In March 2024 I had the exciting opportunity to visit Florida for Tampa Bay Beer Week. I found the beer scene and community to be vibrant and wonderfully welcoming. Recently the area has been severely affected by hurricane Helene. My understanding is that almost all breweries have survived. The ones in Asheville and elsewhere in North Carolina seem to be hit the hardest. From the breweries and taprooms I visited in the Tampa Bay area I believe that only Mastry’s has been badly affected. Taking that into consideration, I felt like it is not too inappropriate to share the experience of my past trip. Also in the hope that once everyone recovers from this storm, the breweries and taprooms will continue to be open for business and thrive.
Nicknamed the “Gulp Coast,” Tampa Bay boasts over 100 breweries, each with its own unique story and a passion for crafting delicious beer. The area is home to well-known and award-winning breweries like Cigar City Brewing, Angry Chair and Cycle as well as smaller local gems.
Exploring the Tampa Beer Scene
- You can pick your own route and go on a self-guided tour, which I did for ten days and ended up visiting 30 taprooms.
- You can also hop on the Brew Bus in downtown Tampa. On my first night I did the Friday Heights tour to get the lay of the land and it was really fun!
- You can buy a Tampa Ale Trail passport that includes 83 breweries. By collecting stamps you can participate in events organized at breweries on the Ale Trail during the year. Fun for residents, perhaps not very practical for visitors, but still a fun souvenir though! They are only sold at a few places (including the Florida Brewers Guild festival) or if you have a US address you can receive it by post. If you plan on doing a lot of beer tasting in Tampe itself, I recommend signing up for the free Tampa Bay Crafted Pass, where you can earn beer souvenirs.
Tampa is about an hour and a half by car from Orlando (though rush hour traffic can be awful). You can also fly into Tampa Airport. Nowadays the temporary esim cards with unlimited data are very reasonably priced, so you can use Google Maps and other apps during the trip to help navigate your way around. After being there for a week, I don’t think I would consider Tampa to be a holiday destination in itself, though if you go for beer week it is totally worth it.
I covered quite a lot of ground and split the article into different sections, so you can skip a part and jump right to what is relevant for you!
- Jump to Tampa
- Jump to The Gulp Coast
- Jump to Tampa Bay Beer Week
- Jump to Tampa Bay Beer Map
Tampa
Quite a few breweries are concentrated in the Ybor historic district and scattered up and down the long stretch of North Florida Avenue on bus route 1. A few of them are included on the Brew Bus tour. You can get pretty much everywhere in Tampa by public transport and it’s inexpensive, though I understood from the beer locals I spoke to that they very surprised I was doing that, apparently they don’t!
Downtown / around N. Florida Ave
Angry Chair Brewing is of course a must-visit for all international craft beer fans. With 24 taps and according to their own website “lots of wood, lots of metal, look at those exposed beams, much wow, and swag, lots of swag” a true craft beer pilgrimage destination.
I was especially taken with Woven Water Brewing, about a 12 min walk from N. Florida Ave. The interior is a interesting mix of craft beer and cocktail bar vibe. The flight of three I had (New England IPA, smoothie sour and coffee porter) were excellent. Lovely bar tender, who was very friendly and informative. That is often a make-or-break factor for me.
Places I visited with the Brew Bus were Florida Avenue Brewing, Ology Brewing, Lowry Parcade (really fun, playing skee ball brought back some memories!), Common Dialect and Independent Bar and Cafe. You get about 50 minutes or so at each location. Well worth the ticket. I happened to be the only one who booked the tour that evening, like having a private taxi! The beers were pretty reasonably priced. The bars that are not a brewery – Independent and Lowry – also had some Belgian beers on tap, which is pretty cool and shows that they are also interested in traditional styles and not only showcasing US beers.
Last but certainly not least, Cigar City Brewing near the airport – the original taproom – is a great spot to hang out for a few beers, especially during Tampa Bay Beer Week when they release their newest Hunahpu! I didn’t get in the early morning queue for that one, however tempting it was. They have a second smaller cider and mead taproom in Ybor.
