Tampa Bay Brew Tour

Jason and Bri recap their DIY Tampa Bay beer tour packed with incredible Florida craft beer experiences. Cracking open a fresh Jai Alai IPA by Cigar City Brewing, they dive straight into a journey through Tampa, Ybor City, and beyond.

The duo shares highlights from standout stops including the veteran-owned Bad Monkey, the charming and award-winning Sky Puppy Brewing, and fan-favorite Tampa Bay Brewing Company. They explore unique beers like mango-habanero sours, citrus-forward IPAs, and even a rum barrel-aged seltzer that stole the show at Magnanimous Brewing.

Their adventure continues with stops at Angry Chair Brewing, the historic Dunedin Brewery, and the vibrant Green Bench Brewing Company, where they also experience the contrasting, wine-like atmosphere of Webb’s City Cellar. Along the way, they discover how Florida’s beer scene thrives on hyper-local distribution, fresh ingredients, and creative experimentation.

The trip culminates at Arkane Aleworks, home of their 2025 Beer of the Year, where they uncover the fun, Disney-inspired naming behind beers like “Belle Barbecue” and sample inventive creations from a Fallout-themed lineup.

From Cuban sandwiches at a hidden gem eatery to beer gardens, trolley rides, and unexpected brewery locations, this episode is packed with travel tips, brewery insights, and a deep appreciation for Florida’s vibrant craft beer culture. If you’re planning a Tampa trip—or just dreaming of one—this episode is your perfect guide.

Cheers! 🍻

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Transcript

Intro: The Buffalo Brews podcast.

Jason: So we had to switch over. Now we just had an episode that came out last week about anatomy of a podcast, and I was talking about the difference between the P8 and the P4 on that, on that podcast, and just had to switch back over from our standard PA to our P4 travel system because for whatever reason, it likes to cut out, like it gets an attitude. And I don't know if it has to do with the battery in it or what. We'll figure it out, but we're running hot on the P4. And I'm going to start with my earlier question. Once again, true or false. You grew up in Sarasota, Florida. True. Okay. That's good, that's good. Sarasota, Florida. What other cities that are close by? What's the next biggest city? Bradenton, right. How about the other side?

Bri: Clearwater, Saint Pete. You want me to go all the way to Tampa?

Jason: Tampa.

Bri: Tampa?

Jason: We're talking about do it yourself Tampa Bay, because they they just came off of Tampa Bay Beer Week and we were there a few weeks beforehand. We're recording this kind of a week, week and a half after, uh, after the fact. So but we did our own Tampa Bay area beer tour after we got off the cruise ship. Yeah. So basically.

Bri: Actually before and after.

Jason: You're right before and after.

Bri: Yeah. So it was kind of like the cruise was in between before and then after.

Jason: Yeah. Uh, we're going to start right off with a beverages, uh, from Cigar City. Cigar City Brewing, which is highly IPA in Western New York. You can find this pretty prominent. We even looked at, uh, Premier Gourmet and the only Florida beer they had in stock was Cigar City. Cigar city highly. Well, they had a few of them. They had no. They had. But. But Cigar City was the only thing that they had. Yeah. Um which I find quite interesting. Uh, you can go to brewed and bottled and you can get arcane sometimes.

Bri: I mean, we've gotten lucky. Yeah. So I can't even you. I don't feel like you can say, like you can go there and get it right.

Jason: Um, I know I've gone to Magic Bear and I've been able to get magnanimous, which is, uh, which is a rare one. We'll be talking about them, but we're talking about high lye IPA for the moment here because this is what we're going to be drinking. It's a bouquet of tangerine. Candied orange peel attempts the nose with flavors of clementine Valencia orange subtle caramel, providing counterpoint to a soft bitterness in a rich malt character with a bold hop flavor and aroma in front and centers on a favorable American IPA. Has Amarillo, cascade, Centennial. And Simcoe hops. So if you're if you're looking for something from Florida, this is always a good one to grab.

Bri: Cheers.

Jason: Cheers.

Bri: Delicious.

Jason: Very good. We had, uh, Cigar City a few times during this trip that we're going to be talking about. So again, we're going back to our little DIY Tampa area tour. Prior to getting on the ship, after we had our Uber fiasco that you can hear about and podcast to the Caribbean three, we took an Uber down to Bad Monkey and Bad Monkey. We. We actually enjoyed some star.

Bri: I think that was our attitude in waiting for like our transportation back to the hotel so that we could get to some place to eat, right? So that was like the first stop was where are we eating?

Jason: We had, uh, we went down to Bad Monkey, which is, uh, so it's, uh, retired two star general David Scott, who is having a business meeting at a regular table next to a jukebox in a place called the Dirty Shame Bar on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City. Struggling to hear over the music, he asked the owner to turn it down since the bar was empty and the owner bluntly said to him, if you want to turn the music down, open your own fucking bar.

Bri: So he did.

Jason: Yeah.

Speaker 4 John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute.

Jason: Okay, I just had to put that in there. But after retiring from the United States Air Force, General Scott chose Ybor City for his unique history. Long before the advent of television and social media, it attracted people worldwide who sought freedom and the opportunity to prosper through hard work. Essentially, he invested in Ybor. He opened an art gallery. He invested in several restaurants and a barbershop in the region. And then featuring the Gallery of Heroes and the authentic thirteen star American flag from the Battle of Veracruz. Bad Monkey Bar was the first in Florida to serve horse soldier bourbon and three Rangers whiskey. One of the cool things we saw on the wall was the glasses and the half the half bottle of whiskey that was in there. And, uh, this was a prominent part of this. So it is a veteran owned place right there in Ybor City. A number of taps, some decent food.

Bri: Oh, the food was delicious. Yeah.

Jason: Uh, you had a Chicago hot dog?

