Brewery crawls toward major distribution

Naughty Monk Brewery is expanding its brand.

The Lakewood Ranch-based brewery, with a taproom at 2507 Lakewood Ranch Blvd., Bradenton, celebrated its official grand opening Thursday night with a ribbon cutting with the Manatee Chamber of Commerce and Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance. The brewery actually opened to the public earlier this year, but timed the official celebration with the launch of distributing its beer.

Gold Coast Eagle Distributing today will kick off its distribution campaign of Naughty Monk’s Naughty Blonde Ale with a five-restaurant pub crawl. The first eateries to carry the beer on tap and participating tonight in the pub crawl are Geckos Bar and Grill at 7228 55th Avenue E., Bradenton; Beef ‘O’ Brady’s at 4286 53rd Ave. E., Bradenton; Fuzzy’s Taco Shop at 2515 University Parkway; Oak and Stone at 5405 University Parkway; and Truman’s Tap and Grill at 11161 E State Road 70 East, Bradenton.

The crawl starts at 5 p.m. and end with an after-party at Naught Monk at 10 p.m.