Ybor Historic District
Ybor is a free 15 min tram ride from downtown. I found the best coffee of the trip there at Tabanero Cigars – yes indeed, a cigar shop, but with excellent coffee! Ybor City was once the cigar capital of the world. It is now known for its thriving nightlife scene and the oldest continuously operated restaurant in Florida, “Columbia”, that has been open since 1905.
Barriehouse Beer should be at the top of your list when visiting Ybor. I had such a wonderful time; Ashley is the best host and bartender! It is very welcome place, almost like a local divebar, but then with fantastic craft beer. The owners come for a family of German brewers who emigrated to the States mid 19th century. You can see clearly from their tap list that they have a preference for German and Czech style lagers. I tried a few from the cutest taster glasses I have ever seen and they were excellent. There are 20 taps of which 6 are Czech sidepull taps. I had my very first mlíko there, a very cool experience. A mlíko is a glass almost entirely filled with foam, with just a small amount of beer at the bottom. The foam is incredibly dense and creamy, giving the drink its milky appearance.
The two other breweries I stopped at in Ybor are equally worth a visit. Coppertail Brewing is the typical big craft beer minimalistic taproom with windows into the brewery, lots of seating and a food menu. Great for hanging out with friends, but perhaps a little too impersonal for a solo traveler. Tampa Bay Brewing Company is also a spacious taproom, though more colorful and located in the downtown area of Ybor right on the historic tram route, with a pretty big terrace. They were showing Return of the Jedi on one of the screens, so of course extra bonus points scored there! They have some pretty neat merch, too.
One of the taprooms I was excited to share here is Bastet Brewing. They had lovely beers and absolutely the best merchandise! I got a shirt there and a Baby Yoda handmade by one of the owner’s mom, it is my favorite souvenir from the trip. So I am totally gutted to read that they have recently closed their brewery permanently due to financial difficulties.
The Gulp Coast
The Gulp Coast is the nickname for the craft beer scene in St. Petersburg & Clearwater where over 35 breweries are located. What an excellent name! You can find all the breweries listed here on the Gulp Coast website.
Clearwater, and beyond
I first stayed in Clearwater for two days and explored the area. To get there I drove over the 16 km long causeway over the Old Tampa Bay, which is a neat drive even for a Dutchie. From downtown Clearwater there is a Jolley Trolley that takes you to the beach, where you will find a 3 Daughters taproom with a nice view (not located right on the beach though), a small onsite brewery, a food menu, and about 12 beers on tap and some ciders available as well. I missed getting to Anecdote Brewing, which is halfway between Clearwater and St. Pete, because I didn’t quite figure out the beach trolley (routes are not clear and they are never on time).
A brewery in Clearwater that came highly recommended is Grindhaus Brew Lab. It was closed the day I was in the neighborhood, but only a few minutes from there is the equally well-known Southern Lights Brewing Company. They had an excellent Red Ale, a style I am normally not too keen on. My favorite part though was the Star Wars memorabilia, especially the awesome life-size Han Solo in carbon freeze! You had me at “I know”.
About 6 km from there, on the side of Old Tampa Bay, you will find the quaint little area of Safety Harbor with two excellent beer bars. Troubled Waters Brewing is located on Main Street and is like a local craft beer dive bar: a very friendly place and creatively chaotic, with tap handles from all over the world handing from the ceiling. It made my day to encounter Kat behind the bar, after having a fun chat with her at the Florida Guild beer festival in Tampa, and she remembered me! When I arrived at Crooked Thumb Brewing, I got a warm welcome from one of the bar cats. Sold!! I also appreciated them having low ABV beers on tap (since I was driving), like the excellent Dark Mild collab with Cigar City called Family Reunion (3.6%). Be sure to also check out this fantastically imaginative garden in Safety Harbor called Whimzeyland that belongs to a private house but you can visit freely.
