Living in the Tampa area I have the good fortune of being close to several good craft brewery tasting rooms: Cigar City, Cycle, Green Bench, Brew Hub, Brewers Tasting Room, etc. I see now though lots of new ones are popping up all around the state. My favorites brews are imperial stouts (like the CCB Hunaphu, Green Bench's Manaphin) - I'm actually not a real big fan of IPAs. I'm looking for suggestions for other Florida Brewerys to visit that usually have good stouts or porters on tap. So tell me some good ones, and what your favorites are.
What's Your Favorite Florida Craft Brew?
- Thread starter MarkFSU
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I'm not a big fan of IPAs either. I see Jai Alai served all over Tampa and I hate that Im not a fan of it.
So we may have the same taste.
With that, go to 7th Sun Brewery in Dunedin and try their Orange Gaffiti. It's probably my favorite beer. Great taste...not too hoppy, not too malty, and not overly sweet. It also has a good alcohol percent to it.
They have a ton of other great brews as well, they won't disappoint.
I know this will be an unpopular opinion but I've yet to find a Florida brewery on par with Wicked Weed, Shiner, Victory, Dogfish, Harpoon, Abita, Troegs, and quite a few I've been to around the US. (Sidenote, I take a ton of brewery tours when on vacation and by FAR the best is Yeungling in PA at the original brewery. It may not have the best beer but it is history. You go down into the beer caves (literally giant caves dug out of the mountain with rerouted underground spring water to keep the beer cool in a time prior to refrigeration) and you can see the partially still standing brick walls where the Feds walled it off during prohibition as they only took down part of it when they reopened).
My favorite brewery in Florida is Seadog which is actually brewed in Maine (and I just went to the original in Maine about a month ago or so) but has outlet brewpubs scattered around Florida. In particular their fruit beers are quite good especially if you go with the sunfish (grapefruit flavored) or any of their fruit beers. My second favorite brewery in Florida and it's a close second is Florida Beer Company over in Cape Canaveral. They brew the Duff Dry for Universal which is not only my favorite theme park beer BUT is one of my favorite porters anywhere. Unfortunately you can't try the great recipes they brew for Universal and their other recipes are only so-so. They can literally only sell themselves the recipes NOT selected by Universal for its outlet. So while Florida Beer WITH its Universal beers would definitely be my favorite in Florida and probably in the low end of my top 20 breweries, as it's hamstrung by not having Duff Dry and the other good Universal beers it's just a good brewery and my second favorite in Florida but not amazing.
Florida is definitely well behind the 8ball and its breweries are not on par with those in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, California, Texas, Maine, Massachusetts and New York (and Vermont although I haven't been but I've tried many a Vermont beer at craft bare).
My favorite brewery in Florida is Seadog which is actually brewed in Maine (and I just went to the original in Maine about a month ago or so) but has outlet brewpubs scattered around Florida. In particular their fruit beers are quite good especially if you go with the sunfish (grapefruit flavored) or any of their fruit beers. My second favorite brewery in Florida and it's a close second is Florida Beer Company over in Cape Canaveral. They brew the Duff Dry for Universal which is not only my favorite theme park beer BUT is one of my favorite porters anywhere. Unfortunately you can't try the great recipes they brew for Universal and their other recipes are only so-so. They can literally only sell themselves the recipes NOT selected by Universal for its outlet. So while Florida Beer WITH its Universal beers would definitely be my favorite in Florida and probably in the low end of my top 20 breweries, as it's hamstrung by not having Duff Dry and the other good Universal beers it's just a good brewery and my second favorite in Florida but not amazing.
Florida is definitely well behind the 8ball and its breweries are not on par with those in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, California, Texas, Maine, Massachusetts and New York (and Vermont although I haven't been but I've tried many a Vermont beer at craft bare).
I appreciate your post. I'm not saying that Florida craft beer is better than any other states craft beer, and while it doesn't sound like I have been to as many different ones as you, I think you may be surprised at the quality of some of the small breweries here. What I am looking for are suggestions on good brewery testing rooms. Many of them around here really do not distribute outside of maybe a few local restaurants, so you can only find them available in the tasting rooms. Some like CCB have grown and started distributing out of state, but that's the exception right now.
