Visiting Orlando in 2020? Look Here First!

In the past few years the Orlando beer scene has really gown UP. We have quite a few really good breweries in the area now. The list below is complete to my knowledge as of this posting.


ORLANDO AREA BREWERIES

Ellipsis Brewing (near Orlando Airport)
Ten10 Brewing
Half Barrel Project
Crooked Can Brewing (Winter Garden)
Redlight Redlight brewery and beer bar
Bowigens Brewing
Hourglass Brewing Longwood and new location Hourglass District
Brocken Strings
Deadly Sins
Dead Lizard
Bear & the Peacock
Wolf Branch Brewing
Tactical Brewing
Ivanhoe Park Brewing
Toll Road Brewing (Ocoee)
SunCreek Brewing (Clermont)
RockPit Brewing
Sideward Brewing
Oviedo Brewing
Brew Theory Downtown (by Orange County Brewing) Contract brewing facility
Orange County Brewers Lake Mary
Blue Springs Brewing (Orange City)
Castle Church Brewing
Clermont Brewing Company
Ravenous Pig Brewing / Cask and Larder (same property)
Central 28 (Debary)
Park Pizza & Brewing company (Lake Nona)


New breweries opening
Genetic Brewing (Lake Mary)
3 Odd guys (Apopka)
Dee's Brothers (Sanford)


Highly Recommended Beer Bars
Thirsty Topher
World of Beer - Downtown
Rogue Pub
Celery City (52 taps)
GBs Bottle Shop (21 taps)

Highly Recommended Bottle Shops
Knightly(Orange Blossom Trail location only)
GB's Bottle Shop
Big C Liquor
3 Total Wine locations(check website for stock) Altamonte store has a growler station)
Various ABC locations: (Apopka Vineland store is closest decent beer selection to Disney)
Lake Mary & Winter Park ABC's have growler stations

(A Few) Beer-Centric Restaurants

Cask & Larder
The Smiling Bison
Gnarly Barley
Market on Magnolia


The Sanford Area has 4 breweries and some great beer bars
Deviant Wolfe
Sanford Brewing (Great food)
Wops Hops Brewery
Inner compass Brewing
Central 28 Brewing - in DeBary about a 15 minute drive (well worth it)
A distillery (Lagerhead) and a 5th brewery are opening hopefully by the end of the year or early 2019


Beer Bars and restaurants
Celery City (Best beer bar in the area) 52 taps with huge outside area
Busters Bistro - Belgian inspired food and beer selection
West End (Dive bar with a really good draft selection)
Willow Tree Cafe - Authentic German food, entertainment and Beer.
Smiling Bison great food with a decent selection of local beer.

Orlando Area BA listings - http://www.beeradvocate.com/place/city/80/

Orlando Beer Map http://www.orlandobeerguide.com/orlando-beer-guide-maps.html


Disney Tips
For those traveling to Disney, many places throughout the parks and resorts now serve craft beer.

Yes variety in the parks is limited. Yes it's expensive to buy beer in the parks or at your hotel.

Yes you can bring your own beer to Disney resort pools.

Thank you Bknarr for doing the leg work for all this time.

UNIVERSAL
Since I know I’ve searched Universal many times, I figured I’d post a specific thread after a short visit this weekend. I will basically post about what I found unique. Yuengling and Blue Moon are all over both parks. I did not search every inch of the place to be sure. You may now be able to find some local FL beers at the parks.

Universal Studios - In Springfield, the Duff brewery offers three beers (I believe all by Florida Beer Co). I only had the regular Duff. It was fine. In Harry Potter World, you will find two unique beers. There is Wizard’s Brew (a very solid sweet leaning stout) and Dragon’s Scale (a mildly hoppy red). There’s a beer cart in NY area across from Starbucks and Louie’s. They have 4 locals including Jai Alai and Orange Blossom Pilsner.

Islands of Adventure - Hogs Head in Harry Potter had the two previously mentioned beers plus a 3rd which was malty offering in the Scottish Ale style (Hog’s Head Brew). To be honest, I didn’t see much else in Islands.

City Walk - Again, here you will find Yuengling and Blue Moon at walk up carts like it is growing in trees. I found the selection at NBC Grill to be vast and certainly worth a look. Clearly the largest selection was here with probably upwards of a hundred cans, bottles and drafts. In general, there was nothing hear that knocked my socks off though. The Cow Fish had a nice, but small selection of craft including about six drafts. Each of these two places had Two Hearted which was probably the best beer at each.

Stayed at Portofino Bay and I’d say each venue there (pool, bars, restaurants) had one pretty good craft selection (including Jai Alai and Funky Buddha Hop Gun).

 

From what I last heard. The customer that was going to purchase RC had an issue with some "NEW" requirements from the landlord that RC did not originally have to do. So that deal is dead in the water.

 

Nothing over that way at all. Depending on how long you are here, you may want to rent a car for a day or 2 and make a trip around town. Or hell you are close to Tampa hit those guys over there.

One place i will tell you to hit is Ellipsis they are 5 min from the airport. Less than $5 uber. They open at 1pm everyday. One of the best breweries in the area.

 

closest thing is going to be Big River Grill & Brewing Works. Its Disney Owned but they tend to have decent beer.

 

Apparently Orlando now has an Orldando Beer Week. Culminating with a beerfest on Jan 18th behind Ten10 Brewing. (last year it was LIT)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/centermost-point-invitational-iithe-chuggening-tickets-83679083391

Kickoff is a party at Redlight Redlight on Sat Jan 11th.
Sideward is having an event on the 12th along with can releases throughout the week.
Ellipsis is having their 2nd anniversary party on the 18th

 

Ellipsis is going to be awesome... I will be there. Just ask anyone that works there who Gene Is. They will know me and point my big ass out to you. Come say hi