Craft Breweries in Orlando

Beer is big business in the US. Even if you’ve never been here before, the chances are you’ve heard of one of the Big Three breweries of Budweiser, Miller and Coors, a high-profile trio that have spread their advertising message far and wide.

If you've had the opportunity to taste an American beer in the UK, chances are high that it belonged to one of these three varieties. When you embark on your upcoming Orlando vacation, you might be eager to locate these beers as soon as you set foot on American soil.

But hold on a minute!

We’re here to tell you that the picture of beer imbibing is not as clear-cut as you think. In fact, the mass-market brewers are slowly losing their grip on America’s thirst for a pint or two in the face of a surging craft brewery industry across the country.

In fact, independent breweries currently account for a quarter of beer sales in the US. What's even more exciting is that Central Florida stands as a hub for this thriving movement.

The Micro-Brewery Explosion

Yes, that’s right, if you’re visiting Orlando, Tampa or one of the other main cities in the region, you will have many hoppy delights to tantalise your tastebuds, while new micro-breweries are opening all the time to fuel this thirsty passion for fermented cereal grains.

And here’s the bottom line: while Budweiser proudly proclaimed itself “the King of Beers” and Pabst Blue Ribbon insisted it was “an American icon,” those are no longer the watchwords for the country’s beer-drinkers.

Just as we Brits realised that Double Diamond didn’t “work wonders” for anyone (except the Ad-men) and that Carlsberg wasn’t “probably” the best of anything, let alone lager, so the US has embraced full-flavoured alternatives to the big brands that have dominated TV commercials for decades.

And that is great news for Orlando visitors and beer-lovers, as there are now 27 breweries and micro-breweries throughout the local area, from DeLand in the north to Kissimmee in the south, Clermont out west to Oviedo in the east. Many also offer food trucks and live music to make themselves into a genuine evening attraction.

When it comes to brew-pubs, there are even more, so buckle up for our whistle-stop tour of this fabulous aspect to your next villa holiday!

How it all started

In real terms, it all began for Orlando back at the turn of the (21st) century, when a bunch of amateur beer enthusiasts got together to create their own idea of “high quality” ales and lagers in downtown.

To them, that meant sticking strictly to the Reinheitsgebot, which, as everyone knows, is the German Purity Law of 1516, and basically means beer is a strictly organic product (Budweiser, Carslberg, et al, take note).

Those enthusiasts morphed into the Orlando Brewing company, the first business to hitch its wagon to the craft brewery train, and it proved the starting point for a steady trickle of new businesses over the next 10 years. And then things really took off.

Between 2012 and 2018, the number of independents more than doubled, and now you can hardly go a mile or two without discovering a new micro-brewery with a genuinely palatable range of products, from IPAs and lagers to porters and sours, and even ciders and meads in some cases.

Who’s Who in the Beer Scene

If Orlando Brewing provided the business model for the crowd to follow, that blueprint has been significantly enlarged ever since, with ever more creative brewers pushing the boundaries of ale perfection.

Now those craft breweries are just about everywhere, dotted around the Central Florida landscape like beacons of beery goodness.

The fab Persimmon Hollow in DeLand is a great example. Founded in 2014 with the slogan “Drink sensibly, but get weird,” they quickly became a feature of the charming downtown area, and have since branched out to four locations, including the fast-growing Flamingo Crossings area just west of Walt Disney World.

They usually feature five or six regular beers, plus a selection of limited releases, while the Flamingo Crossings taproom also offers mimosas, wings and appetisers (seek out their 3 Wise Guys for a truly excellent coffee porter).

Then there’s the new Suncreek Brewery in downtown Clermont, which brings in east Kent hops for several of its beers and boasts a fabulous blonde ale, the Strawberry Blonde Ambition. It opened just a few years ago but is now one of the town’s genuine hot spots.

In between, the likes of Ten10 Brewing Company, which introduces visitors to the happening, funky Mills 50 district of Orlando and their signature Brown Ale, as well as some tasty root beers and a surprisingly good small-plate menu, and Redlight, Redlight, which has been around since 2005, serve to highlight the great variety on offer, with mead and cider as well as an astonishing array of IPAs.

One outlet has grown up almost literally in the shadow of Orlando City Soccer Club. Originally a combination of two breweries, it is now just the Broken Strings Brewery, offering its soccer-fan-related Purple Mane IPA as well as a delicious black lager and a German Kolsch.

And then there’s the Crooked Can

Of course, we couldn’t let any discussion about local breweries pass without mentioning one of our favourite offbeat Orlando locations, wonderful Winter Garden, which is an attraction in its own right. If you don’t have this lovely suburb on your To-Do list for Orlando, you can check out this past blog all about it and its many charms.

Here, the Crooked Can Brewing Company is a founding cornerstone of the superb Plant Street Market and a great place to hang out, either in their taproom, beer garden or Barrel Room. The beers range from the light, crisp Cloud Chaser to the heavyweight Domestic Bliss, a Belgian golden ale that is fully 9.5% ABV.

Brewery tours are available every Sunday on the hour from 12-4pm at $5 per person, including samples and a souvenir glass, and this is simply one of the nicest places in Florida to sit outside with a beer and soak up the community Plant Street vibe.

It all adds up to an engaging new way to enjoy Orlando and its ever-growing list of attractions, and we heartily recommend you seek out a brewery or two!

For more info, see this Visit Orlando link, including a handy map of where to find all these great bastions of beer.

Have you tried any of Orlando’s craft breweries? Tell us about them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages… and don’t forget to interact with us on Pinterest and now TikTok too!