Hey yall big shout out from little new jersey to my fellow floridian beer lovers and BA'ers. Heading down to florida, the tampa area specifically st petersburg. While im on vacation i was hoping to sample some wonderful brews. So any must hit spots? Great breweries (cigar city is already a must)? Very interested in finding a good bottle shop to find some choice selections to send back up north to the bros. So any suggestions would be quite welcome. Im not looking to travel much more, but i will have a rental car. This is one of those lazy vacations. Thanks.
Question gets asked every week. Use search and you'll find a plethora of threads. Enjoy your time down here. Cheers.
I did the leg work for you: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/search/29459941/?q=Tampa&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=17
Thanks much. I did do a search and found a couple of nice ideas. I get it: these posts are everwhere and are getting to be a little tiresome. Wanted to start a new one though in the hopes i might get a reponse specific to the time ill be there. I shouldve included that ill be there from thw 2nd until the 7th. Thanks again for your time and thoughs. Cheers from up north
Tampa Bay is still doing the 'walk of shame' from Tampa Bay Beer Week so not too many events going on. They are releasing KBS this week down here (though it is going to be impossible to get ahold of it looks like) and also Curmudgeon from Founders is sneaking around out there. No good events though. Any beers in particular you are looking for there are a lot of great traders in the area that aren't too crazy.
hit up cycle brewing for sure. They have had BA beers on tap for a while now. 9$ a snifter no growlers.
In the immediate St. Pete area you've got Cycle, Green Bench, and 3 Daughters, expand your search to the outskirts and you've got Pair O Dice and Rapp. Rapp, Cycle, and Green Bench are probably the most essential out of those stops, in that order. Brewer's Tasting Room is also in that area, which is a bar with a brewpub setup where they invite brewers in to create collaboration brews, and is a solid spot to check out. Expand to the whole Tampa metro area and I'd recommend Cigar City Brewing, Cigar City Brewpub (different brews), and The Wild Rover, all a pretty easy shot down Dale Mabry. You can take a tiny detour off of that trek and work in Southern Brewing, which I'd personally recommend. Expand your search to Dunedin and I'd recommend doing 7venth Sun and Dunedin Brewery. The best bottle shop in the area is in Dunedin too, their local branch of Lueken's Liquors. Otherwise the Total Wine near Cigar City is likely your best choice. Depending on when you visit, a side trek to Ybor City/Brandon might be worthy assuming you're coming in four or so months and Coppertail Brewing and possibly Cigar City Cider & Mead will potentially be open in Ybor, along with Tampa Bay Brewing Company who are one of the oldest craft breweries in the state. Angry Chair has a location brewing there too, but they're probably a long way away from opening. From there it's just an extra 10 or so minutes to get over to Three Palms and ESB Brewing in Brandon. ESB in particular has one of my favorite brews done in the Tampa area, they do a light beer brewed with a local wild yeast that is phenomenal. Everything I've had from Coppertail so far has been pretty impressive as well, they'll be a worthy spot once they open. There's also a few good, isolated spots around, but I'm trying to stick to clusters where you'll find two or three breweries in close vicinity. The "Tampa Bay Metro area" is huge. Well shit, I guess that covers it.
