I've heard a lot of good things about Cycle brewing down in St Pete.

Been thinking of visiting Tampa myself and doing some research found this which may be helpful: https://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...ations.500500/

Would highly recommend 7venth Sun up in Dunedin. Looks like they have a lot of lighter summer-y type beers on tap currently. A block or two away are several other breweries/pubs Dunedin, Woodright, Cueni, and Dunedin House of Beer.

If you end up a bit further north in Tarpon Springs, check out Saint Somewhere as they make some of the best Belgian style beers in the US. If you end up a bit south near St. Pete, Cycle would the top choice and they just released a bunch of barrel aged beers.

And if you end up across the bridge in Tampa, of course Cigar City and also check out Angry Chair.

It's been several years since I've been down that way though, so I'm sure many other quality places have popped up.

Cycle and Angry Chair for sure

Have had some really great beers recently.

Central Waters BA stout. Not mind blowing, but very solid and always on the shelf at $16/4 pack.


On of my favorite local stouts in Indy. This is the coffee variant, which is good, but not that much better than the base beer.


This variant, however, is ****ing fantastic. Coconut stout that has huge dark chocolate notes and tastes straight like an almond joy. There is a s'mores version coming out this summer that I'm excited to try also.


Screeeeetch from 18th Street. Super fresh DIPA. Shadows is there experimental series. They are trying to get a good hazy NE style IPA. Great beer, but not really close to that style.


This is 450 Norths attempt at the above. Again, really good fruity DDH IPA with Citra, mosaic and El Dorado, but probably a bit overpriced at $17/4 pack.


Another from 450. Citra Rainbows is 100% Citra DDH DIPA. This one hits the mark and I would gladly buy this year round.


Prarie Paradise. 13% imp stout with coconut and vanilla. Too boozy for my taste, but good nonetheless.



Last but not least are the 2 best beers I've had in a while. First is M-43 from Old Nation in Michigan courtesy of a trade with 2p2er thedeezy. Fantastic NE style IPA. Super hazy and juicy. Glad I still have a few more.


And a very similar beer, Homestyle from Bearded Iris in Nashville. This tasted almost exactly like Born again yesterday from Lagunitas, which I loved.

Seems like the independent-vs-inbev thing is becoming a full-on war after things like the "monopolizing South African hops" story. I just read this on BeerAdvocate:

Wow! That's a statement.

Sour beer fans,



Excellent summer sour. This is 21a watermelon wheat barrel aged and soured. WF guy said it's very limited production and distribution and they had to get on list for allocation months ago to get 5 cases, and don't expect to get more. If you've had the hell or high water beer, it's like a more intense slightly sour (but still crisp and refreshing) version of that. Def recommend grabbing some if you see it.

Also, anyone had this stone ripper? Description sounds good!

I've been drinking Stone Ripper and 12th of Never this weekend, and 12th(new favorite) > Stone(nothing special). The Fresh Squeezed looks good though.

Ripper is solid, good for picking up a sixer where you're going to the beach or a grill out or something where you're going to tear through a few beers.

Got my Brewing road trip coming up this weekend. Here is the agenda. Definitely ambitious to get all 11 in.

Transient Ales
Tapistry Brewing
Bell’s Brewery
Founders Brewery
Brewery Vivant
The Knickerbocker (New Holland tap room/restaurant)
Odd Side Ales
New Holland Brewery
Greenbush Brewery
18th Street Brewery
3 Floyds Brewpub


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Ambitious is an understatement. You really should knock it down by at least 3 and possibly 5. It would allow you to enjoy the places more and cut down on DUI possibilities. js

Goofy,

How did that come about?

A friend knows a brewer at TG (forget if it's a brewer or the brewer) who was kind enough to send him a KBBS along with a couple others (Mornin' Delight, Assassin, BA Chain Smoker). We had a bottle share yesterday and even in the 100 degree heat, stouts are pretty damn good.

It's good that the KBBS came in the form of a gift since it removes the very difficult question of "can I possibly justify drinking something worth this much" from the equation.

ok very belated, ridiculously tldr VT TR

Left on friday at around 6pm with the dog and stayed the night in White River Junction. I decided to stay the night in WRJ because I wanted to hit up River Roost and Big Fatty’s BBQ plus it made sense as a half way point between HF and Burlington and I didn’t want to get somewhere at like 10:30. I think I arrived at around 8:30 and ordered food to take back to the hotel from big fatty’s. I kinda regret not organizing the trip so that I could stay there a little longer - it’s a really cool place with a sick tap list and live music and great food. I had a HF Abner which was sort of rushed but still delicious and then headed to the hotel for the night where I killed my remaining Deciduous Morphology #3 bottle and then went to bed.

Saturday morning I took the dog for a ~2 hour hike around Quechee gorge which was really nice. It was basically a bunch of hiking trails running along and surrounding this giant gorge and dam which then feeds into a couple of nice lakes. I had originally planned to camp this weekend at the Quechee campground but the weather was supposed to be bad so I decided not to (it ended up pretty nice other than some rain later in the day). After the hike we went into WRJ at about 10:30ish and I had breakfast outside at a forgettable cafe. WRJ is small, but pretty nice. We had some time to kill before River Roost opened at 12 so we walked around a bit more.

