Tag Archives: southern brewing

Southern Brewing will growler all offerings

Press Release:

Southern Brewing now offering growler fills for its entire draft list of beers, ciders, meads, and sodas.

Southern Brewing & Winemaking (Southern), a small craft brewery in Seminole Heights that was previously offering growler fills for most draft beers and sodas, has increased beer and cider production to allow growlers fills for everything on tap. Most breweries in the area currently only offer a limited number of beers on tap for growler fills, but now Southern customers can walk into the taproom and take any beer, cider, or mead of their choice, including special and seasonal releases, home with them.

Due to Southern’s unique one-barrel set-up, all of the company’s beers are, by default, small batch beers. This allows for a lot of room in experimentation, a large assortment of beer style offerings, and frequent special releases.

“Since we offer such a wide variety of unique beers that are in limited supply, it’s really important to us that our customers be able to take these beers from the taproom out into the community and share them with friends,” stated owner Brian Fenstermacher. “Not only does it allow for more flexibility on how people can obtain our beer, but it also organically spreads the word about our shop.”

Southern expanded their growler offerings just before the New Year, and the taproom has already seen a drastic increase in growler fills.

“Sharing beer with friends is a major part of the craft beer community, and we want to encourage that any way we can,” stated Fenstermacher.

For more information, contact the taproom at 813-238-7800 or reach out the brewery on Facebook or Twitter. You can also find Southern’s entire current draft list online at sbwbrews.com.

About Growlers
A growler is a re-usable glass bottle that is used to transport draft beer from the brewery to home. It allows craft beer lovers to bring home their favorite draft beers from local breweries that may not offer packaged beer.

Growlers can be brought in from home or purchased new in the taproom for $5. Fills range between $8-$14, depending on style.

About Southern Brewing & Winemaking
Located in Seminole Heights, Southern Brewing & Winemaking is a small, local craft brewery that makes and serves beers, ciders, meads, and sodas on site. The taproom has 22 taps and is located inside the conjoined homebrewing and winemaking supply shop.

Southern Brewing & Winemaking brings in weekly food trucks and musicians, offers monthly classes on home brewing, and hosts events throughout the year in their newly redesigned biergarten.

Tampa A-List voters honor Southern Brewing and Tampa Bay Brewing Company

CityVoter, a website sponsoring “Best of” competitions in cities across the United States has had their eye on Tampa lately. The website has set up voting for a “Best of Tampa” list, and some local craft breweries have received accolades from CityVoter voters.

Tampa Bay Brewing Company has been voted “Best Brewpub” and “Best Greasy Spoon.” TBBC beat out other six other nominated pubs to earn the top spot in Tampa and five other nominees to win greasy spoon.

Southern Brewing won as best brewery over five other nominees to earn the spot as top brewery in Tampa.

Congratulations to these two local breweries for their accolades

Southern Brewing to release Peppermint Chocolate Porter

Press Release:

Tampa- This Saturday night at 6pm Southern Brewing & Winemaking (Southern) will release its Peppermint Chocolate Porter, a robust porter treated with organic peppermint tea and organic roasted cacao nibs from Ecuador. This special edition tea beer was brewed on a very limited scale and is hitting the taproom this weekend in celebration of the winter holidays.

“We’ve done Randalls with loose leaf tea before, but this is the first time we’ve fully incorporated the tea into a beer,” stated Marketing Manager Cindy Lyons. “We’ve gotten a lot of positive feed back on the tea Randalls, so we think this beer will be very well received.”

For the brew, Southern chose an Organic Peppermint loose leaf tea from local teashop Kaleisia Tea Lounge. The tea gives the beer a refreshing mint punch without additional sweetness or syrupiness that a concentrate or candy might lend. It’s a healthy and natural flavor addition that doesn’t require recipe adjustments.

“It’s very important to us that we only use natural ingredients in our beer, and organic tea fits in with that perfectly,” stated Brian Fenstermacher, owner of Southern Brewing.

The idea was inspired by one of Lyons’ and co-worker Mary McKenzie’s seasonal Peppermint Chocolate Porter homebrews. Lyons and McKenzie are known in the local homebrewing community for their tea beers, but this will be the first time they’ve done the treatment commercially.

“Tea beers are something you see more on the west coast that haven’t really made it to Florida yet,” stated McKenzie. “We’re excited to expand on it down here. We’ve found that using tea in a brew lends an interesting body to the beer and gives it a familiarity that makes it more appealing to those who normally shy away from beer.”

This isn’t the first time Southern has used employee homebrews as inspiration for commercial beers. Their annual pumpkin spice beer, Gourds Gone Wild, was modeled after an award-winning homebrew from Southern brewer Rick Etshman. Tyler Singletary, another brewer at Southern, has had two of his homebrews brewed commercially for the taproom: Rysing Sun Rye Saison and the Toothless Brasser Irish Red Ale.

The tea beer will be a limited release, with only one keg available in the taproom and no growler fills.

Hot Box’d Steamed Cheeseburgers food truck will be onsite during the release and jazz musician Dean Johanesen will be playing an acoustic set in the beirgarten.

Southern Brewing expands cider and mead operations

Press Release:

Southern Brewing & Winemaking (Southern) is the only brewery in the Tampa Bay area that offers both craft beers and craft ciders and meads made on site.

Southern is unique because it holds licenses for both brewing and winemaking, which allows the company more room for creativity and experimentation.

Although Southern has been making ciders and meads onsite for almost a year, the company recently increased its production in order to include a full-time line-up of ciders and meads on tap. So far, Southern has produced over a dozen different styles of ciders and meads, and has around three ciders or meads on tap at all times.

One important aspect of offering ciders and meads in the taproom alongside beer is that it allows customers with a gluten intolerance to join and enjoy the craft movement. Most of the ciders and meads brewed at Southern are gluten-free, and all meads are made with local honey, sourced from farms in the Tampa area.

“We’ve all seen the explosion in craft beer over the last few years, but I think the next ‘big thing’ for craft drinkers will be meads and ciders,” stated Brian Wing, Cider and Mead Maker for Southern.

The company is already taking steps to expand its cider and mead offerings even further so that the taproom appeals equally to beer drinkers, cider drinkers, and wine drinkers.

“Our goal is to bring the three groups together and demolish the social lines between them,” stated Marketing Manager Cindy Lyons. “The idea is to create a seamless, cohesive atmosphere that encourages drinkers of all backgrounds to venture into new styles and cross genres.”

Wing uses a variety of interesting techniques that set the ciders and meads apart from most that are currently available in the United States.

“There aren’t a lot of meads available commercially here in Florida, and those that are can be high in alcohol and sweetness,” stated Wing. “I really enjoy making refreshing, light examples of the style…perfect for Florida, and a real change from what’s out there already.”

This year, Southern won a gold medal for its cider at the Best Florida Brewer’s Championship. It was the first cider to ever medal in the pro division at BFBC.