It seems like longtime homebrewer Greg Rapp’s name has been synonymous with one of the nation’s finest sour beers since before he even opened his brewery and tasting room. His gose — a salty, tart German style — has been something a gold standard among craft aficionados for years; looking at what’s on tap at many Bay area tasting rooms, it could be said that his experience was less one of having to keep up with an exploding beer scene, and more one of him doing his thing while everyone else was catching up.
“I see people getting into sours,” he said. “But we started with sours, that’s not new to us.
“I’m kind of a classic kind of guy so I focus more on traditional beer styles, I don’t really follow the latest and greatest, adjunct beers, bakery beers, German chocolate cake or whatever. I don’t want to demean that kind of thing, the consumers like it and it’s really exciting, and we do do a few of those, we’ve had our chocolate peanut butter stout on for five years now.”
Rapp’s penchant for resurrecting lesser-known old-school traditional styles, occasional wild bent and dedication to small-batch brewing may have intially garnered the label a more knowledgeable (some might say cult-like) following of craft diehards, but the exponential growth of local beer has resulted in more, and more curiuos craft drinkers. Rapp says that has spilled over to his casual spot away from walkable downtown multi-brewery districts, in an industrial area where Seminole, Largo and Clearwater meet.
“There are a lot more craft drinkers, more people getting exposed. Personally, our brewery seems to be drawing more and more from the local community,” he said. “That’s where our growth is, and we’re trying to capture more of that traffic, folks coming home from work, stopping in, that’s worked really well for us.”
Paying attention to the shifting demographic has led Rapp Brewing Company to try some new things, like a Wednesday-evening session beer special featuring brews with a comparatively low alcohol point for an equally low price point. But nurturing an emerging client base hasn’t influenced the brewery’s commitment to its original goals.
“Our whole mission statement was to be small-batch, handcrafted, with a focus on traditional styles,” Rapp said. “We’ve managed to stay with that focus and a lot of customers come to us specifically for that. It’s kind of refreshing for folks, I guess.”
10930 Endeavour Way, Seminole. 727-544-1752.
This article appears in Feb 15-22, 2018.