Tampa, Florida is home to some of the best breweries in the state, with a growing craft beer scene across the Tampa Bay area. From small microbreweries to larger, well-known names like Cigar City Brewing, there’s no shortage of great breweries in Tampa to explore.
This guide covers the best breweries in Tampa, with each spot standing out for a specific beer style, from stouts and lagers to IPAs and sour beers. While some Tampa breweries try to do a bit of everything, these are the ones that consistently stand out for doing one style particularly well.
During my time in Tampa, I spent many afternoons visiting breweries across the city. While there are dozens of breweries in Tampa, Florida, these are the breweries I consistently recommend based on quality, execution, and that you can visit repeatedly.
My Favorite Breweries in Tampa
These are my favorite breweries in Tampa, Florida, each known for doing one style of beer particularly well. Rather than focusing on the biggest names, this list highlights smaller Tampa breweries that have built a reputation around a specific style, from IPAs and stouts to lagers and sour beers.
Barriehaus Beer Co.
BEST FOR: GERMAN STYLE LAGERS
Barriehaus Beer Co. is one of the best breweries in Tampa, Florida, especially if you’re looking for traditional German-style lagers. Located in Ybor City, this Tampa brewery focuses almost exclusively on classic European brewing techniques.
Although Jim Barrie is a relative newcomer to the Tampa beer scene, he comes from a long line of brewers. His great-great-great grandfather immigrated from Germany and started a brewery in 1863, part of a wave of German immigrants who helped popularize lagers in the United States. The next two generations in his family also went on to found and run breweries.
When Barriehaus opened in 2019, that history became the foundation of the brewery. Rather than trying to cover every style, Barriehaus committed to doing one thing extremely well, making lagers.
Lagers ferment slowly at low temperatures and take significantly longer to produce than most ales, requiring more time, space, and investment. That commitment shows in the final product. In just a few years, Barriehaus has become one of the most respected breweries in Tampa, known for clean, well-executed lagers that stand out in a city dominated by IPAs and stouts.
Angry Chair Brewing
BEST FOR: STOUTS
Angry Chair Brewing is one of the most popular breweries in Tampa, Florida, and a must-visit if you’re looking for rich, high-ABV stouts. Located in Seminole Heights, this Tampa brewery has built a reputation as one of the best breweries in Tampa for dessert-style stouts and creative flavor combinations.
At Angry Chair, stouts are the main attraction—that’s what most people come for and the reason it stands out in Tampa’s craft beer scene. While they also brew an award-winning pilsner along with sours, pale ales, and porters, the focus is clearly on stouts.
They don’t offer traditional flights, but they do serve 5-ounce pours, which effectively lets you build your own. I strongly recommend going that route. I thought Adjunct Trail—a sweet stout with coconut, hazelnut coffee, and lactose—was my favorite stout in Tampa. Then I tried Rocky Road, which immediately took the top spot. Then came German Chocolate Cinnacake, and at that point I started questioning everything I thought I knew about stouts.
The taps rotate frequently, but some standout stouts you may find include:
- Adjunct Trail: coconut, hazelnut coffee, and lactose (10.5% ABV)
- Rocky Road: walnuts, chocolate, marshmallow, and lactose (11% ABV)
- German Chocolate Cinnacake: coconut, cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate, and lactose (10.5% ABV)
- Tin Roof Sundae: collaboration with American Solera (Tulsa, OK); peanut butter, marshmallow, chocolate, vanilla, and lactose (10% ABV)
- Felicitous: barrel-aged in red wine and bourbon barrels with raspberry, cocoa nibs, and vanilla beans (11% ABV)
Good to know: Expect sweeter, higher-ABV stouts rather than dry or traditional examples.
Woven Water
BEST FOR: SOUR BEERS
Woven Water Brewing is one of the best breweries in Tampa, Florida, especially if you’re looking for creative, fruit-forward sour beers. Located in Tampa Heights, this Tampa brewery has quickly built a reputation for pushing the boundaries of what sour beers can be.
Woven Water is one of the newer breweries in Tampa, opening in October 2020 just two weeks after Magnanimous. After finding a space in Tampa Heights, the pandemic delayed their opening—but the wait paid off. Sour beers are clearly the focus here, and that specialization is what sets this microbrewery apart from other Tampa breweries.
Like most breweries, their taps rotate constantly, but on any given day you’ll usually find a wide range of sour beers available. Some standout options you might see include:
The Revenant: blackberries, marshmallow, cinnamon, and coffee
Blueberry Lemon Upside Down Cake: blueberries, lemon, and vanilla cake
Mango Raspberry Passionfruit Fusion: a thick, fruit-forward sour that tastes exactly like it sounds
While sour beers are the main draw, Woven Water also keeps a small selection of IPAs, lagers, and hard seltzers in rotation for variety. It quickly became one of my favorite breweries in Tampa.
