OCEAN VIEW, DELAWARE
Opened St. Patrick’s Day 2021 in a charmingly mod tan-shingled station (with decorative white silo), OCEAN VIEW BREWING COMPANY is an extension of Rehoboth’s Thompson Island Brewing. Head brewer Jimmy Valm, Thompson Island’s guiding light, assumed control at the start, building a new lineup of rounded beers good enough to satisfy your soul.
Featuring a white-walled and wood paneled interior with decorative antique window frames, Ocean View’s taproom has several tiled draughts lining the bar wall and an open kitchen boasting coastal comfort foods. Several sylvan booths and tables (with leather backing) fill out the main space while a cozy hearth-warmed backroom and small benched front deck provide further seating.
Offering seafood specials, fried chicken, cocktails and wine alongside a dozen well-rounded house brews, spiked lemonade, shandy’s and sodas, Ocean View covers the bases well. During late February ’26, watched Olympics on a cold Friday at noon while downing all brews on the board except Historic Village Hazy IPA and Sunset Shift West Coast IPA.
Ocean View’s most popular beer, Little Bay Lite Lager, bests most ‘delicate’ lo-cal fare as dry lemon spritz coasts thru sweet Easter breading for a crisply clean beige-cleared lightweight.
The second favorite amongst locals, Got Waves Kolsch, contrasted hay-like maize acridity against sugary corn malts as zesty lemon fizz sparkled in the breeze.
Standard American lager, Squad 90, put spicy citrus fizz atop thin pale-malted wheat cracker neutrality.
Sweet orange-peeled coriander and clove spicing spread thru Where The Waves Break Witbier, leaving rummy sugaring upon herbal cilantro, perfumed flowers, tangy marmalade and tart lemon meringue.
Tartly fruited kettle sour, Bliss Raspberry, laced sour-candied raspberry powder with mild lemon-limed acidity, buttery Chardonnay wining and sinister blueberry-boysenberry tease.
Zesty grapefruit jumps out front for tropical NEIPA, Ocean View, a vibrant citric blast with juicy mango, peach and passionfruit gaining lacquered pine at the oats base.
Lemony orange and tangerine tanginess soaked up the honeyed malts bottoming boozy (8% ABV) Double IPA, Asking For A Friend, scurrying ‘candy peach rings,’ dried apricot and yellow plum illusions.
Slightly smoked peat malts scoured the cocoa powdered midst of Dark Rift Roggenbier, a German-styled rye beer with oaken vanilla, sour prune and dried cherry snips.
It’s difficult to get the right nuances for a German rauchbier, but Burning Down The Haus comes damn close, leaving stylish wafting Band-aid astringency and peat charred dewiness on cherrywood-smoked briny pastrami, smoked salami and cured meat ensemble.
The nitro version of lactic milk stout, Cosmic Cow, let vanilla coffee, spiced brown chocolate and Black Cow whims infiltrate the soft eclair surface.
