Abbey Brewing, Miami Beach

Image stolen from another beer snob somewhere...

You round the corner, and the whole block looks abandoned. An eclectic array of particle board and blue plastic covers busted windows and slack-jawed doors. The street is quiet, so far off the beaten path not even the locals wander around without significant glances over tense shoulders.

You'll pass it by at first; we did. It looked like another forgotten store, abandoned, lonely, neglected. But peak your head in through the dirty door that reads "Abbey Brewery" and you will be pleasantly surprised. Inside are not the disheveled innards of a building under-review; instead, a wooden, Scottish-style bar sits tucked away in a bedroom-sized room with high ceilings and high alcohol content.

The brewmaster is a dude with a beer brewing kit and connections to a brewery in Melbourne, Florida. The beer is the only reasonably priced suds you'll find this close to Ocean Drive, and the quality of said beer surpasses anything in a 10-mile radius. On tap is also a seasonal cask ale and some funky tastes from Europe. You'll swear you were lost in Scotland (because I swore I was, and I actually HAVE been lost in Scotland on several occasions!), though the accents are a little off. And it's a refreshingly far cry from the Armani and $16 gin and tonics and blindingly fake tans a few blocks over.

So take a stroll along the 1100 block of 16th and keep an eye out for a place that kinda maybe sorta looks abandoned and scary. But peak your head in; everyone's friendly!