you are getting an extra 8oz per week, so in a month you get about 2.6
‘free’ beers, but we are going to keep it at 2 beers for $$. So those 2 ‘free’ beers equal about $11 in
discounts. Remember though with
membership, those 16 beers over the month only cost you $5.00 per beer ($80)
instead of the full 12oz price of $5.50 per beer ($88) which is an $8
difference combined with the $11 you get a monthly discount of $19. Multiply that by 12 months and you get $228
in discounts.
Next, we need to remove the costs of the glass, growler and
sticker from the $69.99 initial costs.
Staying on the high end of glass and growler, the 12oz Belgian glass
normally goes for $8.99 and the 64oz growler goes for $9.99; the sticker is
$1.99. That is a total of $20.97 in ‘free’
merchandise. So, lets remove $20.97 from
the 69.99 which leave $49.02. When you
subtract that from the total of discounts you accumulated over the year with
the bigger pour ($228-49.02) you get a total of $178.98 in net discounts /
savings. Therefore, the answer to the
question is… YES! It is worth the
initial investment.
Now we get the negative side of things. For me primarily it is LOCATION and
awareness. My wife and I only chanced by
this brewery late last September (2016).
We were like “Wow! A new brewery… let’s check it out!” We go in, sit and order up a flight to try and
asked when did they open. We were
informed they just recently celebrated their 1st anniversary. 😐 WTHeck?? I had already been to a couple of
the other breweries in the area (Ornery, Waters End) over the year and never
knew Growling Bear existed. I must have
driven by it a dozen times. Only by chance,
driving a different route and the flag banner out front did we even see the
place. It is almost hidden being as
small as it is and where it is located.
It is almost too small as well, the seating area being a little larger than a two-car garage
(2 ½), but if you are looking for a small place, then this is the place for
you. I like a little something more, in
between large and small. It would be a
perfect little neighborhood brewery, but it is not really in a neighborhood.
There you have it.
Growling Bear Brewing Company. A
small establishment putting out a big number of beers on site. No distribution that I know of, so if you want
one of their ‘bear beers’ you are just going to have to go in person. The few times I have been there, one of the two
owners, Mike is behind the bar and can seem a little gruff… a grizzly bear you
would NOT want to piss off. However, I
feel that once you get to know him, I bet he is really a big teddy bear. You can get more info from their website and
social media and recommend you visit them during their 2nd year anniversary
celebration coming up this month.
Facebook:
Ahahahahaha…. NO… I don’t promote Facerag…
Next week will be the last review of the Woodbridge / Lake
Ridge beer scene as Waters End is the next place on the list. After Waters End I will attempt to summarize all the beer clubs and prices to see who has the "Best Bang 4 The Buck" in the area. After that…. I am not sure if I will continue writing about the rest of the PWC beer scene. I have not had many comments or feedback on the breweries done so far. So… who knows <shrug> if anybody cares. Oh well... there are plenty of other things to write about! 😊
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