Angry Chair is among the latest breweries to open in Tampa, in what is still a major upswing in the Bay area craft beer scene’s popularity. The brewery and tasting room are located in the heart of hip, hip Seminole Heights, in a stylish old ’40s clock shop (with original ’20s Florida pine from the building repurposed into the custom bar), right on heavily trafficked foodie-haven Florida Avenue.
So yeah, the timing is there. The location is there. The aesthetic is right there.
But what about the beer?
Well, what about a brewmaster who’s been at it professionally for more than half a decade already? And who made his bones as a pilot brewer at Cigar City? And who loves to screw around with flavors, create funky sours and keep an impressive variety on the Angry Chair taps at all times?
“There’s nothing I’m afraid to brew,” says Ben Romano, and great beers like Angry Chair’s refreshing Gose and fruity-and-complex 3 Little Birds Florida Weisse seem to bear this out.
Romano and co-founder Ryan Dowdle worked together at Cigar City, and have always dreamed of a brewpub of their own. (Co-founder Shane Mozur rounds out the team.)
“Ryan was part of our tasting group back in the day,” Romano says. “We had talked about opening up a place of our own down the road, we actually tried once before this, but it didn’t pan out. Eventually, everything came together and we were able to make this place happen.”
Now that all the initial permit pulling, construction woes and financial hurdles are behind them, Romano isn’t immediately turning his ambitions to larger-scale commercial production. For now, he’s just happy to be indulging his inner alchemist in Angry Chair’s 10-barrel brewhouse, and getting word out about the brewery’s superlative products — both in the brewpub and, now that Angry Chair has inked a distribution deal, around town and beyond.
“Right now we’re in a lot of bars in Seminole Heights and Tampa as a whole, and we’re getting out into Brandon,” he says. “But I just like making beer. I’m hands-on. When you take away the hands-on aspect of it, to me, it becomes just another job.”
Favorite beer that isn’t his: “I really dig Cycle’s Fixie [IPA], it’s frigging delicious all-around. Doug [Dozark of Cycle] does really well with hoppy beers. It’s nice, sessionable, and easy-drinking with a good hop nose to it.”
His signature Angry Chair beer: “That’s a really tough one. For me, it’s about everything I do, all together. I try to make a whole bunch of flavorful beers, good IPAs, I try not to focus on one style and I want to do everything well. But I have a feeling we’re going to get pretty well-known for our dessert beers [like the German Chocolate Cupcake Stout].”
Angry Chair Brewing
6401 N. Florida Ave., Tampa
813-238-1122; angrychairbrewing.com
This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2015.