Adventures of Gus and Kim: World of Beer Bar & Kitchen - Tampa, Florida

World of Beer Bar & Kitchen (WOB) - featuring over 500 bottled beers and 50 on draft. Sounds like a fun place, right? Well, there's a good chance that there is one near you (or at least near your vacation spot) because they have more than 60 locations in the U.S. alone.


When Gus and I were in Tampa this past February, we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Westshore (HGI) near the Tampa International Airport. (BTW - if you're looking for a place to stay near the airport, we recommend this HGI. We've stayed there three times and it's always been great.) After spending one morning at ZooTampa, we decided to eat lunch close to the hotel, making it easy to hop over to our room for a rest before dinner. It just so happens that there is a WOB. Right. There. So we decided to stop in.

It was awesome! One of my favorite things about WOB is that they feature local craft beer. We were there on "Taco Tuesday" (and you know how much I love tacos), so it was perfect.


Gus had the Mahi Mahi tacos with tater tots.

I opted for the Beer-Battered Shrimp and Crispy Beer-Brined Chicken tacos. They were both delicious, but I liked the shrimp taco best. The sriracha lime aioli was to die for!


For beverages, Gus went for one of his old stand-bys - Blue Moon (which you can see in the background of the photo below). I was a little more adventurous and had a flight:

• Riot Juice (Hidden Springs Ale Works) - Berliner Weisse with blackberry, lime, vanilla, and lactose) 5.5% ABV
• Blueberry Lemon (Florida Avenue Brewing Co.) - Berliner Weisse 4% ABV
• BURST Passionfruit Lychee (Wicked Weed Brewing) - Session Sour 4.5% ABV
• Funky Buddha Floridian Hefeweizen - 5.2% ABV, 12 IBU

My favorite of the four was the Riot Juice - very tasty and went well with the tacos!

I took some photos of the interior, but I have to apologize for the quality. They were taken with my phone and the angle of the sun caused some glare.

Gus and I have been to two WOB locations - the one in Destin, Florida, and this one in Tampa. I think it was in summer 2017 that we went to the one in Destin. The beer selection was awesome, but we were less than impressed with the food. We did go back to with Buddy later in 2017, but we stuck to beer only.

During our visit to the Tampa location, we mentioned to our lovely waitress how we really enjoyed our meal and that we almost hadn't eaten here because of our experience at the Destin location. She told us that corporate eats at the Tampa location quite frequently. That may explain the difference. But to be fair, we haven't been to the one in Destin for a couple of years and it could have easily changed for the better since we were there.

We will definitely eat at the Tampa WOB again. We liked the food/vibe and it's so convenient to the HGI.

World of Beer Bar & Kitchen
5311 Avion Park Dr
Tampa, FL, 33607-1416
813-930-5499

Hours:
Monday - Tuesday 11am-12am