GB’s Bottle Shop & Tasting Bar, 531 Virginia Drive, 407-634-0110 gbbottleshop.com
In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love – but in the fall, our thoughts turn heavily toward beer. It’s the best time of year to enjoy Orlando’s beer gardens and taprooms, especially those serving their own brews. We visited a few of Orlando’s newest for this year’s Beer Issue. GB’s is the only taproom on our list that’s not also a brewery, but it more than makes up for any perceived lack by offering an incredibly comprehensive list of choices: 20 rotating taps, plus a retail area with refrigerated cases and shelves filled to bursting with scores of bottles and cans.
As a sister bar to the Gnarly Barley, the south Orlando craft-beer haven, GB’s has a leg up on giving the people what they want. It’s served them well in this clean-lined, airy, totally comfortable space – in the taproom area, there are board games and well-designed GB’s merch (T-shirts, growlers, mugs) lining one wall, a TV projecting sports or movies on another, a comfy bench along a third and in the middle, a clutch of long tables perfect for hanging with a group or making new friends over a pint.
Each tap has a name and five numbers scrawled on the white subway tile in which it’s embedded: the name of the beer, and the price for 5-ounce, 9-ounce or 1-pint pours, plus 16- or 32-ounce growlers. Staffers are eager to give taste samples before they pour, and the range of sizes means customers can either settle in for a pint or two of a known quantity, or build their own flight with various 5-ouncers.
Unlike the Gnarly Barley, GB’s doesn’t have a kitchen, but there’s a dedicated food truck space right next to the side entry (usually hosting the Travelers Truck), and customers are perfectly welcome to use any of the plethora of new delivery services to have food brought in. In fact, our beertender assures us, they plan to strike deals for promo codes with some nearby restaurants. (Black Rooster, Pig Floyd’s and Yamasan are all nearby, so this should be a boon to peckish drinkers.)
The Bear & Peacock, 1288 N. Orange Ave., Winter Park, 407-801-2714, facebook.com/bearandpeacockwp
“You can’t make great beer or liquor without great water,” says Bear & Peacock co-owner Paul Twyford, setting down a cold bottle of crystal-clear water that’s been purified by reverse osmosis. Not only is reverse osmosis water the perfect accompaniment to that second or third glass enjoyed at the bar, it’s the basis of the Bear & Peacock’s products.
“If you go to a hundred-year-old brewery, they’re always located next to a beautiful mountain stream,” Twyford continues. “We don’t have that, but we have technology.”
Reverse osmosis and all the other tools in the kit will come together when the Bear & Peacock begins serving their own beers and liquors, brewed and distilled on premises, at the end of November. In the meantime, they’re pouring a small but well-curated selection of beers from behind their handsome L-shaped bar. The space, taking up the back end of the new State Auto Body complex, strikes a balance between serious artisanal workplace and cozy hangout, with an assortment of leather furniture and comfortable barstools backed by tall silver tanks and the glassed-off distillery area.
A very welcome addition to bar-starved Winter Park, the Bear & Peacock, despite not having celebrated a grand opening yet, is already incredibly popular with its neighbors. Right next door in the State Auto Body building is Foxtail Coffee – once the distillery is up and running, we expect a stellar Irish coffee.
The Bear & Peacock plans to develop relationships with nearby restaurants, concurrent with their grand opening, says Twyford, but in the meantime it’s just a few steps to the Winter Park Fish Co. or Buttermilk Bakery. Orange Avenue is blooming.
Ocean Sun Brewing, 3030 Curry Ford Road, 407-745-5551, oceansunbrewing.com
Opened in March of this year, Ocean Sun Brewing is a for-real, working brewery that also happens to feel a lot like a locals-only pub. Owned by Bob DeWeese and brothers Mark and Steve Wilkerson, with DeWeese and Noah Cowles acting as on-site brewmasters, Ocean Sun offers 10 taps, all of which are brewed in the back of the facility.
With a mission statement that says they “brew for pint holders, not stakeholders,” the vibe at Ocean Sun is friendly and accessible, balancing serious beer-making chops (try their Bumby Blonde and their Mur De Huy Belgian dark ale) with a casual, come-as-you-are atmosphere. While beer snobs can indulge in a tasting flight that spans the gamut of their creations (and take home a growler of any favorite), you don’t have to be a hop hobbyist to enjoy the scene here, as the bar staff is knowledgable and friendly. They even offer a solid wine list.
