First State Brewing Company — Local services in Rehoboth Beach

We went with a large party (5 adults and 4 kids), arrived at 430 and there was no wait. Hostess was very helpful, gave us the option of high top or low table.

We were all excited about the extensive beer list, complete with detailed notes (the standard inu, abv, but also tasting notes). A few of us tried flights and everyone was happy with every beer they tried (that seldom happens!). I tried the sour; dragon dreams, and several of the fruited ipas, along with a hazy. All were excellent! Before leaving we wanted to get a crowler and the bartender was happy to let me try a sample of another 2 to decide (I tried the tequila barrel aged saison.... WOW! and the Belgian, very nice! )

We ordered several appetizers to share, again, all great! The fried cheese curds came with several awesome dipping sauces, and there were more sauces we didn't get to try. I had the crab cake grilled cheese, which was amazing; good crab cake and nice accents with the bacon jam and a touch of something sweet. Smoked Gouda grits as my side were great.

Everyone was happy with the food (among our party we had the steak frites, several burgers, salmon, and a salad). All good!

We had a question about the light fixtures (they're shaped like hops!) and the manager came out to answer it. We ended up talking with him extensively, he shared that for any beer marked as sold out on the menu there was another not listed that replaces it.... And he brought us samples!

Verdict: amazing! Everything; the food is excellent, the beers are all spot on (and interesting with some seriously unusual flavors), the atmosphere is lovely and the staff is very friendly and helpful....

I went for the first time today. The food and drinks were good. We went for happy hour. The happy hour menu was very small compared to other places I frequent for happy hour. The biggest issue was with the service. We were seated immediately and the host was fantastic. Our server, Carmen was not. We had to wait a while for her to come over. She took our orders for drinks and got mine wrong. I ordered a lemon crush and she brought me a blood orange crush. We ordered kids meals for our kids and she put down that they wanted mac & cheese for a side but they had wanted fries. She was never to be found when we needed more drinks or wanted to order food after our appetizer. I went to the restroom after ordering our appetizer and saw Carmen was sitting at a table in the back with another server playing on their phones. My friend went to restroom after we finished the appetizer and we're just sitting there waiting on her to come back and she also saw Carmen sitting on her phone. We later watched her walk up to the hostess stand and plug her phone in after telling the hostess how her phone is almost dead. We had to ask her for our check after seeing her doing that because she never came back to check on us. Then when we paid she made sure to tell us to go online and give a 5 star review for the food/drinks and her service. After paying and heading to the door we saw another customer walk over to Carmen and ask where their server was because they have been acting there and no one was helping them. Despite the food and drinks being good I wouldn't return. The service ruined it and there are more and better happy hour drink/food...

A long way to go to be a good place: I really want to like this place, and we might give it another shot considering it has only been open a week, but they have a lot of work to do. First, we sat for almost 25 minutes before my husband asked the hostess to check on our waitress because others were already getting their orders taken even though they had just sat down. We ordered everything (drinks, appetizer, and food) when our waitress came to greet us. And to be honest, we didn't see her again for forty minutes. Our appetizers and drinks were delivered by other people, which I know that food runners is a thing, but most waitresses were delivering their own food and such.

As for food, we received our brussels first (before our drinks), which were burnt to a crisp, like literally brown the whole way through and tasted burnt. Our drinks were solid, though. The basil honey was really good. Our food took an additional forty minutes after we received our drinks. I ordered mussels and was really excited, but six of them did not open; additionally two were still really gritty, and one actually tasted like rotten fish and I had to spit it out. They also put my frittes directly in my broth, making them soggy when I finally got my food. Even still, the broth was really tasty and the fires did taste good despite being soggy. I also ordered the Belgium andalouse dipping sauce for my fries, but I can't tell you what it tasted like because it never came. My husband seemed to like his Cubano, though, and the waitress did take a little off my bill for the unfortunate mussels situation, so...