Bri: Yeah, it was awesome.

Jason: I remember having the fried onion burger, which is now onion is not something that I jump toward, but.

Bri: Fry them up.

Jason: Right. I like the idea. And, uh, it was quite tasty. Yeah. Um, Ybor City. So we'll keep going right into Ybor City because it's a nice area that's pinned right between the airport and the cruise port. And then the nice thing about that is you can travel everywhere by trolley service.

Bri: Yeah, that was really neat to see. It's cool. I mean, we just walked everywhere, but we could see the trolley going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So it was interesting that people are just, you know, you're just hopping on, hopping off. It was it was a very chilly day. It was when Florida had that cold snap. So we're just no one's really walking around, right? No one, because it's freezing. But for us, I mean, it was chilly, right? We're still in a coat, right? But it wasn't like, oh my God, it's freezing because it was still like thirty degrees warmer than home.

Jason: It was it was fitting because the NHL was in town doing the Winter classic, and they were having it at Raymond James Stadium.

Bri: It was going to be that night.

Jason: Yeah.

Bri: So, um, before we get into everything that we did, we made sure we were out by a certain time before Uber prices skyrocketed. And then downtown started to get like super busy.

Jason: So yeah.

Bri: But yeah.

Jason: But yeah, I mean, you know, this being our first brewery stop, it was the brewery stop of our entire Tampa tour. Yeah. So we've got plenty of, of great things to say about it, but we were talking about Skye Puppy Brewing.

Bri: Oh my gosh. Yeah. So after we filled our bellies with some food, we walked down to Sky puppy, which was like, we're just walking. You know, you, uh, have the little map out on your phone and you're walking, right? And you're like, oh, this is, this is it. This is the place. And it's just like this little nondescript, um, place that you walk into and it is so freaking adorable.

Jason: Uh, the.

Bri: Building not large at all.

Jason: The building was originally constructed in eighteen eighty eight as the Casa Bomberos served as Tampa's fire station number two until nineteen twenty four, the oldest extant original firehouse of the city that was created by uh. This was created by Matthew and Danielle, who we we met McKinnon. Sky puppy lives inside the Casa Bomberos. It's a two thousand square foot brewery conveniently located on the bottom floor. And then, uh, it's East eighth Avenue, about one block from the district's main stop of trolley stop. Number four. Yeah.

Bri: And we just walked. Yeah. Because, you know, for us, it was a beautiful day. And, um, walking in there, this tiny little place, but very inviting. And the girl that came up to us was like, sit wherever you'd like. Brought us a menu. Um, we were overwhelmed at the place. There's just so many beers to choose from. Beautiful. And it was like as we went, it just for me, it got more and more exciting. Yeah, right. Like they brought out our tasting board, which was just awesome. The glasses that they brought, the beers were beautiful. Um, they're all there. Tap heads with like, the bats. Oh my gosh. It was just it was very cute. Very cute.

Jason: Extremely aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. Um, the table service was incredible. Danielle was amazing.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: You know, a big, a huge kudos to, uh, sky puppy. They and it was, you know, the places that we stopped, uh, you know, we wanted to do them in order, but they were definitely the stop of our entire Tampa tour.

Bri: Yeah, just, just, it was really cool. Um, they had this, mango habanero beer that I just wanted to just keep drinking. And this is the terrible thing about traveling and drinking is you find things that you're so excited about, and then you can't go back to it, right? Right. Like you can't bottle it. You can't, can't, you can't take it with you. Right? So this is it, right? This is, this is it. So it was so funny because we did a whole bunch of beers that we were tasting. I'm sure you have a list of them. And, um, it was very I loved tasting them, but it was so funny because I had just, I kept moving it over to the side. Like I just, I don't want to finish this one yet. I don't want to finish this one yet because I wanted that to be like my last sip because you know, when you really like something and then you try a bunch of other things, then you circle back to having that one. It really kind of solidifies like, this is the one that just blew me out of the water. So for me, that was the one.

Jason: It was a great beer.

Bri: Yeah, it was like that. Um, I don't, I don't want to always say that rotten fruit. right? Because that's what you tell me. It's not like rotten. It's like that overripe. But it's that mixed with like, the spiciness that just kind of lingered in the back of your fruit, like the lingered in the back of your tongue. And it's just, oh, God, it was so amazing. Yeah, I loved it so much.

Jason: Um, out of the Mango Inferno, it was a Florida style Berliner Weisse sour with mango and habanero pepper. The heat nestled nicely on the back end. It wasn't overpowering. It was just it was something for you to it teased the back end of the beer. It was incredible aftertaste. Loved it. Um, out of the strawberry meadow strawberry sour.

Bri: I liked that a lot.

Jason: Tasted like a liquid strawberry.

Bri: Yeah. And for Florida, strawberries are huge, right? So like, that is so awesome. Yeah.

Jason: You actually have a tattoo on your calf because. Yeah.

Bri: So because of the strawberry festival. Sure. Um, but yeah, like, I feel like you get a lot of those fresh ingredients around there, which may have like really upped it, right? Fresh mangoes up that beer. Fresh strawberries up that beer, right? Yeah.

Jason: Curiosity. Civilized West coast IPA was.

Bri: Nailing the IPAs. Yeah.

Jason: Solid, um, taker of secrets. Double dry hopped, hazy double IPA.

Bri: I think that was the one that you really enjoyed.

Jason: I like that because, um, it was to me it was, it was a nice balance of citrus. Um, I like a hobby bite as long as it has a good balance of citrus. So for me, flavor bomb is what I'm thinking. They still had some of their pumpkin beer on tap, the withered vine. So we had the roasted pumpkin.

Bri: Yeah, that was real good. I liked that a lot. Not overly like pumpkin in your face. It was nice.

