Tag Archives: Florida IPAs

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Coppertail Brewing celebrates Kiko Santiago 2019 release

Tampa’s Coppertail Brewing Company has a special place in their heart for IPAs.  Coppertail’s IPAs are a chance for head brewer Casey Hughes to experiment with some of the latest hops and see how their profile evolves with the malted barley mural he paints in every glass.  Coppertail’s Alpha Hunt Series of IPAs changes each year so that Casey and Coppertail’s brewing staff can brew new, exciting, and evolving IPAs.

According to the brewery, the Alpha Hunt Beers are “a series of India pale ales dedicated to the discovery of new hops and the constant hunt for innovative IPAs.” In the Alpha Hunt Series of IPAs, each beer is named for a fictional explorer that devoted him or herself to the search for the mythical Coppertail monster that the brewery is named for.  Clues to the story of the explorer and the monster are on every six-pack of Coppertail beer- both in and out of the Alpha Hunt Series.

Kiko Santiago Release Party

April 20th, 2019 will see the release of Alpa Hunt regular Kiko Santiago IPA.

From Coppertail Brewing:

Join us for the return of Kiko Santiago. This Dank IPA coming in at 6.2%. Has fresh notes of citrus and tangerine with hints of pine. Cans go on sale starting at 11am.

The S&V Kitchen – Coppertail will have your favorite munchies inside and 3 Dot Dash will have all of your favorite vegan munchies outside.

Live music by Sgammato Music & Friends will start at 3pm off the dock.

We will have limited Kiko prints available in the tasting room while supplies last.

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About Coppertail Brewing
Coppertail Brewing Co is an independently owned production brewery and tasting room in the historic Ybor neighborhood of Tampa, FL. It was founded on the desire to bring more quality, Florida-brewed beer to the thirsty masses. Florida Inspired. Tampa Brewed.

IPA Day in Florida, or as it’s more commonly known: every other day in Florida

August 7th, 2014 marks the return of a day dedicated to those who have hyperlupulinsion: a medical condition where the only end to thirst is derived from hoppy beers and the mother of all hoppy beer styles, the India Pale Ale (IPA). Two years ago, a day was dedicated to starting a conversation about hoppy beer, dubbed appropriately “IPA Day.” A hashtag was born, a tradition began, the sun rose, the sun set, and the world kept turning, but the conversation has continued. According to CraftBeer.com, last year the hashtag #IPAday was “tweeted out 33,697 times by 22,877 different users. The #IPAday hashtag had the potential reach of 25.04 million people and appeared on nearly 54.2 million timelines.”

This year should be no different, and Florida has a great deal to say in this international conversation. Of the breweries that have opened up in the Sunshine State in the past half decade, almost none of them are without a flagship IPA. (At one point, I had visited every brewery in Florida, and could say with surety this was true, but craft breweries in the Southernmost state are like rays of hope: never sure where they’ll turn up, but there’s always another on the horizon.) There was a time, a dark time in years past, where a conversation about IPA Day demanded that a Floridian seek a brew from another state in order to participate in a talk or a toast on IPA Day. This is not the case any more– Florida breweries have a lot to say in the talk of IPAs, and many Southern lupulin lovers are eager to hear what Florida’s craft brewers have to pour, err, say.

In honor of Florida’s expanded hop offerings, here is a list of Florida-centric India Pale Ales, and some out-of-state love for those who ship beer to Florida. Bottom line: there’s a beer out there for everyone in the spectrum of beer lovers, from hop haters to bine benders, all it takes to find the perfect beer is an open mind.

For Session Beer Scenesters: (Low alcohol >5% ABV Beers)

Cycle Brewing Fixie. Cycle Brewing, Saint Petersburg’s first craft brewery, and brewer Doug Dozark knows how to get hops in a low alcohol IPA. Fixie is one of the top session IPAs currently on the market– the downside is that it is a limited market. Cycle Brewing only distributes to limited accounts, and Fixie is no exception. Fixie is a hazy IPA that crams the hops of an 8% IPA into a 5% ABV session IPA, but like a moon, it can only be found orbiting its home.

