Beer Trip to Tampa

We planned a trip to Tampa as things began to cool down with Covid and air travel started to pick back up. We had some assistance getting around from friends that live in Tampa, as we will give people a heads up that getting from brewery to brewery would’ve been challenging without some help from our friends.

Our first destination once we landed was Arkane Aleworks which is in Largo, Florida, about a 30-45 minute drive from the Tampa airport. While we were all looking forward to Angry Chair, Hidden Springs and Green Bench, Arkane was collectively our favorite stop of the entire trip. Though it’s a little ways out there, I didn’t try a beer that was under a 4.5 rating, and anyone that knows how I rate on Untappd, this is extremely generous for me. Of course we had their Grandma’s Fingers sour variants and picked up a Dessert Eagle Fluffernutter Stout, both of which were exceptional, the highlight of the trip was their IPA Fat Clouds. If you have the ability to get this beer, please do. It was an absolute knock out.

From there we headed to Hidden Springs and Magnanimous, both located near our hotel in downtown Tampa. Hidden Springs hada wide array of fruited berliners that were top notch, while Magnanimous had a some tasty IPAs and a lower ABV Irish Stout, perfect after a day of bigger boozy beers.

We woke up the next day and after breakfast headed towards West Tampa to Bay Cannon Beer Company to try their Xander IPA. This was a perfect way to start our day, the brewer engaged us in wonderful conversation and let us nurse our beers and hangovers until we were ready to Uber to Angry Chair.

Angry Chair was exactly as we expected. Delicious adjunct fruited sours and candy bar style imperial stouts. They did offer smaller pours which was nice so that we could try more offerings, but the price was what you’d expect for drinking a 15% snickers bar stout.

We hit 7venth Sun and Woven Water after Angry Chair. 7venth Sun had some quality offerings, none of which were extremely memorable and Woven Water may have been the sleeper pick of the entire trip. I had their Dark Theory Imperial Stout in collaboration with Ology and rated it a 4.75. This beer, along with the IPAs and sours that people ordered we’re great. You’re going to want to keep an eye out for Woven Water.

Sunday morning before our return we headed to St. Pete’s. We stopped at Green Bench, Cycle and St. Pete Brewing. Green Bench had some really tasty traditional styles. After a weekend of drinking, their pilsner was heavenly. We also opened Hillda’s Guiding Bolt which was a really delicious tasting sour. Cycle had the giant stouts flowing that you would expect them too. All of these were above a 4.25 in my books, we would’ve stayed longer if our livers could’ve handled it. St. Pete Brewing brewed beer, very average beer when compared to some of the other all-star breweries we hit that weekend.

Our final stop before the airport was Cigar City. While I have loved Cigar City beers for years, the stop at their location was very underwhelming. Their offerings were all mostly what you could find in Charlotte, and their vibe was very commercial. You may have to stop here to check the box on your next Tampa trip, but this was likely the 6th-7th best stop of our entire trip.

Where we missed: we didn’t make it to Garagiste Meadery, and from everything we’ve heard, is a must stop on our next trip.