Another fun thing to do is the famous Pinellas Trail that stretches for 76 km from Tarpon Springs in the north to St. Petersburg in the south. I rented a bicycle in Dunedin and toured Honeymoon Island (and got eaten alive by mosquitoes, do not recommend, though riding the trail and the Dunedin Causeway was fun). The town of Dunedin is definitely worth a visit with seven breweries in town all in walking distance from each other. Dunedin comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh. That explains the Scottish logo and theme of Dunedin Brewery. The beers were decent, the bar food was good and the place looks like it has pretty good live music and parties. I managed to get to all other breweries in one afternoon, except Cueni and Woodright (closed on that day).
St Pete
If you are pressed for time when visiting the Gulp Coast, I would say skip the rest and go to St Pete. A short bus ride from town is Mastry’s Brewing, which was one of my favorite spots of the trip and I’m happy to say it is back up and running after hurricane Helene hit. Have you ever seen such a gorgeous beer flight? They even sell cigars to go with your beers.
Downtown St Petersburg has a lot to offer craft beer lovers; I counted at least 12 breweries. There is lots more to do there as well, like the wonderful Dalí museum and vegan dining at Tampa Bay’s oldest vegan restaurant Good Intentions. Every beer aficionado will probably have Cycle Brewing at the top of their list, the first craft brewery in St. Pete. Their American Light Lager – St. Pete’s Finest – is only available at the taproom, which for sure will entice the Untappd ‘tickers’! The bar is L-shaped, with taps on two sides. It’s quite the colorful creative space, with local artwork exhibited on the walls and wheels upcycled to lamps. I even ran into someone I had met at Angry Chair, what are the odds! On a sadder note, they will no longer be hosting their Barrel-Aged Day during TBBW, due to it becoming too expensive for the amount of interest.
Two other bars I went to that I think are well worth your time are Green Bench Brewing and Grand Central Brewhouse. Green Bench is a fun place with good beers and ciders, which you also see from the fact that people are coming in and out all day long. Next door is their mead and cider taproom Web’s City Cellar that just celebrated its 5th anniversary. Grand Central Brewhouse is located about 1,5 km down the street. What I didn’t know at the time is that they are really good friends with Brewski; I found that out in August at Brewskival. In addition to the popular IPAs, they brew quite a selection of European beer styles.
Tampa Bay Beer Week
Not to forget why I came to Tampa in the first place of course, Tampa Bay Beer Week! I first heard about it from one of my Swedish acquaintances whom I regularly bump into at beer festivals. To kick off the week, Florida Brewers Guild organizes a Florida Craft Brewers Fest at the River Tower Park. About 70 breweries participate and the festival lasts for 3 hours only, but with a VIP ticket (75 USD) you can get in an hourly early. I would opt for the 4 hours, because that is already quite a short timeframe and there is much to taste. The festival itself is a bit chaotic (they ran out of VIP wristbands, nobody could tell me where to get the goodie bag), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the perfect way to start my beer adventure and get introduced to Florida breweries. I met some great people, like the founders of award-winning Bon Beer Voyage. The temperature is also extremely pleasant at that time of year (20+C). In addition to brewery stands, there are about 10 other fun vendor stands as well; I love my wooden candle holder made from a whisky barrel that I got there!
Exactly one week later on Saturday, Angry Chair hosts its Dark Embrace festival. It is bit of a different set up than the first festival; here the stands aren’t scattered but organized in a large rectangle with a few stands on the periphery. It is a bit more expensive, probably because of the large amount of high point beers: 100 USD for 4 hours. Though the beers are fantastic, admittedly I enjoyed this one a little less. Too many strong beers, no shade from the hot sun (30C) and no seating. The great thing about TBBW is that even if you don’t opt for a festival ticket, there are plenty of events during the week for you to get your craft beer fix!
In 2025 TBBW will be held from March 1 – 9. Keep an eye on all the websites above, including TBBW. I found information to be somewhat scattered and hard to find regarding the events. Hopefully my blog article will help give you a good impression of Tampa Bay Beer Week!
Tampa Bay Beer Map
Check out my Tampa beer map below or open it directly in your browser via this link. The purple beer icons are the places I visited and are mentioned in this blog. The black beer icons are other breweries and taprooms recommended by locals and public sources. Other useful online maps can be found on Visit Tampa Bay and Drink Local Florida.
All images by Tina Rogers unless otherwise specified.