Interesting you mention Yuengling, their second brewery is in Tampa. I often run into people on vacation from all over who are impressed with some of our beers here. I usually hear from them who travel and do tastings around the country that San Diego is one of the places that has a very strong reputation for quality breweries.
I'll have to try the Duff beer soon, if only because I can relive one of the best Simpsons episodes when they go to Duff Gardens!
I think Abita and Shiner have both gone to crap but that's just me.
Living in the JAX area, we have access to a ton of craft breweries so my choices might be biased to the local stuff. Pinglehead Imperial Red Ale from Orange Park is one of my favorites.
In JAX Beach, Engine 15 makes a great brown ale called Nutsack Imperial Brown that is delicious.
Swamphead in Gainesville makes a stout called Midnight Oil that is awesome. Aardwolf in JAX makes a great stout called Styrofoam Pony. Veterans United, also in JAX, made a badass espresso stout last year called Cup O Joe.
As far as IPAs go, Jai Alai is good but...Intuition Ale Works I-10 is just as good or better to me.
Living in the JAX area, we have access to a ton of craft breweries so my choices might be biased to the local stuff. Pinglehead Imperial Red Ale from Orange Park is one of my favorites.
In JAX Beach, Engine 15 makes a great brown ale called Nutsack Imperial Brown that is delicious.
Swamphead in Gainesville makes a stout called Midnight Oil that is awesome. Aardwolf in JAX makes a great stout called Styrofoam Pony. Veterans United, also in JAX, made a badass espresso stout last year called Cup O Joe.
As far as IPAs go, Jai Alai is good but...Intuition Ale Works I-10 is just as good or better to me.
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Yep, there are three breweries in JAX Beach: Engine 15, Green Room and Zeta.
One of my favorite breweries outside of Florida is Weyerbacher. Never had a beer of theirs I didn't like.
Another one to try would be Duke's brown, from Bold City, Also in Jax. I really need to try Engine 15...
Favorite beer brewed in Florida is Cigar City Marshal Zhukov's imperial stout. Love stouts and porters, and this one has consistently been my local favorite for a few years now. Much harder to get outside of Tampa these days though, so the difficulty procuring may affect my selection.
I appreciate your post. I'm not saying that Florida craft beer is better than any other states craft beer, and while it doesn't sound like I have been to as many different ones as you, I think you may be surprised at the quality of some of the small breweries here. What I am looking for are suggestions on good brewery testing rooms. Many of them around here really do not distribute outside of maybe a few local restaurants, so you can only find them available in the tasting rooms. Some like CCB have grown and started distributing out of state, but that's the exception right now.
Interesting you mention Yuengling, their second brewery is in Tampa. I often run into people on vacation from all over who are impressed with some of our beers here. I usually hear from them who travel and do tastings around the country that San Diego is one of the places that has a very strong reputation for quality breweries.
I'll have to try the Duff beer soon, if only because I can relive one of the best Simpsons episodes when they go to Duff Gardens!
Rapp brewing is probably the best of the small breweries in Florida I've been to. As I mentioned I do like Florida Beer and Seadog better, but they're neither small nor in Seadogs case actually from Florida.
Here's a list of the various Florida breweries but I don't agree with the rankings (for example they have Proof maybe 5th overall and while I support them as a Tally local and went to several of their events including on July 1, I wouldnt put them anywhere near that high).
http://www.beeradvocate.com/place/list/?&c_id=US&s_id=FL&brewery=Y&sort=name&sort=rating
That's a favorite of mine as well. It's extremely hard to find outside of Tampa and I've only found it in JAX twice.
Intuition makes a breakfast stout that is good. It's not KBS but it's still pretty good. They also make a yearly release stout called Underdark. THAT is a good beer.
Green Room makes one called Count Shockula that is pretty solid.
Ancient City in St Augustine opened recently and their head brewer used to run Mile Marker Brewing. They're putting out a coconut porter that is supposed to be the same as Mile Marker's which was outstanding. The same guy also brewed a pumpkin milk stout one year that was delicious.
