USA, FL: Big Top Brewing Company launches downtown Pensacola location

The only brewery/restaurant combination in downtown Pensacola is now open for business after the Sarasota-based Big Top Brewing Company opened its doors to the public on August 27, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

Popular in Sarasota for its craft beer ingenuity, Big Top occupies the former Taco Mez location at 21 W Romano Street. On the main floor is a bar with 24 beers on tap, table seating, big screen TVs on each wall and a projector screen adjacent to the entrance. Brewing tanks in the back share a room with a shuffleboard and air hockey table.

The original Big Top location is in Sarasota, but the new venture in Pensacola is the first to serve food. Big Top is known for its outside-of-the-box beer flavors like Chocolate Peanut Butter, Peanut Butter and Jelly and Honey Jalapeño, all of which will be brewed in-house later in August once the company lands a brewer. For now, they're serving from kegs shipped from Sarasota.

Longtime local chef Dano Dunn is at the helm in Big Top's kitchen, and he's taking pride in developing unique menu items to mirror the brewery's unique beer flavors.

"We've got a killer Brew Pub Brisket Blend Burger; it's delicious," Dunn said. "We hand-cut our own fries, make our own pickles, we're doing some beer-battered onion rings, beer-battered mullet fish and chips, a lot of beer cheese. A lot of beer."

General Manager Patrick Maus said Chef Dano's menu will serve as the foundation for all Big Top restaurants going forward, including one the company plans to open in Gainesville in the near future.

"The cuisine itself is phenomenal," Maus said. "The chef wrote up the menu from top to bottom, and it's his brainchild. The best part of that is that's going to go forward with the company. More important, Chef Dano it's pushing the envelope as far as being creative just like we do with the beer. This guy's been doing it longer than I've been alive, so he knows what he's doing back there."

Brunch will be served from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. every Sunday, starting this Sunday. Omelets, Benedicts, homemade biscuits and more beer-inspired items, like stout gravy, will be available for the brunch crowd. And of course, there are bottomless mimosas.

The August opening is good timing, Maus said, with festival season looming. He said Big Top is looking forward to getting acquainted with the community.

"There's gonna be beer festivals coming up, we're gonna definitely get involved with some pub crawls and beer dinners in the future, probably in November, simply because it's craft beer season right now and we have four or five beer festivals coming up in a span of six or seven weeks," he said. "From the Emerald Coast (Beer Festival) all the way down to Baytowne in Destin, there's a lot going on."

The brewery will be open from 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. until 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Management expects to stay open even later on weekends once they get settled into Pensacola.

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