Tampa Bay area recommendations (2020)

Notes:

1. There is a separate thread for for Orlando curated by advocates who live over there.
2. BA rules dictate annual (vs. quarterly/semi-annual) editions of these types of threads so I’m posting this now before a thrice-yearly visitor decides to do so.

A preamble of sorts: This is designed to be a resource for travelers to the Tampa/St. Pete area (to avoid endless, oft-repetitive thread posts requesting locals' recommendations). These are the places folks most talk about and generally reflect currently preferred styles.

Locals, the point of the thread is this: Which handful of the SCORES of Tampa Bay-area breweries would you want to hit up if you were here from out of town for a night or two? Listing every brewery is pointless.

Visitors, this thread is a great start for planning a trip to the Tampa Bay area. It's not designed to answer every.single.question you have about every.single.thing going on around here. Most breweries now have at least decent internet and social-media presence (including Untappd); check them out for what is pouring at this exact moment, the beer in their to-go coolers or for upcoming events. You’re an adult (and you found this site); look it up yourself. Seriously.

Tampa Bay Area
(broadly includes Tampa, St. Petersburg and around Clearwater)

The Big Kahunas
Cigar City Brewery (Tampa; brewpub as of "early January 2020")
Coppertail Brewing (Tampa; brewpub)
Angry Chair Brewing (Tampa)
7venth Sun Brewing (Dunedin and Tampa)
Hidden Springs Ale Works (Tampa)
Green Bench Brewing (St. Petersburg; also making cider and mead)
Arkane Aleworks (Largo)
Cycle Brewing (St. Petersburg)

Highly Recommended Breweries
Late Start Brewing (inside Pour House at Grand Central; Tampa)
Tampa Bay Brewing (two locations in Tampa; both are brewpubs)
Rapp Brewing (Seminole)
Garagiste Meadery (Tampa)

Highly Recommended Beer Bars
Willard's (Largo)
The Independent (Tampa and St. Pete)
Hops and Props (St. Pete)
The Ale and the Witch (St. Pete)

Highly Recommended Bottle Shops
Hawthorne Bottle Shop (St. Pete)
Jug & Bottle Dept. (Tampa)
Luekens (various locations)
Total Wine (various locations)

(A Few) Beer-centric Restaurants
Stein & Vine (Brandon)
Mr. Dunderbaks (Tampa; also making its own German-centric beers)
Cajun Cafe on Bayou (Pinellas Park)
Datz (Tampa)

The Brewery Bay is a cool resource that allows users to sort breweries in creative ways (e.g., growlers, kid friendly, food).

Tampa Bay Brew Bus does tours if you'd like someone to curate your local brewery experience. They also have a hop-on/hop-off brewery loop in Tampa on Sundays.

 

Here are some further notes/answers:

1. It’s St. Pete. No one here says St. Petes.
1a. Dunedin: duh-KNEE-done (not DOON-din).

2. For foodies, the Tampa Bay Times' Top 50 Restaurants is a good guide (but if you wanna rely on AngryDrunk rants via Yelp and what-not, have at it).
2a. Visitors tend to ask where to get Cuban food and particularly the eponymous sandwich. Popular suggestions include La Teresita and West Tampa Sandwich Shop (Tampa) and Bodega (the OG in St. Pete; now also one in Tampa not too far down Florida Avenue from Angry Chair).
2b. Mazzaro’s. Just go. (Pro tip: Call in your sandwich order. Save your line-waiting for the bakery. Or the cheese section. Or coffee ...)
2c. There are two food halls — Hall on Franklin and Armature Works — within walking distance of each other (as well as Hidden Springs and Garagiste) just north of downtown Tampa. Additionally, a third — called Sparkman’s Wharf — is in downtown’s Channelside district (between the Florida Aquarium and Amalie Arena).

3. The Tampa Bay area is spread out and traffic often sucks. You'll leave more happy and less stressed if you package your stops in a smaller area (e.g., Tampa or Largo/Dunedin or downtown St. Petersburg) rather than try to hit everything in an afternoon.
3a. Dunedin offers the highest density of walkable breweries (seven or eight) and it’s a cool little town anyway.
3b. Cycle to Green Bench isn’t a long walk but it can be a HOT walk depending on the temps. However, you can now hit two really solid breweries (Inoculum/Aggregate Brewing Collective and Overflow, both along First Avenue North) between them to break up the “hike.”

4. Cruise passengers: If you find yourself with some time on your hands, take the trolley north to the Port Authority station (or walk) and then head west a half-block to Pour House at Grand Central. Late Start Brewing is making a variety of killer beers there and you find a bunch of other locals on tap.

5. Uber and Lyft are things here ... as is an extensive law-enforcement presence. Use the former to avoid the latter.
5a. Viable public transportation is not a thing here; further, there is a dearth of parking at more than a few of the highly touted breweries.

6. I try to avoid "mission creep" in this thread. That said ...
6a. Calusa (Sarasota, about five minutes west of I-75) is killing it these days. I wouldn’t recommend it to a first-time Tampa visitor but it may make sense for old hands and those who are driving that way anyway.
6b. I know a lot of folks visit this area to see relatives who live NORTH of the Tampa Bay area. Pasco County (the next one up) has two good breweries: Escape (toward the Gulf) and Zephyrhills Brewing (on the east side). Marker 48 is a cool place to hang out in Hernando County (the one above Pasco) and it’s not far from the Suncoast Parkway.

 

ACB lists the prices on Untappd.

 

Green Bench makes Sunshine City, which is a terrific beer.

 

Yes. And TBBW has an events page that gets very robust as March approaches.