Photos: Cigar City Brewing / Courtesy of Cigar City Brewing · Angry Chair Brewing / Courtesy of Angry Chair Brewing · Green Bench Brewing Company / Courtesy of Green Bench Brewing Company

Best Tampa Bay Breweries

Tampa Bay's beer runs deep, from Ybor City lager houses to a Seminole Heights stout cult with overnight release lines. These are the breweries worth building a crawl around, the ones that earned their name glass by glass.

9 places · Tampa Bay

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Breweries

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Cigar City Brewing

The brewery that put Tampa on the national craft map, pouring since 2009 from the West Spruce Street warehouse where founder Joey Redner first brewed Jai Alai IPA, the citrus-forward house beer now shipped across 39 states. The taproom keeps more than 20 lines flowing, and every March the cult Hunahpu's Day imperial stout draws beer hunters from across the country. Cigar City's stack of Great American Beer Festival medals backs up the reputation, but the real pull is drinking these beers steps from the tanks that made them.

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Tampa, FL Tampa Bay

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Angry Chair Brewing

Thrillist crowned this Seminole Heights brewhouse the best in Florida, and the barrel-aged imperial stouts are why people sleep in the parking lot for a release. The taproom runs 24 taps under a sprawling mural of tumbling chairs, with green picnic tables out front and label art from the same hands that paint the cans. Come for a pastry stout aged in bourbon, cognac, or whiskey barrels, stay for the theme nights.

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Tampa, FL Tampa Bay

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Green Bench Brewing Company

The brewery that anchored St. Petersburg's EDGE District, named to VinePair's list of the best in America by a panel of beer pros. The lagers are the reason to come, crisp and built for Florida heat, while the foeders and barrels at sister Webb's City Cellar next door push mixed-culture ferments and wild blends. Pull up a chair in the biergarten under the painted brick mural and the string lights.

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St. Petersburg, FL Tampa Bay

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Breweries

Coppertail Brewing Co.

Tampa, FL · Tampa Bay

Coppertail set up its tanks inside a 100-year-old Ybor City building that once canned olives and bottled mayonnaise, and the bar's foot rail is the old train track they unearthed during the build. The Free Dive IPA, a citrus-forward pour they tapped on opening day, has anchored the lineup ever since, with the Belgian-style Unholy Tripel waiting for a longer night. Take the brewery tour to see the production floor working behind the taproom.

Breweries

BarrieHaus Beer Co.

Tampa, FL · Tampa Bay

Jim Barrie pours like the old country, brewing mostly German and Czech lagers and pulling them from imported side-pull faucets that crown each stein with a dense pillow of foam. The copper bartop and Ybor biergarten have earned two World Beer Cup gold medals, including one for the Family Tradition Vienna lager that anchors the menu. It is a lager house that takes the style seriously without making you feel like you have to.

Breweries

Tampa Bay Brewing Company

Tampa, FL · Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay Brewing Company has been brewing since 1995, which makes it one of Florida's oldest independent craft breweries, and the Westchase brewhouse is where the beer actually gets made. Order the Reef Donkey APA, the citrusy pale ale that took bronze at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival, and drink it a few feet from the fermentation tanks. This is the full production brewery and kitchen, so the patio fills up with people working through beer-infused plates and a couple dozen rotating taps.

Breweries

3 Daughters Brewing

St. Petersburg, FL · Tampa Bay

Mike and Leigh Harting started brewing in 2013 to perfect a beer-battered fish recipe, then asked how many pints it would take to put their three daughters through college. The answer turned into one of Florida's largest independent breweries, an 18,000-square-foot warehouse where 42 rotating taps pour across three bars, the concrete one cast in a single piece with the floor. There are no TVs, just game tables built by the founders' grandfather, barrel-aging racks, live music, and the flagship Beach Blonde Ale.

Breweries

Dunedin Brewery

Dunedin, FL · Tampa Bay

Florida's oldest distributing microbrewery has been pouring on Douglas Avenue since 1995, and its string-lit biergarten still fills nightly under a mural that reads Keep Dunedin Weird. Pull up a picnic table for the Apricot Peach Ale, then drift inside, where two stages host touring acts and a Wednesday open jam in one of the area's most beloved live-music rooms.

Breweries

Rapp Brewing Company

Seminole, FL · Tampa Bay

Greg Rapp chases the styles most brewers skip, reviving German gose, grodziskie, and other near forgotten recipes that trace back to his great grandfather's brewery near Dresden. The 40 taps in this Seminole warehouse rotate through that obscure roster, and the salty, tart gose took Best of Show at the Florida Beer Championship. Order a flight under the lit medallion and taste a few centuries of brewing history you won't find anywhere else in Tampa Bay.

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