Background
NoDa Brewing is located near the, you guessed it, NoDa (North Davidson) neighborhood, Charlotte’s arts and entertainment district. It was founded in 2011 by beer enthusiast couple Suzie and Todd Ford. The brewery is situated behind an office building off a busy road. The exterior of the brick masonry building has a cool mural painted on the entire front facade. The interior is large, and has a rustic industrial feel, with aged exposed painted brick walls, and exposed wooden joist ceilings. The bar does not have any seating, but has plenty of table seating. The patio is expansive, with picnic tables outside the building, and towards the back is a turfed area surrounded by Adirondack chairs
Experience
We arrived here in the late afternoon on a Friday in October. At first, we sat inside for a while to enjoy the air conditioning, and to admire the enlarged can artwork on the wall. We eventually moved outdoors to two of the open Adirondack chairs. As the afternoon grew into evening, the brewery got more and more busy, with people of all ages enjoying the space, including many children running around on the green turf area. We were going to check out a few of the other breweries nearby, such as Wooden Robot and Heist Brewing, however they had someone setting up a large inflatable screen to do a showing of Hocus Pocus after sunset, so we got another beer and awaited the start of the film. NoDa does not feature food, however there was a food truck selling Gyros and other Greek foods, which we got for dinner.
If you are in Charlotte, definitely stop by NoDA Brewing Company. They have refreshing and tasty beer, and a great place to relax in the sunshine or in the air conditioning on a hot North Carolina afternoon.
Getting There
You should drive or take an Uber/Lyft to get to this brewery. It is not far from the light rail, however the roads leading from the light rail station and brewery are horrid for pedestrians. We braved this path, which meant a walk along two busy multi-lane roads, which at times did not have a sidewalk or crosswalk, and in one point, the crosswalk took us to an area with no sidewalk. There was no lodging nearby, so you would need to travel to get to this brewery.
When in Charlotte we suggest you also visit Wooden Robot, Legion Brewing, Birdsong Brewing and Heist Brewing!