Jason: Not everybody can do a pumpkin beer. I mean, you see a lot of them during the season, but.

Bri: And we try a lot of them because I'm a big fan of pumpkin. Like I love pumpkin time fall. You know what is more fall than pumpkin? So we try a bunch of them, but that one I felt like was just a hint enough for it to be enjoyable. Yeah.

Jason: And then, uh, so we have a story behind shadows of Self-Realization. Munich. Dunkel. It was a toasted cookie. Munich Dunkel that was described to us as a close, a winner to their where they were a World Beer Cup bronze medalist in twenty twenty five. So Sky puppy has only been open for sixteen ish months at the time when we visited, and they were only a few months into their opening when they submitted this beer to the World Beer Cup and won a bronze medal for their shady lady Schwarzbier. Mhm. Uh, which is, you know, it's more it's more of a smoky beer, but this Munich Dunkel had a slight smokiness to it because of the toasted cookie aspect of it. So they thought it was a good comparison, even though they didn't have the shady lady anymore on tap. But it was a good it was a good time. It was, uh, it was definitely an experience. Um, I would have loved to have stayed there the whole time. Honestly, if they would have had, um, if I would have known a they were there beforehand when we were at Sky monkey and B they had food. I'd have probably stayed there the whole time.

Bri: Yeah, they didn't have food there.

Jason: But but they didn't. Oh, I said, but if they did.

Bri: Because people brought in food next to us and I was like, where did you get that food? It smells so good.

Jason: But if it was a thing, but we would have never experienced sky. Um, bad monkey, which was, uh, yeah, it's definitely a must visit place if you're in Ybor City, especially if you're a aeronautical or Air Force fan. It's definitely a, it's definitely veteran influenced. There's a lot of, uh, aesthetics around that place. Um, one block up, we stopped at Tampa Bay Brewing Company. Um, it was a brief stop for us. We just sat at the bar, talked with them for a little bit. I know that we, uh, you know, we always enjoy the, the old elephant foot though, which is featured at Disney and the Animal Kingdom, uh, park.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: Um, so we had some of their basic stuff. Uh, they have a lot of things that are centered around sea life.

Bri: Um, it was cute to walk in there too.

Jason: Yeah.

Bri: You know, it was fun to visit some place where I've had a lot of their beers over the years. Going to Disney or going to like events where you get a little bit more, you know, of their beers to be able to actually go in and say, so this is what the place looks like, right? Like it's kind of like, oh, you've had all of these things from some place where you've never actually been to the some place, right? Yeah. So that was pretty cool.

Jason: Uh, we took, uh, now after we had returned from the cruise, so after Tampa Bay, I mean, it was a, it was a brief visit for us because we had to get out of, get out of Dodge or Ybor City.

Bri: Yeah. We had no idea.

Jason: The stadium was only five miles up the way, and people were leaving from those areas to get up there. And we didn't want to hit surge pricing with.

Bri: And we were like listening to people talk and we started to Google it. And then we were like, oh, we have to go. Got to go. Yeah.

Jason: Uh, but when we came back from the cruise, the place that we stayed at, another kind of Disney inspired our Airbnb. You said it was inspired by the Tiki Room.

Bri: Like, mixed with the poly. So the Polynesian resort, like, crunched up with the Tiki Room with, like, a little bit of if anybody's been to the Polynesian and they've gone to Trader Sam's like also a piece of that, like kind of all mashed together. And then when I talked to the guy who, um, ran the Airbnb, he actually said that he talked to someone who worked at Disney, you know, about all of this stuff. So they actually worked together. So not, it's not just me thinking Disney. It was really Disney inspired by those places. So it was.

Jason: Cool. He's been featured in magazines and such. It's a really fun place right on Tampa Bay.

Bri: Yeah. Oh yeah. Right there.

Jason: It was beautiful.

Bri: Like you walk in the parking lot and that's Tampa Bay, like rolling straight up there. So it was neat.

Jason: When we got off the ship, we, uh, we took a shuttle directly to the airport. And, uh, by the way, if you're leaving from the Tampa, uh, Tampa cruise port to go. There is a service that'll give you ten dollar rides to the airport.

Bri: Yeah, ten dollars per person.

Jason: You just have to wait a little while for them to fill up the van or the bus or whatever. And, and you're on your.

Bri: Way and it's so worth it because the Uber prices were so ridiculous and the wait was so long, because how many people are calling and there's just not enough.

Jason: two thousand four hundred people getting off that ship at the.

Bri: Same time. So, I mean, I thought that was like a really great deal.

Jason: Um, we, uh, we had to go to, uh, was it Walmart or.

Bri: We went to target? Yeah, we went to target for some snacks and some energy drinks and things like that, because I wasn't going to try to like make coffee because we were only there for a few days. So.

Jason: Uh. But while we were there, we passed right by the location of Cigar City Brewing, which makes which makes Eli.

Bri: Look, there's Cigar City not open yet, but we're like, oh my gosh, it's right there.

Jason: We literally drove.

Bri: By. We had no idea. So it was really cool. We went and got our snacks and our stuff and then we were like, all right, they're open circle back.

Jason: So came.

Bri: In.

Jason: There. Um, the cool thing about Cigar City, again, going back to like military veterans, they offer a twenty percent military.

Bri: Everything. Everything. Everything. Your mirrors, everything. Yeah.

Jason: Yep. Just flash. Whatever your VA cards, your retirement card. Yeah. Whatever you got. And they're they're on top of it. Active duty. Yeah. They're, um, they're all about, they're all about supporting red line, blue line military. Yup. Uh, so, uh, we talked with John, who's a long time employee there.

Bri: Um.

Jason: I mean, he kept bouncing. He was helping other people, but he kept bouncing back and just giving us more and more information just kept feeding us info. Yeah, which was great.