Yeah, I've had KBS, haven't tried Intuition's breakfast stout. I'll check it out next time I see it.
One of my favorite things about going to visiting bigger cities is the relative ease in finding great beers. Tallahassee is getting better, but still lacking overall.
CCB flows like water in Tampa, I may not think as highly of it if it were that easy to get.
I don't like all CCB beers. I've never liked their Maduro and a few of their specialty beers are far too sweet for my liking. Still, they generally put out some good products.
Maduro is pretty average, that's their mass market stuff like Jai Alai, Florida Cracker, Hotter than Helles, etc.. If you can find it, Bolita Double Nut Brown Ale, and Caffe Americano are some of my favorite CCBs and worth it. I also like their Cafe Con Leche Sweet Stout (and it is sweet) and Good Gourd is my favorite pumpkin ale - which I know most people hate.
I also just picked up a bottle of their newest release stout, but haven't tried it yet.
I love me some Good Gourd. I will buy just about any new non-can CCB I can find in stores, which ain't much lately. I do have a bottle of Seasonal Creep and Bolita double nut brown in the fridge at the moment. Already had one bottle of Creep, haven't tried the Bolita yet. Maybe will Crack it open this week.Maduro is pretty average, that's their mass market stuff like Jai Alai, Florida Cracker, Hotter than Helles, etc.. If you can find it, Bolita Double Nut Brown Ale, and Caffe Americano are some of my favorite CCBs and worth it. I also like their Cafe Con Leche Sweet Stout (and it is sweet) and Good Gourd is my favorite pumpkin ale - which I know most people hate.
I also just picked up a bottle of their newest release stout, but haven't tried it yet.
Not a fan of Florida Brewing or at least the Key West Ale. I do like some of the proof stuff, though some of their creations at the RRSQ place are odd (turkey dinner brew at Thanksgiving last year). Intuition has some good stuff and of course so does Cigar City. There use to be a small brewery in Minneola (Lagniappe) that I really enjoyed when I lived in Lake County. I think it is gone though.
I'm also a Good Gourd fan but I've only found it a few times, all on draft. JP Henleys in old town St Auggie had it on Nitro this past fall.
I'm not a fan of CCBs mass sale stuff (Maduro, Florida Cracker and Hotter Than Helles) but I do like Tocobaga Red Ale, Good Gourd, Florida Man DIPA and the Cubano Brown Ale.
Even though it's slowly started to circulate around JAX and St Augustine pubs, I've never tried Proof beers. I've heard mixed reviews on them but I'll give them a try.
When I was in Tampa in March for a bachelor party, we did a brewery crawl of our own. We went to Barley Mow, Green Bench, 3 Daughters, Cigar City and Angry Chair. Angry Chair was...meh. The rest were good but Barley Mow was incredible. All their beers were fantastic.
Engine 15 is turning an old building near downtown into a production facility with a beer garden. Supposed to be pretty sweet.
Intuition in Jax and Intracoastal in Melbourne are both doing some neat stuff.
Green Bench makes some of the worst beer I've ever had.
Green Bench makes some of the worst beer I've ever had.
Dunedin Brewery's Peach Apricot is a great brew for hot summertime Florida. Other good stuff I've had lately include Big Storm Wavemaker, Three Daughters Beach Blonde, and a couple that I had from Two Henrys - 7 Mile Bridge IPA and Gilded Age lager.
I've always wanted to try the Two Henrys stuff. We always pass the exit on I-4 on our way to SW Florida.
Useful link for those who travel around the State; it has a listing of craft brewers & brewpubs by city, as well as a map of them.
http://beerinflorida.com/florida-brewery-map-list/
http://beerinflorida.com/florida-brewery-map-list/
Admittedly, my palate isn't anything special, but I don't find any one FL brewery to be leagues above the others.
Each one has positives and negatives. Most all have very good IPAs / dIPAs and decent "mainstream crafts" (blondes, Kolsch, lagers, wheat)" with the occasional great bottle release or seasonal.
