Florida Breweries, March 2015

In March 2015, Andi and I escaped to warm, sunny Florida from one of the worst winters on record. Baltimore and DC had been hit with a stretch of single-digit and teen temps in February, with snow and ice that wouldn't melt. The folks in New England had it much worse, with so much snow that they ran out of places to put it. As spring approached we were still getting bombarded with snow, ice, and freezing temperatures, further solidifying our plan to eventually retire to a warm climate. Some people tell me that they prefer cold weather, and when they do I back away slowly.

On Sunday March 1st I flew to my mom's place in Delray Beach. I was lucky to get out of BWI because the freezing rain caused most flights to be cancelled due to problems de-icing the planes. I enjoyed a few days lying by the pool, exercising, sleeping, and eating Chinese food. I had just finished a brutal wrestling season, and the various joints, tendons and muscles that were hurting from getting pummeled by kids one-third my age started to heal. I really need to take up a less injurious hobby, like perhaps rugby. My pain paid off though, as one wrestler who I trained with all season won the state championship.

Andi flew down on Tuesday the 3rd right before another snowstorm hit the area. My sister Marge and I picked her up and drove her to Enterprise to get a rental car. My mom, as usual, had prepared a lunch consisting of approximately 957 pounds of food. Then Andi and I got some rays at the pool. That night we and my mom met Marge, her boyfriend Doug, and my mom's friend Patty for dinner at the Village Tavern.

Wednesday March 4th. Andi and I drove to 3 Daughters Brewing in St. Petersburg.

The brewery had several games including foosball, chess, checkers, shuffleboard, a life-size connect 4, cornhole, and various board games. There were "spool" tables, a music stage, and a ping pong room.

The place opened in early 2014. They had a 30-barrel brewing system, plus some one-barrel plastic conicals for small batches (which I failed to photograph).

At the bar we sampled their:

Two of their beers were for sale in cans. We bought a couple of six-packs of Bimini Twist.

Next we drove to Peg's Cantina in nearby Gulfport. It, like most of the other businesses on the street, is in a former bungalow. The area has been re-zoned to be a commercial district. It has retained its nice residential feel. It's not very noisy or crowded.

Peg's is associated with Cycle Brewing in St. Petersburg. Peg's has been brewing in Gulfport since 2009, and it serves beers from both locations.

There were 5 Cycle and 4 guest taps. We ate outside and sampled their 3 IPAs: Fixie, Golden Helmet, and Crank. All of them were cloudy so they probably don't filter.

We drove 30 minutes north to Largo and checked into the Belleair Village Motel. For only $75 ($84 with tax), we had a king bed; air conditioning; a living room with a flat-screen TV; and a kitchen with a table, chairs, fridge, microwave, stove, and sink. And the toilet flushed too!

We went out to Barley Mow Brewing Company about a mile away. They don't serve food because they are a brewery. Outside there was a food truck that served pizza and calzones. It was a converted 51-year-old fire engine, and it had a brick oven built into it.

Barley Mow makes efficient use of its limited space. Beer is brewed in the bar area (or, if you prefer, there is a bar in the brewing area). Brewing is done in the morning and early afternoon, before the bar opens for business, obviously to prevent injuries to customers.

There were about 10 or 12 taps. We tried several of their beers, including their Downtown Woody Brown, which was randallized with cashews and almonds. All the beers were on the light side and a bit undercarbonated, and they appeared to be unfiltered.

The bartender told us about West Bay Public House, a beer bar just down the street, so we went. We sampled:


Thursday March 5th. We drove to Clearwater Beach and checked into the Monaco Resort Motel. It's a nice quaint little place, and all the patrons except us seemed to be in their 60s and 70s. We sat by the pool and had lunch. An egret tried to mooch off us. It also pooped next to our table, which I suppose was a sort of peace offering.

We walked along the beach on a beautiful sunny day, taking photos for the benefit of our friends in the northeast who were suffering from all that global warming. The sand was very light and fine, although there were also a lot of shell pieces. It wasn't too crowded, as it wasn't quite time for spring break yet. We walked all the way up to Caladesi Island State Park, which took over an hour. We lay on the beach for a while, soaking in lots of global warming and wondering why we hadn't flown down sooner. Oh, right, that work thing.

Well how do you like that...
...shells grow on trees!

We walked back to Clearwater Beach and stopped at Frenchy's Rockaway Grill, which is a nice little beach bar. We got some fruity slushy drinks, making sure to post photos on Facebook of the frost on our cups, which elicited all sorts of friendly comments such as "FU" and "I hate you".

We walked back to our motel room for a much-needed nap, woke up with the pain of sunburn, watched some IQ-sucking television, went out for some food, and felt our sunburns grow progressively worse.