Bri: About the area. Some places to go. Yeah.

Jason: Mhm. Um, we enjoyed their the barrel aged, uh, oatmeal raisin cookie.

Bri: Mhm.

Jason: It was. That was quite nice. Uh, the guava citrus pale ale, which was nice. Berry, uh, lime leaf, uh, tangerine aromas. Different.

Bri: It was good. Different. Yeah. Very refreshing.

Jason: I thought, uh, Citra hops. And then that's balanced on bitterness and a little bit of breadiness that went along with that. Uh, that's one of the notes that I had taken with it. Uh, I also enjoyed their, uh, we had fancy papers, hazy IPA, which seems to be one of their popular.

Bri: Was that what it was called? Fancy papers?

Jason: Yeah, that's the one that was like when you smelled it. It smelled like fresh cut grass.

Bri: Oh, okay.

Jason: Yeah.

Bri: All right.

Jason: That's cool. Enjoyed that one. Tangerine on the nose. They love their tangerine IPA's.

Bri: I mean, it's Florida oranges. Hello.

Jason: Um, a little bit of guava melon. lime leaf again in that, um, they seem to play around with lime leaf. And then they also use, uh, Sauvignon blanc, Sauvignon blanc, uh, wine leaves in that mix as well.

Bri: Really.

Jason: So that was, uh, another cool. Yeah, that was another fun one. Also a little bit bready. And then I felt like it was a nice balance. Had that kind of white wine grape, um, balance that went with the guava. It was really nice. Um, let's see. Guava. Yeah. Guava melon. Yeah. Guava melon. Right. And then Florida man double IPA, which was really good. Citra Azteca, El Dorado hops like.

Bri: Yeah, you name it.

Jason: That was a nice cocktail of, uh, of hoppiness. Oh, uh, mandarina Bavarian hops, which is one that you don't get very often. I don't, I don't, I don't know of anybody locally who has brewed with that. Maybe they should, I.

Bri: Don't know, I don't know, I mean, I could just tell you right now that Florida beer is just incredible And I'm ready to pack up all my stuff and move. Like, I do not know how we can get some of the stuff they're doing down there, up here. And I just don't know that it's possible because of all the freshness they have there that we don't have the ability to get.

Jason: I think it's I think it's.

Bri: A.

Jason: Collaboration. I think I think one of and maybe it could it may be a good idea for the future because, you know, we're doing some work right now with resurgence is if resurgence in Fort Myers, maybe they did something and then Fort Myers resurgence and Buffalo resurgence came together.

Bri: I don't.

Jason: Know on a collaboration and you know, put some Florida influence in it.

Bri: Maybe.

Jason: I would like to think that resurgence, Fort Lauderdale or Fort.

Bri: Fort.

Jason: Myers is going to have their own their own.

Bri: Like I'm sure they would. They would have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you.

Jason: Gotta have you gotta have the Florida beers down there. You really do. Well, once we were done with Cigar City because we were there the better part of an hour.

Bri: Cigar city that we really liked, though There was one. And I was trying to like, look at my notes. Did you write that down that we really liked? It was like a name or something. I was just trying to.

Jason: Oh. I'm sorry. Yeah. The Tony Jannus.

Bri: Yeah, yeah.

Jason: Yeah, yeah, she's almost forgot about that.

Bri: I'm like, I was trying to like, look while we were talking.

Jason: Yeah, that's actually our first our technically, besides the beer that we had in Aruba, the, um. Chill. Yeah. It's, um, Tony Jannus is going to be one of our twenty twenty six beer of the year nominees.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: We've already decided that.

Bri: It's so good.

Jason: Five percent ABV. Uh, it's named in honor of Tampa's most famous flying visitor. Who's the, uh, it's rested in the Spanish cedar port in to impact spicy and woody complexity citrus forward American IPA. And it's exclusively available both at tasting room and at the airport. Yeah, but they but they if I remember right, they were out of it at the airport. They tried to have it again.

Bri: Yes.

Jason: Because I think we just had like, I think we had the um, fancy papers?

Bri: I think so. They were out of it, and I was bummed because I wanted to have it again.

Jason: Yeah.

Bri: Um, and they were like, oh, we just freshly ran out of that one. I was like, come on. So everyone loves it, clearly. Fantastic beer. It was delicious.

Jason: What a what a great pale ale. Definitely going to be a beer of the year contender for twenty twenty six for us. Yeah. Thank you for remembering that because it was at the top.

Bri: I'm trying to like, look, I'm like, there's a name one. There's a name one. Yeah.

Jason: Um, so we started, that's when we started bouncing around because, uh, our next stop, we kind of had our own list going and then places added to our list. So we ended up at Magnanimous Brewing.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: So magnanimous. It's, uh, you know, kind of off the beaten path next to the elevated highway.

Bri: Mhm.

Jason: You go in there, it's I mean, it's simple.

Bri: It's it's super small, dark, like kind of a little beer cave. It reminded me of. Right. Like, you know, when you go into a man cave. So it's super bright outside like sunshine, Florida, and you walk in this little place and they have the lights down low and it's like a little beer cave. I loved it. It was cute.

Jason: Sometimes you can get some magnanimous beer at Magic Beer Beer Cellar down in Seneca and Larkinville. Um, I don't know any place else that might serve it in the area. I know that, um. Seth up at lock tender. I know he gets things from them once in a while.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: So I think.

Bri: The thing I remember about them the most was the seltzer. They did? Yes. It wasn't even the beer. Like the beer was good, but they had that seltzer. And I don't know if you jotted a note down.

Jason: I didn't jot this.