I'm just excited that there are so many great options now in this state, and especially now in TLH
Each one has positives and negatives. Most all have very good IPAs / dIPAs and decent "mainstream crafts" (blondes, Kolsch, lagers, wheat)" with the occasional great bottle release or seasonal.
I'm just excited that there are so many great options now in this state, and especially now in TLH
That's BrewHub. They do off-site brewing for a lot of craft brewers including Cigar City. They do brew their own beer but if all their beer is like the stuff they just started carrying in Publix, I won't be trying it again. I thought it was terrible.
We differ here, the tasting room at BrewHub is nice and comfortable. They had some good bourbon barrel aged brews during the last month. The other stuff they have on tap, aside from the occasional CCB special, I agree is not so good. Especially the Golf ones.
I think the beer at Two Henrys is terrible, which is unfortunate, I would love to find one that was good there as that place has some possibility as well, especially if you live on the East side of Hillsborough County.
I hadn't been to FL in a while and when I was there a few weeks ago I was impressed at how many craft beer options there were. It's not CO, OR or San Diego but it is coming along pretty quickly. I had Three Daughters Beach Blonde, the Hopgun from Funky Budha and a Blood Orange IPA from somewhere that I can't remember. Picked it up in Treasure Island, it was sold in 4-packs.
I've never been to the Brew Hub tap room. The only Brew Hub beers I've tried are Diver Down Red and some Key Lime Lager. They were in 22 oz bombers that Publix had on BOGO so I thought I would give them a shot. Both were absolutely terrible.
I wasn't impressed with the Golf beers either.
I would agree that most of the Florida breweries are competent just unspectacular. There's not a single craft brew from Florida that I've had that was worthy enough to warrant buying away from the area. Which is odd because last year I came across Cigar City as a featured guest brewer at a large winery in the Brandywine region of PA over the much better more local breweries like Victory and Troeg (you think Golden Monkey from Victory is good? That's probably their blandest offering at the brewery as they have some really great farmhouse and sour beers). The only "Florida" beers I've had worthy of tracking down and buying if I could is the Duff Dry by Florida Beer (which I would buy a case of at least right now if they sold it away from Universal) and the Sunfish and other fruit beers at Seadog (I'm not usually a big fan of fruit beers but Seadog, Abita and Shiner are three exceptions I've come across as those breweries do them right). Hunapou (or however you spell it) is probably the most overrated beer on the planet considering its expense and the "to do" they make over it in Tampa. I've had three years iterations of it, one after a year or so of aging and never found it to even be good, let alone great enough to be worth the hassle and expense.
On the other hand, I've had plenty of pleasant but ultimately forgettable beers from around Florida. None worth getting excited about other than the aforementioned Duff Dry and Seadog fruit beers, but not usually "bad". Dunedin Brewery which is maybe the oldest true craft brewery in Florida I found to have a great atmosphere at the brewery but mediocre brews (I'd compare them to LAB in Asheville, one of the establishment but decidedly middle of the road).
Sidenote, I did see the worst band I have EVER seen in a public performance at Dunedin Brewery. It was a horrifically awful ska band that seemed like you took the worst high school players at each instrument, told them not to practice then told them they had a gig in three hours. Lol, my wife and I still laugh about the horrible saxophonist "exploring the space" by leaving the stage and wandering around the brewery playing his own, awful and off key brand of "solos". Maybe not quite so funny if we both weren't musicians at FSU during undergrad but still, hands down the worst band I've seen in my 39 years. THAT'S my most clear memory of any Florida brewery.
Hit up Playalinda Brewing Co the other day for a quick beer. Got the Red Ale and was very surprised by how good it was. In all honesty they're probably better at IPA type beers, as even the Red Ale was very hoppy.
Tribe, I'm surprised you think so highly of Shiner and Victory. I've always felt like Shiner could be good but they ruin it by pumping in CO2 or something. But LOL at your ska band story, I actually laughed at the sax solo part.
Tribe, I'm surprised you think so highly of Shiner and Victory. I've always felt like Shiner could be good but they ruin it by pumping in CO2 or something. But LOL at your ska band story, I actually laughed at the sax solo part.