Friday March 6th. We packed the car. Upon lifting Andi's bag it became apparent that she had stolen an anvil from the room. The weather was cloudy and overcast. We drove up to Dunedin and stopped at the Palm Court Motel. Several old folks were staying there, and we learned that some of them actually live there. They must get good monthly rates. It was too early to check in but the woman working there, who was as nice as can be, gave us a pass to visit nearby Honeymoon Island State Park. There were lots of places along the causeway where people could pull over and fish, rent kayaks and sailboats, walk, jog, or lie on the beach. Inside the park we drove around and visited the nature center. We wanted to walk around but it was raining, so we ate some popcorn and watched the rain for a while. Then we checked into our motel room and visited Dunedin's breweries.

7venth Sun Brewery has been in operation since 2012. It has a 3½-barrel brewhouse with 7-barrel fermenters. They do some barrel aging, and a few of those beers have Brettanomyces.

They had 8 of their own and 2 guest beers on tap. We tried all of their beers:

Next we walked to Dunedin Brewery, which calls itself a "snug pub". It had a nice ambience with lots of decor, including guitars and a drum set. A DJ spun 1970s 45s.

We got a tour. The place has been in operation since 1996, which makes it the oldest of Florida's 100+ craft breweries. It was started by a homebrewer. It has a 30-barrel brewing system, with some 50-barrel and some 14-barrel fermenters. It is a Scottish brewery, and its emblem is the claymore. They brew more than two dozen different beers. They have entertainment there every night: open mic music, open mic comedy, a drum circle (each one night per week), and bands.

We sampled several of their beers, which were okay, and had some grub.

We walked to Dunedin House of Beer, which had 40 taps. It had a small brewery across the street where they'd just started brewing a few months earlier. We sampled about 6 beers from different breweries. The place had a nice ambience, and we noticed that several hipsters both here and around town smoked e-cigarettes and weed.

Our final excursion of the evening was another stop at 7venth Sun to buy a growler of their Mangrove Double IPA.


Saturday March 7th. Chilly and overcast. We packed Andi's anvil and the rest of our stuff, and drove to Cigar City Brewing in Tampa. We got there early, and by the time they opened there were dozens of people waiting to get in. We got a tour. The brewery was founded by a homebrewer in 2007 but it wasn't until 2009 that the brewing operations got going. There are two brewhouses on site. The first one has their original 15-barrel system. The second one has ten 120-barrel fermenters. 55% of the beer they make is their Jai Alai IPA. They have a canning line that takes only 2 people to run and fills 170 cans per minute. Every Monday they fill 85,000 cans with Jai Alai. They have a "beer library" where they keep a six-pack of each batch so if any quality problems are reported they can open a can and analyze it in their lab. During the tour we got samples of their Hotter Than Helles, Maduro, Jai Alai, and some Florida Man Double IPA directly from the fermenter.

Brewhouse 1
Brewhouse 1

Brewhouse 2
Brewhouse 2

The tasting room has 2 bars. The "Zwickel Lounge" has 24 taps, plus 2 casks. The other bar is the "Lauter Tun Bar". They roll and sell cigars. Andi bought a few for her dad. We tried their:

We then drove to Cigar City Brewpub, our last stop in our brewery itinerary. Located about 15 minutes away, it has its own small brewery that makes some beers not made at the main brewery. This place opened in 2013. We tried 4 of their beers and for some unknown reason I failed to record them.

Light fixtures made with barrel rings...
...and staves.

We drove back to Delray Beach, stopping in Loxahatchee to visit Andi's sister Jo and her mom (who was visiting from Virginia).


Sunday March 8th. Andi and I got a workout and some sunbathing, then had lunch before she headed back to her sister and mom.

Later I went with my mom and her friend Joan to visit Marge's friend Debbie, whom she's known since the 1960s, and Debbie's boyfriend Wayne, whom ironically Marge dated in the 1970s. Marge and Doug met us there. All of us "kids" (those of us still in our 50s) tasted a bunch of beers, some of which I'd brought back from the recent brewery trip:
  1. Diamond Knot Craft Brewing Industrial IPA
  2. Fat Cat Beer Company Confession IPA
  3. Bell's Two-Hearted Ale
  4. 3 Daughters Brewing Bimini Twist IPA
  5. Liefmans Fruitesse
  6. Cigar City Brewing Captain of the World Ale
  7. Lakefront Brewery IPA
  8. Funky Buddha Floridian Hefeweizen
  9. Due South Brewing Category 5 IPA
  10. Terrapin Hi-5 IPA
  11. Boulder Beer Company Mojo IPA
  12. Cigar City Brewing Jai Alai IPA
  13. Red Brick Brewing Hoplanta IPA
  14. Red Hook Long Hammer IPA
  15. Founders Centennial IPA

About half the beers were canned. There has been an explosion of canned craft brew in recent years now that canning is more economical. Canning is better than bottling in several ways: cans are lighter, they're more compact, they don't break, they protect beer from skunking, and they're allowed at pools (many pools prohibit glass).

The rest of my trip was a grueling mixture of food, sleep, exercise, and the pool.