Bri: But I just remember it being like, so ridiculously interesting that I was like, how does a seltzer taste? Not like a seltzer. Right, right. So and it tasted like very vacation y. So it was perfect for Florida. It was delicious. And I loved it. And that guy was so incredible. He wrote down for us breweries, restaurants, like all the like a list of things for us to do. And I am not even kidding you guys. We put this in our pocket and we were like pulling it out to see where these places were to go to them. And um, yeah, so our next stop was going to be what green bench.

Jason: Uh, angry chair is where.

Bri: Oh angry chair oh, was the green bench the next day? I don't remember. I'm like, I'm so excited because he had put that on. And I know that was like one of the ones that you had talked about. Yeah. And then, you know, well, I'll let you go because I feel like you write notes and I'm just I go crazy over here.

Jason: Magnanimous brewing. The two beers of note that we talked about a lot was never ending game, which was the eight and a half double dry hopped double IPA.

Bri: Yeah, that was very good.

Jason: Matoika. Uh, Simcoe mosaic hops. Um, really nice. Really smooth beer. Um, the one we really liked was the rum Uh, barrel aged, uh, seltzer.

Bri: That's the seltzer.

Jason: That's the seltzer that.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: It was called, um, modern medicine.

Bri: It was so good.

Jason: Yeah, that was coconut. Pineapple and lime.

Bri: Yeah. So see, you did have it.

Jason: Yeah, I did have it.

Bri: Oh my gosh. Is he and I and it's fun to find things like when you're on, um, our like brewery, little tours or things. It's fun to find things that are just like exciting and different that you didn't even think you wanted to have. Right. And then you're like, oh, I'll try that too. And then you're just so pleasantly surprised. And it doesn't always happen. But when it does, you're like, oh, this is cool. Yeah, this is cool.

Jason: Yeah. Uh, next stop ended up being angry chair, which is not that far up the road, maybe three, four miles from magnanimous. Uh, we stopped in there mostly because a lot.

Bri: Of talk about.

Jason: That. Yeah, the canard is incredible.

Bri: There you go on their website. It's ridiculous.

Jason: Fantastic. Um, we featured their full circle light lager on our, uh, lagers series for barely getting started.

Bri: Oh, this is how you knew the place.

Jason: Okay, so we go in there. Um, big open place.

Bri: Nice. Yeah. It's huge. There's so many people could be there.

Jason: Yeah, I feel like we had some food there.

Bri: We did?

Jason: Yeah, like some tots or something. Something to that.

Bri: Um.

Jason: We ate. Ate there. Did we eat eat eat.

Bri: Eat.

Jason: Eat eat there.

Bri: We eat, eat there.

Jason: But I remember we also had the space grass, um, IPA. That was, um, like Simcoe. El Dorado.

Bri: Like. Yeah, I had a shrimp po boy.

Jason: Oh, the po boy. Yeah.

Bri: It was ridiculously delicious. Yes. Yeah. Because I, you know, here we are. This is what happens. I'm starving. I'm like, when are we having food? Can we have now? And J had nobody's surprised. A burger, a burger.

Jason: Yeah, yeah.

Bri: Boring.

Jason: It's okay.

Bri: Oh, yeah. And they had that incredible Mac salad that I had with my shrimp po'boy. I was like, what?

Jason: Because you asked if they if that was a side dish that they could do because they normally served it with stuff.

Bri: Yeah. And I feel like it had. Like pickles in it. And it was incredible. And I loved it. It was awesome.

Jason: Yeah. But the if you want to, you know hear about angry Cheering a little more detail, you go to the full circle light Lager IPA or it's a light lager episode. It was our lager series that we did for barely getting started. We do a whole episode and, and Craig really touches on Angry Chair because he has a, you know, a bit of a rapport with, again, being able to get stuff from them.

Bri: It was delicious.

Jason: A fun thing that we learned about Florida beer is because of the laws in Florida. A lot of the times when we get Florida beers, let's go back again. Arcane, magnanimous, um, angry chair, any of them that that we get our hands on with the exception of Cigar City because that's nationally.

Bri: They're like more mass produced.

Jason: Mass produced. Yeah. That's only because people load up a truck and they bring that stuff north.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: So if you see it again, brewed and bottled, right, If you go to whatever. Fatty.

Bri: Yeah. Like people are bringing magic bear.

Jason: That stuff is coming north and it's being dropped off at some point because they got their hands on it somehow.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: Which is which is great to hear. You know, we were just following the New York State, uh, craft beer Awards on Friday night, and we found out that, uh, one of the ones that we like is Wild East. They won a few awards. And the number of times that Wild East, just one of the owners there, she loads up the truck and just comes to Buffalo with just beer drops stuff off as she comes along. She'll be back for collaboration six. Um, or one of them anyway, and I'm sure they'll be doing some drop offs while they're in the area, because they tend to stay in the area for a couple of days. Yeah. When they're doing their thing. So I mean, people don't think that that's how it works, but that's what the way we learn how they do it in Florida.

Bri: Mhm.

Jason: Maybe the reason why when we go to, um, Premier Gourmet, that all you can see.

Bri: There you go.

Jason: Maybe nobody's.

Bri: There. We just answered it for ourselves. Probably.

Jason: Quite possibly. Um, so one of the, one of the beers that was on the list that was given to us by magnanimous was Dundee and Dundee.

Bri: Dun dun.

Jason: Dun Eden.

Bri: Brewing. Oh my gosh, you're so funny.

Jason: Well, you know, I, I don't know this town. We drove all the way out to Dunedin because it's, it's a little bit of a haul from Tampa.

Bri: Well, and here's the thing is everybody was like, you're really driving all over these places. And we look at each other and we're like, in Western New York, we have no problem driving a half hour to like everywhere. It's a half hour, forty five minutes to go to work. It's a half hour, forty five minutes to go eat where we want to eat, to drink, where we want to drink. Like, I don't know, I guess I.

Jason: Drive an hour to go hiking. We drive forty minutes to get up to Lewiston.

