What’s Brewin’: Beach Island Brewery
Owner and Master Brewer, Jay Gaughan, sits atop a pile of packaged malt. Photo credit: MaryLu Gaughan.
If you follow craft beer in our area you may have heard of Beach Island Brewing (BIB) located at 2058 Bayshore Blvd in Dunedin. They have garnered quite the local crowd in the roughly four weeks they’ve been open, though they haven’t had their official opening yet. “Clearly, I don’t need to put out (the open) signs. The neighborhood knows we’re here, and we’re doing well. It’s been a very warm welcome,” says Jay Gaughan, owner and master brewer. In fact, customers have suggested to him that they rename their place “The Oasis” because of its location between Palm Harbor and downtown Dunedin. Local residents have been enjoying having a new place that’s close to home to stop at after dinner for a drink. On the weekends you’ll find the place mobbed with golf carts. “We’ve met a lot of great people everybody’s been really friendly,” Jay says.
It’s clear the folks coming by want to socialize. In addition to the outdoor back patio, they have recently opened the front patio, both are dog friendly and provide comfortable, shaded, seating. There’s also a speaker system coming as well as plans to have live music.
The BIB Brew List
The wall-mounted TV displays the current brews and hard seltzers on tap as well as upcoming brews.
Keeping true to maintaining the “neighborhood bar vibe,” Jay motions to the wall-mounted TV displaying the list of current brews on tap as well as upcoming brews, “and that’s how it’s gonna stay”. Apparently folks have been asking if he’s going to put sports on the TV to which Jay responds, “I’ll introduce you to the person in the chair next to you and you can have a chat and that’s your entertainment.”
With as many as 14, and eventually 20, beers on tap, with one on Nitro, it can be difficult to choose. At BIB you can do tasters to see what you like before you buy.
Brian stands next to the row of taps ready to pour. He likes that Dunedin has become a brewery destination. “Everybody’s doing well, we each have our own niche, everybody works together, everybody’s nice to one another. There’s plenty of customers for everybody.”
I got to taste and learn about several beers; however, Jay’s got thousands of recipes including 50 porter recipes that he will be brewing. Variety is the spice of life, but already each of his first run of beers is somebody’s favorite and some clients are demanding their favorite be kept on tap all the time. “Can we go through a couple, give me a chance to try out different recipes. There’s about a million hops I want to use,” Jay says with a chuckle.
Looking at the options you’ll notice most of the beers don’t have real names. Down the road Jay is thinking he’ll have the community help him with that. Jay is looking for a good “story” to go along with the naming of his beer. Already several customers are in the running for having beers named after them (insert smile). Actually, when you stop by, be sure to ask him about how his Vienna Lager came to be called “Three Fingers”. He tells a very entertaining story!
The German lagers each have their own yeast. There were several on tap the day I was there, including their Lake Haven Lager, Red Pilsner and Three Fingers Vienna Lager. There’s also a Strawberry Blonde Lager, which was sold out when I was there, but I went back another time for a glass and was not disappointed. There was also Vanilla and Chocolate Porters and Black Cherry Stout on Nitro. The Strawberry Blonde is one of their most popular beers, the Brown Ale also goes fast. The Hazy IPA was Jay’s first beer to sell out.
Their German Eisbock, Jay laughs, “is a very big beer with 10.4% alcohol, a double beer, basically two beers in one glass.”
Jay shared that guys tend to gravitate to the Single IPAs whereas when you get to doubles, triples and quads, “it goes to a different level and it’s more citrus. The ladies seem to love these giant beers.”
On the menu you’ll also find a rotating variety of ales like Starfruit/Mango as well as hard seltzers, like Mango. These recipes use local Dunedin fruit. However, Jay admits, “I drink the beer, I don’t drink the seltzer. My wife is my judge. She’s a good critic. if it’s not good she’ll dump it.”
“I’m a big hop head, so if I could have 20 IPAs across the board to start with I would have put ‘em up there.”
With over 38 years of brewing experience, it’s clear Jay knows his beers. It all began when he was five years old in Connecticut learning to make pasta from scratch from his Italian grandmother. “I cook everything from scratch. Beer is just another food and I couldn’t buy it so I learned to make it. It wasn’t that easy, no internet and very old books in the library.” After banging on a few brewery doors, a nice German gentleman took him under his wing and taught him how to brew beer the right way with just four ingredients. He remembers being told, “If you add things to your beer, it’s because you’re hiding something and that your beer’s no good.” This message has kept him making high-quality beer ever since.
Though Jay is now technically retired, and working seven days a week, his previous work life provided him with experience in engineering, designing and drafting, skills as a machinist, and tool and die work. He custom designed the tanks using a two-barrel brewing system, and he had a vendor make them. In China. Then Covid hit and the vendor was shut down. Then Jay was shut down. His tanks were packaged in a crate that was put on a barge and sent to Tampa Bay where they sat for a month. No one would let them in. So, Jay had to have another ship come get the crate off the barge and take it to New York where it was put on a truck and driven back here to Dunedin. Jay thought he was going to get a pile of scrap metal by the time he opened it up, but they were packaged so well, “it was like tearing down a house to get inside the crate. They were put together very, very well. No damage at all.”
Custom Made Tanks
Jay and MaryLu stand in front of the tanks that Jay designed. They took one heck of a trip to get here.
MaryLu Gaughan is Jay’s wife, hostess and marketing specialist. “Anything you see with color is my wife. I make beer. All the branding comes from her,” says Jay. There is a unique combination of coastal colors and tie dye inside and out. The vibe is fun, happy and relaxed much like Jay and MaryLu. There are t-shirts, koozies and stickers available for purchase. I left with two of each.
Love That Logo!
Jay and MaryLu stand in front of the wall-size BIB logo that MaryLu designed. “I’m usually not a creative person.” She laughs, “I don’t know where it came from!”
Three years ago, when they first moved down to Florida from Connecticut, MaryLu recalls they weren’t exactly sure where in Florida they wanted to live.
“Jay and I chase sunsets – the name of our house is Chasing Sunsets. It’s what we do. We wanted to be close to the water, close to the beach.”
They made their way down the east coast of Florida then up the west coast. “And it was like a Wednesday afternoon, sunny weather, came over the causeway and said – this is it. Had lunch at Olde Bay Café and that sealed the deal. We fell in love with Dunedin right away and said this is it! We don’t have to look anywhere else!”
Though the last month has been a whirlwind, “We are overwhelmed with how positive the response has been, it’s been wonderful. We never expected it to be so big, so positive. It’s awesome.”
“We love it here; the people are so nice and have embraced us. That’s a good feeling. Other breweries have been welcoming and helpful and it’s a great community to be a part of.”
“We love it here; people are so nice and have embraced us. That’s a good feeling. Other breweries have been welcoming and helpful and it’s a great community to be a part of.” – MaryLu Gaughan, Hostess, Marketing Specialist.
Be sure to follow Beach Island Brewery on Facebook and instagram and stay tuned for their official grand opening!
Beach Island Brewery | 2058 Bayshore Blvd Suite 5, Dunedin, FL 34698 | (352) 541-0616
Thu 5-10p • Fri 3-11p • Sat 12-11p • Sun 12-9p