When you think about craft beer destinations in North America, the sprawling network of cities, towns and highways that make up the greater Tampa Bay area likely doesn’t top the list. But over the past decade, Tampa Bay has transformed itself from a brewing backwater into one of the United States’ most innovative, under-the-radar beer scenes.
How did that happen? There’s no one answer, but it’s a fact that brewing’s long been in the region’s blood. The Ybor City Brewing Company, Florida’s first brewery, opened in 1896 after early settlers discovered a spring flowing underneath what’s now one of Tampa’s most vibrant neighborhoods. In recent years, the state’s bounty of local ingredients—citrus fruits, hot peppers, honey, even seafood—has allowed brewers with rebellious, unorthodox streaks to truly shine. And nearly year-round patio weather doesn’t hurt the cause, either.
At most recent count, the Tampa Bay area boasts at least 50 breweries, here are five of the best.
1. Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin
Dunedin Brewery’s (pictured above) been churning out high-quality ales and lagers since 1996, making them the oldest microbrewery in Florida. They moved to their current location in 2001, a friendly Scottish-themed tavern just off the Pinellas Trail and only blocks from Florida Auto Exchange Stadium, spring training home of the Toronto Blue Jays. With high-quality pub food and regular live music, the brewery’s where baseball fans, Canadian snowbirds, and regular Dunedin folks get together and hang out.
As for their beer: from top to bottom, it’s an absolutely solid lineup. Dunedin says their apricot peach ale is their most popular brew, and given how well the full-bodied fruitiness goes with the Bay area sunshine, that claim makes a ton of sense. More adventurous drinkers will want to give their constantly-rotating capsaicin series a try: the brewery tries to release a new pepper-infused beer every Monday, so even if you don’t like this week’s selection, just wait seven days and another curious concoction will show up. Other locally sourced ingredients that have made their way into Dunedin’s beers include passion fruit, hemp, and Florida honey.
2. Cigar City Brewing, Tampa
It’s safe to say the Tampa Bay beer scene owes a major debt to Cigar City Brewing. Founded in 2009, Cigar City might not be the oldest craft brewery in the region (see above) but their willingness to both innovate and pay homage to the place they’ve called home means they’ve done more than anyone else to put southwest Florida on the map.
Cigar City’s Jai Alai IPA is arguably their best-known brew; crisp and bold with delightful citrus and pine notes, it’s an excellent example of what an India pale ale should be. But Jai Alai—a nod to the sport that was hugely popular among Tampa’s Hispanic population from the 1950s to the 1970s—is only the beginning. Their Humidor series features brews aged on Spanish cedar or cedrela, the same wood traditionally used to make cigar boxes. Their Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout is one of the few beers with a near-perfect rating on BeerAdvocate. And they’ve recently expanded into ciders and meads. The brewery lives in a cozy former police building in Ybor City where in the early days of the Spanish American War Teddy Roosevelt would have stabled his horses.
Rumors that Cigar City was going to be sold to mega-conglomerate Anheuser Busch-InBev earlier this year ultimately proved untrue, but the brewery did change hands in 2016, selling controlling interest to a Colorado craft brewer and becoming part of a collective called United Craft Brews LLC. Cigar City’s owners have said they made the deal because they were out of production space and they’ve promised Tampa beer lovers will see few changes.
3. Coppertail Brewing, Tampa