Bri: Yeah. And it's so funny because they're like, really? You would drive that far just for like food or drink? And I'm like, what? You wouldn't you? And they're like, no, if it's.

Jason: Traffic is.

Bri: If it's not like ten minutes where we can walk or ride a bike, we're not going, wait, what?

Jason: Their traffic is insane.

Bri: I mean, it is, but it's not. I feel like Buffalo's traffic is just as bad. I didn't think that we really sat in anything that was insane. But yeah, so we drove out there to Dunedin and, um, we went to that was like Florida's oldest brewery.

Jason: Florida's oldest microbrewery.

Bri: Yeah. Yeah. So that was pretty cool. And I love the town. The little town is so cute. It reminds me of like a downsized village of Williamsville. Okay. Right. Like, so, you know, when you're in the village and you're going up and down Main Street and it's just like, quaint right now, spread it out like a little further. Down.

Jason: Yeah. It looks it's like a little mix of Main Street, Williamsville with like the Elmwood Village.

Bri: Yeah. But it's a little more separated. Like that's how I couldn't like, describe it because like, I feel like both of those places, everything is kind of like store, store, store, store, store where that wasn't. It was like brewery space store. And then like across was like a little plaza with like a juice place and whatever. And then like, there's like five stores right here. And then there was like land and houses. And I don't know, it was very, very cute. And people were walking and riding their bikes everywhere and everything was so chilled and laid back. And I wish Western New York could be like that, but I feel like we just don't know how to settle the f down.

Jason: They, uh, they, they had a, a Scottish theme founded in nineteen ninety six. Uh, they positioned themselves as an originator in Florida craft beer scene downtown Dunedin, uh, is a go to spot for comfort food and houses and intimate yet nationally renowned music venue. MM, fun.

Bri: Yeah, it was cute.

Jason: Um, and then the one beer that really stood out to us is the apricot Peach Ale.

Bri: Oh, my gosh, it was so good.

Jason: Really good.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: So highly recommended.

Bri: We did. That's the one we had a full pour of. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So we did like a tasting of four different ones. And then we did a full pour of that one. And that was like, that was definitely the beer.

Jason: It was good, unfiltered handcrafted ale brewed with natural apricot puree harvested in the Willamette Valley of northwestern Oregon.

Bri: Well, it was delicious and I loved it. So really nice. Awesome.

Jason: Um, going on to the list that was given to us by magnanimous, we went to Green Bench Brewing in Saint Pete.

Bri: Which was really cool. Yeah, what a fun vibe that area is too. So I wasn't prepared to drive into this like super cool area where you just, you're driving twenty miles an hour because that's the speed limit, because there's so many people walking and there's so many stores and restaurants and venues and like the breweries and everything that was going on down there. And it reminded me a lot of when I was in Biloxi and we drove up to Gulfport.

Jason: Yeah.

Bri: Do you remember that from being stationed there for a bit? Yeah, it reminded me so much of that Gulfport area where it's kind of like those just streets full of stuff, and then nothing on the side, nothing on the side, nothing on the side, nothing on the side. It's like they cut a square and built it up.

Jason: You're probably right.

Bri: And that was that. Yeah. And that was that. And that was it.

Jason: Just.

Bri: And like this little area. So it was really cool. Yeah, it was cute.

Jason: Was it nice? Yeah. It was a really nice area. It was very walkable.

Bri: Yeah. So we parked and walked over to Green Bench. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful day again. We're in Florida. It's freaking gorgeous.

Jason: Um, green bench there. So green bench IPA. So they were Saint Petersburg's first microbrewery.

Bri: Oh, fun.

Jason: And uh, Green Bench IPA, six point eight ABV. The reason we liked it, sixty eight IBUs, You know, a nice little bite to it. Um, their original quote unquote benchmark beer, medium bodied aromas of soft citrus, earthy pine.

Bri: I had a different beer. I feel like you did. Okay.

Jason: Combined with a very subtle. I have that note here too. Um, very subtle notes of tropical fruit and highly hopped American IPA leaves your palate lingering dry or tingling. Dry. Tingling. Lingering dry.

Bri: Wow. What is happening?

Jason: Red leather, yellow leather, and a better finish. You had Sunshine City IPA, which also had sixty eight IBUs hop flavor. Aroma drew a double dry hopped beer with equal parts mosaic, Citra Azteca and intensely tropical reminiscent of tangerine nectar, nectar, papaya, peach, kiwi and pineapple.

Bri: Love all that. And I think it like, gave money to like, dogs or something.

Jason: Yeah, it's like very dog friendly place. Very open garage door up vibe.

Bri: Yeah. And they had like this middle section where kids were able to play outside where like kind of it was very family friendly in the middle with adults on, in the breweries itself.

Jason: And why was that? What was on the other side of that little beer garden?

Bri: What is it called?

Jason: Webb's city. Webb city.

Bri: Oh my gosh, this place was so cool. It was like going to a winery. But it was beer, right? Yeah.

Jason: Yeah. So they they specialize in Fodor Beers there. So it's you're talking about natural sours with, like, yeast and bacteria used to brew beer.

Bri: Totally different vibe. So you have this open garage, sunshine pouring in, people coming in with kids, dogs, whatever. You walk across the area where all the family is playing outside, and then you walk into this other place and it's now it's dark fireplace, leather chairs. Like it was totally different. Like it was a really cool, like, I don't know, like.

Jason: Lots of barrels stacked up folder.

Bri: Vibe, like, you know, someplace you'd want to go on like a date or like a, I don't know, you know, like a, it was just very different. It was crazy because it was owned by the same people.

Jason: Green bench.

Bri: Yeah. And it was night and day. Yep. And all you did was walk here, walk across, walk in here and boom, a whole different vibe.