“We wanted to open a taproom and brewery in a neighborhood area to ensure we created a local brewery feeling,” says Steve Wilkerson. “Our biggest challenge was getting licensing completed on time to ensure we could open on time with only our beer served.”
Now that Ocean Sun is open, they cater to serious beer fans with their Pint Holders Club, a $129 annual membership which entitles members to a 64-ounce growler that can be refilled for free once a month, one free glass of beer per month, a T-shirt, and exclusive access to Ocean Sun events. For the less dedicated beer lovers … just come by and enjoy some freshly popped popcorn, the occasional live concert, or TV sports on the weekend.
A visit to Broken Cauldron in Parramore is the closest you’ll find to a BOGO offer in the world of brewpubs. That’s because it’s the home to two unique breweries – Broken Strings and Black Cauldron – that happen to share the same space. After a lease for a space on Virginia Drive fell through, a mutual friend at Crooked Can Brewing introduced the owners of both breweries since they both wanted to open up in a space near downtown. With an eye toward the future, the brewers set up shop near the corner of Westmoreland Drive and Church Street, smack in the middle of Parramore.
A big fan of Orlando City Soccer Club, Broken Strings co-owner Adam Peyrouse told us that the decision to open in Parramore was made less on cheap rent and more on the location’s proximity to the eventual Orlando City Soccer stadium, slated to open in 2017. Located just a block west of the stadium construction on Church Street, Broken Cauldron hopes to capitalize on soccer fans looking to pre-game, celebrate or commiserate before and after local matches. Black Cauldron even offers an Orlando City-themed beer: Ruckus Red, an American amber ale perfect for 90-minute session drinking while cheering on Orlando’s only successful major sports team (sorry, not sorry, Magic).
The vibe at Broken Cauldron is decidedly laid-back, with a couple of televisions showing games, a Golden Tee machine and a jukebox that doesn’t see too much use. A small patio with welcoming wooden tables sits just out front, which will become an ideal people-watching spot on game days next year.
As far as how well it’s working out sharing their brewing space with another label, Peyrouse says that it’s actually pretty ideal. Every brewer has his or her own favorite styles to brew, and since the palates of the Broken Strings and Black Cauldron masterminds differ, neither brewer has to work too much outside of their preferred styles in order to come up with a diverse menu for the taproom’s 12 handles. Accordingly, their menu offers plenty for drinkers with diverse palates, from Liquid Vinyl, a none-more-black black IPA, to a raspberry saison to a refreshing pineapple-ginger radler.
There are plenty of people betting that the so-called SoFa District (“South of Fairbanks”) is primed to explode over the next few years, and recent signs of growth and diversity support the theory. Hip eateries like Hunger Street Tacos are set to open alongside the ever-popular 4 Rivers and new Lombardi’s Seafood location. And the Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts is doing an excellent job bringing in world-class jazz and classical performers for the culturally minded. But West Fairbanks is not really the kind of neighborhood where you’re likely to find a good drink.
The October opening of Deadly Sins Brewing, just south of the massive 4 Rivers parking lot on Jackson Avenue, was a step in the right direction to fix that problem. Though an equipment shortage prevented Deadly Sins from having much of their own beer on tap during their soft opening phase, they have recently started churning out enough high-quality (and high-ABV) beers to devote the lion’s share of their 12 taps to their own creations.
Nestled into a former industrial space, the taproom retains a bit of that workmanlike atmosphere, with large roll-up doors open to the air during business hours. The bar is long enough to seat several patrons comfortably, which comes in handy on their popular trivia and spoken word nights. Co-owner Tom Adams is a generous barkeep, often bringing in free food for patrons (wings for Monday Night Football, pizza for the World Series) to nosh on while trying different taps. A rotating band of food trucks and carts fills in to provide snacks on other nights.
But the beer is certainly the focus at Deadly Sins. Devoted to providing variety, Deadly Sins offered 11 different styles of their own brew on a recent trip, including a Mango Habanero IPA, a chocolate mint stout, a coconut-infused cream ale and their neighborhood-repping 32789 Pale Ale. They do like to brew them heavy, though: Half of the beers on tap clocked in above 8 percent ABV. Though archaic Winter Park laws about alcohol prevent Deadly Sins from serving past 10 p.m. most nights, you may still need an Uber after a few rounds here.
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This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2016.
