Ten years ago, Tampa Bay wasn’t known for making beer. How far we’ve come. Cigar City Brewing, Lagerhaus, and Saint Somewhere led the way in 2005-2006, and in the last year alone we’ve seen the debut of several local breweries — including the five featured here. Neighbors who brew professionally?
Cheers to that!
Photo: Todd Bates
Rapp Brewing
10930 Endeavour Way, Seminole, 727-544-1752, rappbrewing.com.
Brewer: Greg Rapp
Greg Rapp, 54, spent decades as a software engineer at the St. Petersburg Times and other private companies, but he found his true calling when he left the cubicle and started homebrewing, sometimes serving more than 70 people at a time at his home in Seminole. With the capital from selling off a successful startup in 2011, he launched Rapp Brewing and opened his Largo brewhouse and tasting room the following year.
“It’s a lot of work," Rapp says [he has to change his sweat-soaked shirt before getting his picture taken], "but I love that I’m producing something tangible after working in software for so long.”
And he’s good at what he does: he was just named Best New Brewer in Florida by the respected website RateBeer.com. His background has turned out to be a plus.
“Like engineering,” Rapp says, “brewing is science, art and a little luck.”
Rapp brews four to six barrels a week, with 20 different varieties on tap in the tasting room. But he’s not too interested in getting his beers onto restaurant and bar taps.
“Right now, I like producing beer for the tasting room," he says, "It’s direct marketing.”
After a long day of brewing, Rapp heads to the tasting room to see what folks think of his different brews. Some are light, some are dark, and others are unlike anything else found locally — like his Rapp’s Gose, based on a recipe from the early 1800s using citrus, salt and coriander.
“It’s an exploration of beer styles,” Rapp says. “I want to explore them all.”
Photo: Todd Bates
7Venth Sun Brewing Company
1012 Broadway Ave., Dunedin, 727-733-3013
Brewers: Devon Kreps, 35; Megan O’Boyle, 26; Justin Stange, 30; Mike Lukacina, 31
Dunedin’s brewing dream team focuses on craft beer and collaboration. 7Venth Sun opened a little over a year ago to rave reviews from beer nerds everywhere.
“From the moment I stepped in and tasted the Key Lime Berliner Sublime, I knew something special was happening,” beer critic Sean Nordquist says of 7Venth Sun. “Owners Justin Stange and Devon Kreps have taken a tiny space in Dunedin and turned it into what very well could be the Next Big Thing in Florida craft beer.”
The recently expanded tasting room and brewery at 1012 Broadway focuses on Belgian-style beers, IPAs, second-use spirit barrel aged beers, and oak aged sour beer.
Photo: Todd Bates
Cycle Brewing
Peg’s Cantina, 3038 Beach Blvd. Gulfport, 727-328-2720. Tasting room to open soon at 534 Central Ave., St. Petersburg.
Brewer: Doug Dozark
Doug Dozark, 31, started giving samples of his homebrews to customers at his parents’ restaurant, Peg’s Cantina, over five years ago. In 2009, his passion became his profession; the Cantina got its brewpub license, so he started making beer there and working the bar on the weekends, and he got a full-time job working at Cigar City Brewing through its infancy, growing pains and expansions. Last year he left CCB to focus on his own venture, Cycle Brewing, and any day now he’ll be opening a tasting and brewing spot by that name in downtown St. Pete.
Well-trained in both beer and business, he’s sincere about bringing good brews to the people.
“You need to know what a bad day feels like," says Dozark. "You need to see your dedication and desire really tested.”
Dozark exudes both qualities on a recent Sunday morning around 8 a.m. Brewing a batch of Freewheel, Cycle’s flagship ale, he describes a clear vision of what he wants Cycle Brewing to be.
“We want to be the local brewery,” Dozark. “I’m not interested in bottles or six-packs. It’s not about volume for me.”
In addition to his downtown St. Pete outpost, keep an eye out for Dozark’s BrewBus, a 1972 VW Bus complete with taps. And watch for Cycle’s Tang and Biscuits beer to be sold at St. Pete’s shuffleboard court (where he and his wife got married).
Photo: Todd Bates
Barley Mow
518 W. Bay Drive, Largo, 727-584-7772, barleymowbrewingco.com.
Brewers: Jay and Colleen Dingman
Fresh hop vines grow on the fence alongside the patio at Barley Mow Brewing Company in Largo, where Jay and Colleen Dingman brew beer in a small space that doubles as a tasting room and bar. Once the brewing is done, the setup is broken down and cleaned, and Barley Mow opens to the public.
The recently married couple follows the same routine every day.
“We are continually tweaking and perfecting the system,” says Colleen.
Both Jay and Colleen were in the service industry before they started homebrewing together. When their house became overrun with equipment, they figured it was time to set up shop.
The Dingmans no longer brew together, they reveal with a laugh.
“I’ve got my style,” says Colleen. “I like seasonal flavors like cranberry spice or passion fruit. We complement each other.”
“We have different approaches,” explains Jay. “She does stuff I’d never think of. But we’ll brew each other’s beers and it diversifies our portfolio.”
Photo: Todd Bates
Green Bench Brewing
Opening Fall 2013, 1134 First Ave. N, St. Petersburg, 727-214-4863, greenbenchbrewing.com.
Brewer: Khris Johnson (center), with Nathan Stonecipher (left) and Steven Duffy (right)
Inside a former garage that dates to 1925, Green Bench Brewing founders Steven Duffy, 30, and Nathan Stonecipher, 31, stare at piles of debris left from demolishing a wall. The space is vast, with thick beautiful timbers arched across the ceiling like a massive rib cage. The 12,000-square-foot property also includes an adjacent enclosed concrete outdoor space to the west and a grassy lot to the east.
Duffy and Stonecipher grew up together, and had long talked about opening a brewery.
“St. Petersburg specifically had a need for quality beer made here,” says Stonecipher. “Florida is still new to the craft beer world. Cigar City has been a big help, but we can grow our area specifically.”
The city’s coding didn’t really allow for a brewery because, well, there had never been one there before.
“I thought maybe we can do this, maybe it is supposed to be us,” says Duffy. So he went to work with city officials, writing the code that is now in place, a process that took a year to finish. Meanwhile, Stonecipher worked on finding investors (he works in finance), a space, and a brewer.
A big outdoor beer garden is planned, and Johnson is busy working on recipes while construction moves forward on what is slated to be St. Petersburg’s first production micro-brewery.
This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 6, 2013.