Jason: Like green bench opened that in twenty nineteen on the around the fifth anniversary of the, uh, of green benches, uh, production facility, uh, growing and thriving beer scene paralleled and engaging with supportive of the support of our community, which we saw everywhere.

Bri: Yeah, for sure.

Jason: Which it was great. Um, so it's, it was fueled by the local, the local, uh, passion and confidence inspired by the community and then challenged both themselves and the market for focusing on three important elements, all supporting the execution of the highest level of hospitality found in beer worldwide. they did a fantastic job? The one that stuck out to us is called playing with poet, which was a collaboration with a fellow Florida brewery called De Garde Brewing. I don't think it was anywhere close to where we were. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe not. I don't remember.

Bri: But it was delicious.

Jason: But it was a four point nine percent very Crushable Fodor beer, Fodor Sour you're talking about fermented with house yeast and bacteria, combination of a pilsner, a raw wheat and oats. And then they put that together with Citra hops.

Bri: I feel.

Jason: Like fantastic.

Bri: Yeah. I feel like every one of those we were drinking was like when you were when you drink wine. Right? And I, I don't want to compare it to wine, but like the complexity of it, right? So it's not like just I'm drinking this IPA right now. Right? Right. It was something where you would just like take these sips and just like, let it roll around on your tongue. And you just, it was just, I don't know, it was just so complex and so flavorful and so different and so incredible. So it was kind of like when you're drinking something, you know, like, kind of like when you're drinking a wine, right? You're picking out all these notes everywhere, right? And I know you can do it just drinking a regular beer or whatever. But sometimes when it's just like the hot sun and you're like, oh, this beer tastes so great. Why? Because it's like flavorful and full of fruit and, you know, cold and tastes great or whatever. This was like a whole different level, a whole different level.

Jason: It was incredible to find out that that beer had been brewed two years prior, but sat in that folder as long as it did. Yeah. To, to get to the age and the.

Bri: So cool.

Jason: The flavor that, that came out of that. So cool. So, and everything's served in like a, it's a Taikoo glass, which is almost like a wine glass, uh, long stemmed.

Bri: But yeah.

Jason: I mean, just an incredible experience to go in there and to just have something that's more like you said, more like a winery vibe.

Bri: Yeah, it was just real cool. And I just I loved it so, so much. But yeah, I would, I would totally love to go back to that place in a second. It was so delicious.

Jason: Yeah. Uh, so we started getting hungry again. Yeah. Um, one of the suggestions again that came from magnanimous.

Bri: Yes.

Jason: Thank you. So magnanimous gave put one word that was on the list. It was called bodega. Bodega. So, uh, across like, I guess one street up, one street over.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: We went to bodega, which is a Cuban inspired eatery.

Bri: And you can just go to the walk up window and order.

Jason: Food and drinks. And yeah, we had these amazing chicken breast sandwiches, these Cuban sandwiches.

Bri: We had a Cuban and I had a chicken one that was like full of fresh mango. And it was just incredible. And the taste was so good and the bread was so perfect. And then I had a homemade soda. Yeah. Like, I don't know, it's just it's crazy. Crazy good.

Jason: Something about eating a Cuban sandwich.

Bri: Uh, on a bench.

Jason: On a bench, using a Texas hunch on a West Florida city street. Oh my.

Bri: God. Seriously?

Jason: That's. The sandwiches were legit. Oh, yeah. It's, uh, it's a place where.

Bri: It's so good.

Jason: If you want a little Cuban inspiration. That's.

Bri: The place was so funny because I was like, huh. Okay, so there's a place called bodega, and we looked it up and we're like, it is literally around the corner because now, you know, we're thinking we'll drive someplace if we need to. Nope. Right there.

Jason: Nope.

Bri: Incredible.

Jason: Right down the street from where we parked the car.

Bri: Incredible. Yeah, it was so, so good. Yeah.

Jason: Yeah. Um, our final, our final stop, which was the piece de resistance that that brought us to the whole.

Bri: Reason.

Jason: That we built this tour was to stop into Arcane Aleworks in Largo, Florida. Yeah. Um, as you remember, Bell Barbecue was our twenty twenty five beer of the year winner. And when we talked to, uh, when the word got out, um, I exchanged emails with Bill, who's one of the owners, and he said, hey, I'm not going to be in town because of family, but if you go in there, my partner possibly might be in there. But the one you want to talk to is Smalls now. Now, I said what I said because I'm about to say what I'm going to say. So his partner was there, but he was busy.

Bri: Like, yeah, he was doing stuff.

Jason: He was doing a gazillion other things. But Smalls was like. So the big question was, where did the name for Bell Barbecue come from?

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: And we were okay. We were okay to be able to tell this story because she see, he said it was bill said it wasn't much of a story.

Bri: And Bell said it was a huge story. What is he talking about?

Jason: It's a huge story. So we found out that there is a lot of Disney inspiration to the naming of certain beers at Arcane Aleworks, which.

Bri: Now I love you guys even more. Yes.

Jason: So Bill barbecue is nothing more than a tip of the hat to Belle from beauty and the beast, right?

Bri: And then they just come up with something fun. Yeah.

Jason: No. So, yes, to answer the question, Belle. Barbecue. No. There is no barbecue sauce in the beer. Right? Yeah. Um, a former beer that was called Ariel's Aioli.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: No, there's no aioli in the beer.

Bri: But Ariel from The Little Mermaid.

Jason: Right.

Bri: But, uh, super, super fun. I love it so much that.

Jason: But it was really fun to find out. We talked with Smalls. We talked with Tiffany for a little bit also. Yeah. Um, one of the things they were doing, they had just come out the night before.

Bri: So was your fallout series.

Jason: If you're a fan of the fallout, yeah, whatever the television show or the video game.

