Florida Beer Recommendations

Where in Florida will they be? As mentioned, anything Cigar City is worth getting.

 

if youre in southern florida, ive been hearing good things about civil society

 

Clearwater (and surrounding area) has a ton of great breweries. Unfortunately, most (Rapp, Cycle, 7venth Sun, Coppertail, etc) of those don't bottle/can yet. Green Bench does limited bottling, 3 Daughters cans (but they're not that good imo), Arcus cans (again not very good).

 

Definitely have them look for Ryeght Angle IPA from Fat Point. Also try their Big Boca Ale they just started distroing in 4 packs of 16oz cans. Went to their brewery and pub in Punta Gorda back in October while visiting my parents and was very impressed.

 

Anything from green bench , they can their ipas now and should be easily accessible at any total wine or abc liquor .

 

this is always a solid tool

http://www.seekabrew.com/distro/compare.html

 

I agree with previous posters- anything Cigar City is great, and Clearwater stuff is also worth seeking out. I'll let local Floridians comment on any newer breweries- I've only been to FL once and did try some local breweries between Panama City and Destin, but nothing was worth mentioning.

 

Coppertail does a lot of bottling and distributing. Their Free Dive IPA and Nightswim Porter are very good. Funky bottles a IPA called Hop Gun worth a try. Both should be found at the Clearwater Total Wine. Even Two Henry's cans an IPA called Seven Mile Bridge (ref the Keys) which is worth a tilt. If you get someone at TW who is worth a hoot, see if any CCB releases are somewhere hiding on a shelf. Big Sound, Dark Woods, etc. are still around. For $50 they might have a BA Big Sound with glasses in the box. Good luck.

 

They are going to be on the west coast so the best and closest would be CC, cycle, angry chair, 7venth sun, coppertail, and green bench. If they go through Tallahassee Proof is a must stop.

Best bottle shop is luekens and the total wine next to CC. Good luck.

 

-Green Bench (St. Pete) does can now and is pretty available on the west coast of Florida.
-Darwin Brewing Company (Bradenton) does a nice wheat.
-Swamp Head (Gainesville) offers a wide variety as well.
-Naples Beach Brewery (Naples) has a diverse offering (especially their dark beers) and now sells bottles & crowlers.

 

Green Bench can IPA. Barley Mow cans several, just south of Clearwater in Largo. If they drive through Tallahassee on I-10 (I have no idea how to drive to Michigan) they need to go to Proof and stock up on crowlers.

 

Green Bench Sunshine City IPA.

 

Luekens Liquors, Total Wine & Whole Foods will have plenty of options

 

You wrote that your folks are in Clearwater and aren't really beer folks and aren't going to a brewery, which sounds to me like you'd like to give them a short list to go shopping at one place. So, there are terrific comments in this thread and some dead-ends ...

I don't think this has made it up here yet.

This is true.

All this is also true.

Yes on Green Bench, probably on Darwin, sometimes on Swamp Head. Not sure NBB has made it this far up.

The recommendations above for stores are legit. The one beer I didn't see on here that's worth getting is Tampa Bay Brewing's Reef Donkey APA (four-packs of tall boys), which is really good. For CCB, Jai Alai is the flagship but Invasion shouldn't be hard to find and it's also a terrific pale ale. If your folks end up at a Total Wine, suggest they stop at the customer-service desk and ask if there are any Florida beers behind the counter. That's where they would keep the limited stuff. Good luck!

 

Can't believe I forgot reef donkey!!