Magnanimous Brewing
BEST FOR: IPAs
Magnanimous Brewing is one of the best breweries in Tampa, Florida, especially if you’re looking for high-quality IPAs. Located in Tampa Heights, this Tampa brewery has quickly become one of the top spots in the city for hop-forward beers.
Owner Charlie Meers spent decades in the beer industry as a sales director, events coordinator, and tasting manager, and he was well known on the beer festival circuit long before opening his own brewery. So when he found a space just north of downtown Tampa to open Magnanimous Brewing, there was already plenty of buzz around his beer.
That buzz mattered, because Magnanimous opened in 2020—right in the middle of the pandemic, a year that was arguably more challenging for bars, restaurants, and breweries than any other since Prohibition.
IPAs are clearly the focus here, and the results speak for themselves. I’m confident in saying that Juice Lord IPA is one of the best beers in Tampa, and possibly in Florida. The fact that they regularly struggle to keep it in stock only reinforces that point.
In addition to rotating IPAs and double IPAs, the tap list usually includes a few lagers and at least one sour for balance, making this one of the most well-rounded breweries in Tampa for people who love craft beer.
Pour House
BEST FOR: HEFEWEISEN AND BELGIAN WHITE
Pour House is one of the more unique breweries in Tampa, Florida, and a great option if you’re looking for lighter, easy-drinking beers in a relaxed setting. Located in the Channelside District just south of downtown Tampa, it stands out from other Tampa breweries for its smaller size and laid-back atmosphere.
What was once a warehouse and shipping area has quickly turned into a neighborhood filled with new apartment buildings, and Pour House fits that setting well. One thing that sets it apart is its partnership with Ginger Beard Coffee, which allows them to serve coffee in the mornings. With reliable WiFi and a relaxed atmosphere, it’s often filled with people working on laptops early in the day.
I lived across the street for a couple of months, and this became my go-to spot when I needed a place to work—earning it a spot on my list of the best places to work remotely in Tampa.
While they don’t currently bottle their own beer to go, Pour House maintains a large tap list with more than 30 beers from Tampa breweries, along with their own house beers. Their strength is lighter styles, particularly wheat beers. Their Belgian white ale, La Flama Blanca, is both my favorite beer here and their best seller, and it’s the reason Pour House earns its place on this list.
The outdoor space is shared with nearby restaurants and shops, each with its own bar, which makes this a great spot to watch football on Sundays or catch a local Tampa sports game.
Coppertail Brewing Co
BEST FOR: BEST OVERALL BREWERY
Coppertail Brewing Co. is one of the best breweries in Tampa, Florida, and stands out as the most well-rounded option in the city. Located in Ybor City, this Tampa brewery has built a reputation for consistently good beer across multiple styles, along with one of the strongest food programs of any brewery in Tampa.
Tucked away in a former mayonnaise plant that later became an olive packing facility, Coppertail is now one of the largest craft breweries in the Tampa Bay area. While it’s not exactly under the radar, it has managed to balance scale with consistency. Their flagship beer, Free Dive IPA, is widely available at bars and restaurants throughout Florida and remains one of their most popular releases.
Coppertail opened in 2014 after a challenging renovation that included rebuilding parts of the structure and figuring out what to do with a railroad track that ran through the middle of the building. They’ve come a long way in a relatively short time, growing into one of the most reliable breweries in Tampa.
They brew several core beers year-round alongside a steady rotation of limited releases. That range is a big part of why Coppertail earns the “best overall” spot—it’s a place where most beer drinkers can find something they like.
Core beers Include:
- Free Dive: American IPA 5.9% ABV
- Unholy: Belgian Trippel 9.2% ABV
- Night Swim: Porter 6.1% ABV
- Independent: Pilsner 5.5% ABV
Beyond the beer, Coppertail also has great food. Unlike many Tampa breweries, they serve a full menu, and it’s genuinely good pub-style food. The sliders are a safe bet (pulled pork, jackfruit, smoked chicken, hot chicken, or panko shrimp), as are the dry-rubbed smoked and fried wings or whatever daily special they’re running.
This combination of variety, consistency, and quality food is what makes Coppertail one of the best breweries in Tampa and the best overall brewery on this list.
Tampa’s brewery scene is diverse, but the best experiences usually come from places that do one style particularly well. Whether you’re looking for lagers, stouts, sours, or IPAs, these breweries highlight the range of what Tampa does best.
Full Travel Guide