Bri: I only knew it as the video game. I mean, not so much like knowing the video game, just knowing of it. Just from the boys. Yeah.

Jason: Yeah. There's, um. Feel like, I mean, and I haven't watched the fallout TV series. I have no ambition to, but it's on like Prime or who knew who. Who knows, maybe it's on Netflix or something like that. But anyway, so they did a, a collection of beers and there were four beers. They did the Power Armor Porter, they did the monster jam, which was this sour that they did with like banana, pineapple and mango. They did the ghoulish IPA, which was Raku, Raku, mosaic, uh, incognito, Citra Spectrum and Citra hops. I'm telling you, Florida knows how to use hops that just aren't out there in the common space.

Bri: It's so awesome.

Jason: But the one that struck home with us that that we really loved.

Bri: Oh my gosh. Yes.

Jason: As, uh, was quantum, which was tangerine, coconut and key lime pie.

Bri: It was so good. And it was blue, blue.

Jason: Blue like mouthwash.

Bri: Blue. But it was delicious and I loved it so much.

Jason: It was so much fun.

Bri: It was so good. So much fun. And then I had, um, I had a taster of some things and out of my stuff that I had tasted that wasn't the fallout tasting board that you did. Um, there was the carrot cake.

Jason: Grandma's fingers.

Bri: And that was so good. It tastes just like carrot cake. Like I love, love, love when somebody can do a beer where you can drink it and you're like, I'm tasting dessert.

Jason: I think that's so fun. We had one close to that was probably more Taylor's right.

Bri: Yeah. More. Taylor's does do those beers. Yeah. When you can actually, like, drink dessert.

Jason: And then their Desert Eagle, uh, Imperial stouts, because they're big. Also, they're big military blue line red line supporters. So they do some military inspired stuff. So they have the Desert Eagle play on Desert Eagle Imperial Stout. So they had like heavenly hash and they have different desserts that they that they do that were a lot of fun. Yeah. Flavorful. Super flavorful. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, arcane, I, I was, I was, um, pleasantly surprised by their location.

Bri: Yeah. Okay. So I was not even pleasantly surprised. I was shocked. So we so J pulls in and I go, I don't think we're in the right place. Like you just pulled into like a bank with a plaza behind it. Like I saw a Winn-Dixie to the left of me before he like pulled around the bank and he's like, listen, woman. No, he didn't really say that, but he did say it was a woman. He's like, listen, Bri, it is here. This is what the map says. So we go like around the bank into the plaza and there it is. It's literally just a, a brewery in a plaza. And it's the strangest thing. And I was like, there is no way. There is no way this incredible beer comes out of this place in a plaza where to the left is a Winn-Dixie, and to the right is a gym. True story. True story. I don't know, but there it was. And it was so freaking good. And I am so glad we we stopped it. It was. And it was awesome.

Jason: It was a great West Florida tour. I am happy that we planned some of the stops that we did. I'm happy for Magnanimous Brewing for the suggestions that they gave us that expanded our tours.

Bri: For sure.

Jason: Further than what we had anticipated.

Bri: Yeah.

Jason: Um, so it was a fun time. I would, uh, I would definitely go back to Tampa.

Bri: I would love to have been there longer. I mean, we intentionally were going to have a day because you always go there before you leave on your cruise. But, um, it just so happened that flights were terrible the day we were coming back from our cruise. True story. So we said, why don't we just stay and drink beer? And to tell Jay, let's just stay and drink beer. It's like, oh, yes, that's right. So I'm super glad we did it and it was super fun. And I am in love with Florida and everything that Florida has to offer. I just wish that they would become cheaper for me to live there.

Jason: Understood. Yeah. Understood.

Bri: Because I would leave tomorrow. I would just pack up my stuff and be on my way.

Jason: Yeah. What? What's the next beer tour? Do you think we have that? That's on our schedule.

Bri: I mean, we have beer festivals coming up. We have festivals and stuff.

Jason: Yeah, we're definitely going to be talking about those down the road. There's some great things that.

Bri: We're going out to the Finger Lakes a few times this year.

Jason: Got that's going to be part of a, a whole release of new information that we're that we're going to give you. Yeah. In the upcoming weeks. Well, uh, but hey, thanks for recalling all these things with me because it was, it was definitely a fun time to, to be able to drive everywhere and check out different, uh, neighborhoods in, in West Florida. Uh, being able to try so many amazing beers, experiencing the Florida influences in beer.

Bri: Yeah. And smelling home, right?

Jason: Right.

Bri: Oh, I couldn't get over this smell. I just want to bottle it up. And then every time I'm sad and.

Jason: I'm a candle for.

Bri: You. Oh, I just want to open up the bottle and just, like, take a snap. Oh, it smells like home.

Jason: All right, guys, uh, in, uh, we have, uh, barely getting started. It's going to be doing a batch recording sometime in the coming weeks here. So they will be returning. Uh, we'll be returning with that. Craig and I in April at some point, Brie and I have got some other things that some other irons in the fire here. In the meantime, if you want to holler at us or you want to follow us here, you can do so on social media. You can listen to every episode of the Buffalo Bruce podcast, past and present, on our website at Buffalo Bruce podcast dot com. Or you can download wherever you get your podcasts content. I always dare you to find a place where we're not available. If you can, I'll get us there. Don't you worry about it. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube at Buffalo Bruce podcast. TikTok at Buffalo. Bruce. Yes, we do post some things there from time to time. Sometimes I feel like I'm a little old for it, but we get some decent feedback from the videos that we post there. In the meantime, in between time.

Bri: In the meantime. In between time. That's right. Hello. Nineteen ninety.

Jason: We, uh, we encourage you to, you know, go out there with much peace, love, happiness, drink good beer and we will see you on. Listen to the next episode of the Buffalo Brews podcast. Cheers, cheers.