River Roost is possibly the most underrated brewery out there imo. I thought Deciduous was fantastic (as well as Austin Street) but this place was arguably the best beer I got all weekend. I found out later that the guy doing pours (there was basically nobody there btw) was the founder and head brewer - I wish I has known this at the time as I’d have certainly made a better effort at conversation with him. I had a quick pour of Rise - an 8% DIPA - and it was fantastic. I grabbed a 64 of that and 32s of Mo’rilla, Mas Verde and Alpha Express, all classic, perfectly balanced hazy NEIPAs and DIPAs. Honestly, I’ve had a lot of hyped breweries at this point (Other Half, Monkish, Aslin, Trillium, Bissell etc.) and of all the non-Treehouse breweries this brewery’s house taste is the most reminiscent of Treehouse. Rise itself is just a very dank, complex juice bomb that I thought was julius-level good. They may have scaling issues as one growler I cracked and didn’t finished is already a bit skunked but wow, is their beer enjoyable. If they canned this stuff people will be waiting in line imo.

From there I headed to Hill Farmstead. I’ve never been before and so this was kind of what I was most excited about. It really is in the middle of nowhere, but I enjoyed it. When we got there is was drizzling but I took the dog for a quick walk and then tied her up under an awning and went into the bottle shop. I went a little nuts and got one of everything and 3 BA Dorothys (I’ve since traded away some of this). I then went into the tap room and had an Edward which was great and walked out with a 64oz of Double Nelson, and 32oz of Double Citra and Susan. Then I grabbed a quesadilla and hit the road again.

We got to Burlington at around 5:30. I checked into the hotel - a dog-friendly sheraton in South Burlington - and then we walked to the waterfront (~3 miles). I wanted to hit up Foam and chill a bit so we sat outside and I had a Built to Spill, another 8% DIPA. Did not disappoint, I would say it had the same sort of fruity/citrusy notes of the Edwards and Abners I’d had with some of the dankness of the River Roost and more of a medium-heavy mouthfeel. Very drinkable. I grabbed a 32oz of this and nothing else since at this point between Portland and Vermont in back to back weekend I was becoming conscious of the fact that I was accumulating more fresh hoppy beer than anyone could reasonably expect to finish.

We wandered around Burlington for a bit (jazzfest was going on which was pretty cool) then went back to the hotel where I fed her, showered, and went to dinner at Farmhouse tap and Grill. Food was decent, and they had Edward on tap so I had one of those and then a High-Wesitified, since it’s somehow basically the only nationally distributed coffee stout that’s eluded me so far. Was very good as expected. I then headed back to the hotel where I hung out, watched tv and cracked the Double Citra before bed. This was my favorite HF beer I had, and I thought it was a good bit better than the Double Nelson. I think maybe Citra has become my favorite hop? I dunno, but this beer is really, really good, and I wished I had flipped the sizes on the growlers.

Next morning we got up and went for a hike at Oakledge Park which I had somehow never been to before. Was pretty gorgeous out and there was a lake so we did some hiking then i took the dog swimming. I was kinda ready to head home at this point so we hit the road and stopped at Fiddlehead on the way out. I had originally planned to go to BBCo but i was kinda brewery fatigued at this point and it was the brewery I cared least about so after checking what they had that day I just couldn’t get up for it. Fiddlehead was a cool spot. They must be about to distro Second Fiddle because there was pallets and pallets of cans everywhere in there. I got a four pack of it since I’m not that crazy about the reg and it was getting ridiculous at this point how much beer I’d amassed. I also had a pour of Overstable, yet another 8% DIPA that was really good and more of the juicy/hazy NEIPA than their other stuff so I grabbed a 32oz of that and some food from the restaurant and we hit the road.

I’ve since put a sizable dent in all this beer and traded a bunch away for stouts and other cellarables but still have way too much. And when I got back my gf had bought a 12 pack of super session #2 that no one drank so I actually had to buy a beer fridge and now I need to chill for a bit....

Damn plan to hit up armsby abbey tomorrow cuz they have Double Nelson on tap, but if it's not as good as double Citra I'll be bummed, cuz Double Galaxy >>> Double Citra.

Cool report. Never even heard of River Roost.

Yeah I mean clearly I'm not in the consensus on that but idk

River Roost is really good tho

Nice TR. I just killed a High-West-ified and it was great. To the point where "I'm going to have a beer tonight" feels like it's going to turn into "I'm going to have lots of beers tonight".

Lawson's super session #8 is on tap at a random townie bar here. It's a mosaic bomb so not my favorite or anything, but it's pretty good.

On the whole Lawson's seems crazy overrated.

Jake: awesome trip report!

Spider: ok, inspired by you and Jake I'm cracking open a high westified now!

Not sure if you're still there and it's like an hour away but I was really surprisingly impressed with Calusa in Sarasota

Double Galaxy>>>>> any other HF hops out there. It is the most uniquely HF while also being their best single hop IPA. Double Citra is good, but Double Galaxy is one of the few beers I'd choose over 99.9% of other beers out there.

yeah, agreed. I did try Double Nelson yesterday. I thought it was absolutely delicious. I've tried them all so far apart so it's hard to compare but it didn't quite wow me the way DG did.

I also had Harlan while there. Also delicious, though the finish left me wanting a little bit more of a bitter kick. It sorta just faded.

Troegs Nimble Giant... best shelf DIPA? This is really, really good.

more draft night beers. Pipeworks Ninja vs Unicorn DIPA. I've had this before via trade. This really is superb.