3rd Act Craft Brewery — Restaurant in Woodbury

I wasn’t going to leave a review but after reading some here as well as the responses by the owner I think it’s important.

First of all this space & location are outstanding, well done. Loved playing bags outside and really liked the look and feel of the building. They definitely put a lot of thought into the building and the design of everything. If they dial in their beer this place could be a cash cow!

The beer was OK, not amazing, not great but in most cases not a drain poor. I enjoyed the Hefeweizen but it still needs more work to command $7 a pint. Let’s be clear the price is not the issue but charging Surly or higher prices for home brew isn’t appropriate. High quality ingredients or not you need to really refine your recipes before you can expect to charge prices like that. Saying you have 70 rotating recipes in defense of a bad review is pointless. People know good and bad beer, the market has so many breweries, we know what to expect. I’ve been drinking high end craft beer for 12+ years and I’ve toured breweries all over the country. This place has potential, try hiring a 2nd shift or other brewer from Surly, Summit or another brewery would go a long ways to help you build out some solid beers. Dial in a handful that are great, heck start with one and make it your flagship. If you aren’t going to give samples (yes there are places that have a no sample policy but their beer is AMAZING) then the beer better be good. Had a $3 poor of the stout on nitro and it was just empty, bland, left me thinking why would anyone pay $8 or even $5 for a full pour of this. I mentioned I didn’t like the NE IPA to the guy behind the counter and he said something along the lines of IPA’s are complex and an acquired taste, OK no reason to offend me like I don’t know a good IPA. I’ve been drinking IPA’s for years, your NE IPA and West Coast are not on par with other local or national breweries. Don’t pull a 612 and apologize later, fix the issues early. This isn’t an uninformed person with a confused palate, the beer really needs work. Take a step back and get some feedback from other brewers and people in the industry. Most are great people I’m sure they’d be happy to help.

On a positive note I really enjoyed the medium pretzel and I the tasty honey mustard dressing for dipping.

Update: We’ve been here 3 times now in the hopes it would get better. It’s improved in some ways and other beers taste worse than I remember. Hoping these collab with another brewery and get better. I’d love to spend my money here if the beer was on point with where it should be. Thanks and good...

I went here on a Saturday night and my first impression of the building was wow, where did they get all this money? The building was large and looked nice, not something you see in a new brewery. The place was busy and that was a good sign.

We started off with a flight, some of the beers were good, while others were not quite my taste. Be warned of their ID policy though. They require an ID for everyone, which I have no problem with. What I did have a problem with is requiring an ID each time I got a new beer. This slowed the lines down. I waited in line and ordered 2 beers and was told I needed 2 IDs, even though both of us already provided them and had a tab. In this case I had one but I was the only one in line, so I could only get 1 beer. Never have I been to a bar or anywhere and have had to supply my ID multiple times that night. If you are going to be that strict, you should stamp hands or get wrist bands. You also don't want to crowd your bar anymore than needed by making everyone in a party go up there to prove themselves each time. You can sell more than 1 beer to a person at a time.

The next mishap was when I ordered a jumbo pretzel. I was charged but the kitchen lost the ticket so it never came. I went up and asked the status and they apologized and gave me a pretzel after 30+ minutes.

Some other feedback are the the chairs around the perimeter rail are too tall or the rail is too short, this should be corrected. No one wanted to sit there and I heard many people complain.

The cost of beer here is about $1 per pint too high. Most beers are $7 which pushes the upper limits of any brewery in the cities. Beers are new and not that great yet to start charging a premium. They may use quality ingredients, but so does everyone else. Most breweries charge more for the high ABV beers, which is understandable since they require more fermentables.

Overall I hope they figure some things out to be better, but regardless they will still do well because they have no competition...

Turns out Google ratings are accurate again. I passed on going here a few months back because it only had 3.9 Stars. I was in neighborhood again and took a closer look at the reviews and seeing they were kind if all over the place, I decided to check the place out and make up my own mind. I'll start with the good. The taproom is an exceptional space, beautiful, with a view of the brewing equipment, big windows and garage doors that let in lots of natural light. If feels like a place I want to hang out. The service was fantastic, friendly staff and owners. The pizza looked fantastic, done to.perfection and the sausage was delicious, however, the sauce was way too salty, like painfully so. All things considered thus far I'd have to rate them at least 4 Stars. Unfortunately the most important thing, the quality of the beer, was on par with the worst reviews I had read. I had two, the Australian Pale Ale and the Pilsner. Folks who know their beer know that there's noting to cover up imperfections in a traditional European Pilsner. I was pretty sure I was picking up DMS, vegetal off flavors in the pale ale. Actually my nose sensed it before I even tasted the beer, but it wasn't an awful beer. There was enough hops and toasty malt to drown most of it out. Then Itried the pilsner. For sure DMS. It was the predominant flavor. It was terrible, a true dumper. This beer should not have ever made it on tap. Beers like this will ruin a breweries reputation in short order. Most people won't bother to complain, ask for a refund or write a detailed review. I liked the space and the service, so I want to see them succeed. I hope they accept this as constructive criticism and take steps to avoid repeating the mistake. Based in some of the previous reviews, I am not the first person to point out an issue with the quality of the beer. I hope this review gets...