7venth Sun Brewery’s Time Bomb. The brewery on Broadway in Dunedin makes a myriad of beer styles, and Time Bomb almost gets forgotten. Almost. Time Bomb makes a show of itself when the growler is opened or the tap is pulled: big citrus and mild pine flavor waft through the air like they were cookies in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Smells like an Imperial IPA, but clocks in at a mere 4.3% ABV.

Out of State Offering: Founder’s All Day IPA. The mother of all session beers, Founders has made a session beer that is tasty for anything and everything. Lots of citrus hops packed into cans of this beauty.

For the Hop Hearty: (IPAs of reasonable strength)

Cigar City Jai Alai IPA. No conversation about Florida craft IPAs is complete without mentioning Tampa’s IPA of kings. This is the IPA that built Cigar City, and one that the brewery works hard to keep up with demand for. Jai Alai is a citrusy hop-bomb that deserves a place at any IPA table, and Cigar City works hard to keep Florida supplied with fresh IPA, in fact from Tallahassee to South Florida to the hills of rural Florida, it is not uncommon to find cans of Jai Alai that are only days off the canning line.

Tampa Bay Brewing Company Old Elephant Foot. Tallboy cans with an elephant. The real Old E. Tampa Bay Brewing Company’s (TBBC) tried and true IPA is the one that Tampa cannot get enough of. Owner Dave Doble was so interested in getting cans into the hands of thirsty TBBC patrons, that he and friends hand-labeled the first cans off the canning line. This West Coast style IPA puts hops through the ringer to get them fresh in the can. Think massive hits of pine and citrus diving out of the glass. For brewery fresh taste, get them straight from the source.

JDub’s Up Top! IPA. Sarasota’s first production brewery’s flagship IPA. Up Top! is an assertively hopped lovable beast of an IPA that has some caramel malt behind a punch of citrus hops that erupt from the can. Owner Jeremy Joerger and brewer Tom Harris were so excited about this recipe and tweaking it to perfection that they did not really pour it for the public until opening day. The result was a hop-packed, lovable IPA that took no prisoners.

Out of State Offering: Sweetwater IPA. One of the great IPAs of the South. Sweetwater IPA blends the hop punch of an stand-up IPA with some cut grass and lots of malt to make a great beer that is nowhere near mainstream.

For the Lupulin Lover (Double IPAs):

Proof Brewing Company’s Warpath. The beast of the list. Proof’s Warpath IPA was originally brewed for Florida State’s National Championship win. It has since seen the light of day again, but it sits like those hot sauces that require waivers: it’s flavor comes with a decent amount of alcohol. To those who take the challenge, who ride the wave, Proof’s Warpath has a pushy hop character, but a smoothness as well. It loses as many times as the Seminoles did in 2013-2014 and is a champion of a beer.

Fort Myers Brewing’s Citra. Citra hops have come into favor with brewers for assertive tropical fruit, pine, and citrus character. Fort Myers brewer Rob Whyte knows just how to handle Citra hops: he uses copious amounts in an Imperial IPA. Citra is a beer that shows off every nuance of the Citra hop while providing some balancing malted barley behind the midnight parade of hop flavor.

Out of State Offering: Sierra Nevada Hoptimum. This piney, syrupy hop eruption is bottled and widely distributed by one of the first craft breweries in America. A bottle of Hoptimum is to hops what Mary Poppins’s handbag was to furniture.

From Pensacola Bay’s Li’l Napoleon to Funky Buddha’s Hop Gun to Point Ybel’s Snook Bite IPA to Swamp Head’s Big Nose, to Intuition Ale’s I-10 IPA: every corner of Florida has a local beer ready to pour for IPA Day. Florida’s craft beer expansion is a hot topic of conversation among national beer folks. While choice of beer may be up for discussion, the only way to get in the conversation is to fill a glass. Local beer is everywhere, here’s hoping that IPA Day is full of good people, good conversation, and great IPAs.