Tampa Bay Beer Week pulls in breweries from all over the globe

Tampa Bay Beer Week (TBBW) won’t officially start until Saturday, but it soft-launches on Thursday and Friday with fundraisers and parties dedicated to strawberry beers and lagers. All told, there are nearly 70 events happening between right now and Dunedin’s Hangover Day “Hair of the Dog” party next Sunday. Hell, there’s even a golf tournament. And it can’t happen without contributions from breweries across the U.S.

“It’s about beer in Tampa Bay, not the beer of Tampa Bay,” Chris Fairchild, Vice President of the Tampa Bay Brewers Alliance, said, drawing a distinction between the local brewers alliance and the weeklong beer week it helps organize.

Sean Nordquist, Executive Director of the alliance, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that beer week’s reach goes even further than that. He pointed to an event at Independent Bar & Cafe next Tuesday—the celebration of Belgian styles is just one of seven TBBW happenings at the Seminole Heights watering hole.
“These are the beers that inspired us,” Fairchild told CL about all the speciality and rare beer headed for our neighborhoods.

“Some of the spots will bring in some of the best beers from Europe. You may never get another chance to taste some of these beers,” Nordquist added. “Some of the European styles—sours, lagers—historically, are the best in the world. They’ve been emulated, and tweaked, and that inspiration has led to some of the great beers that are now coming out of this area.”

And if you are looking for a more regional celebration, the 2025 Brewer’s Ball happening Sunday at Tampa’s River Tower Park is a chance to taste the best Florida has to offer beyond core beers at each brewery.

“These are the best of the best in all the different kinds of categories,” Nordquist said about the event that gathers winners of the Best Florida Beer Championships. Judges at the ball, he added, celebrate brewers, their craft and how good they are at what they do.

“From the most traditional, on point, historic recipe of a German lager to some crazy, wild, sweetened chocolate, something, or stout muffin thing,” laughed Nordquist.

“The camaraderie at this event is unbelievable. If you’re gonna ask me about one beer week event that I will not miss, it’s Brewers Ball every year, 100%,” Fairchild said.

There might not be a better time to raise your glass to the local brewer either.

Both Fairchild and Nordquist agree that the Bay area beer scene is healthy—it’s still hard to drive more than a few miles without finding a good neighborhood brewery or bar with a good craft beer selection, after all.

But our ecosystem has not been immune to craft beer contraction happening nationwide. Many factors play into that shrinkage, including the proliferation of non-beer products, the changing interests of Gen-Z, and the aging craft beer consumer.

Craft beer has to find a way to engage new audiences, but like many others in the goods and services business across the U.S., brewers across the Bay area are clenching their cheeks as they grapple with rising rents, property insurance and the potential impacts from tariffs on imported steel (where brewers make beer), aluminum (where it’s stored), and even grain (one of beer’s main ingredients).

“A majority of the ingredients are not grown in the United States. We get more grain from Canada than we do from the Midwest. We were getting more grain from Ukraine for the longest time, but that’s long slowed down to a trickle,” Fairchild said.

Nordquist said the alliance has started to mitigate these impacts by working with suppliers that have domestic stock, but noted that the approach is not a long-term solution. “And it’s not going to be cheaper. It’s just going to be accessible,” he said.

At the end of the day, some of the rising costs inevitably find their way to the consumer. Still, both Nordquist and Fairchild agreed, it’s too early to tell how it will affect what ends up in the craft beer drinker’s glass over the next few years.

“But I don’t see it being a positive for the consumer,” Fairchild said, noting that the creativity isn’t going to solve some of the most pressing issues facing craft beer production. “There’s no strategic grain reserve like we have for oil—it’s grown and sold pretty quickly.”

What’s more is that bigger breweries will be able to squirrel away steel, aluminum, and grain, but the smaller entities just don’t have the space or the means to make runs between large storage spaces and their production facilities.

However, there are elements that might work in the small craft beer brewer’s favor.

For better and worse, having good beer isn’t the be all and end all anymore. It’s not enough to make really good beer; service is as important as quality, along with the opportunity to create a welcoming environment or one that’s uniquely suited to regulars (look at the wild lineup of metal, cabaret and special releases lined up at Ybor Heights’ Deviant Libation where Tim Ogden brews some of the best stuff in Tampa).

“It’s another way to bring people through the doors with an experience that’s unique and different from what everybody else is doing,” Nordquist said about all the ways brewers are adapting. “You really have to create this experience that people will want. Something they will want to have more than once and tell their friends about. It’s a very different industry and business than it was, you know, 10 years ago.”

Tampa Bay Beer Week happens March 1-9 at venues across the Bay area.

Readers are invited to submit their own events to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay’s things to do calendar.

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This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2025.