A Craft Beer Road Trip to Florida

When living in central Pennsylvania where should one go to on a Road Trip during the middle of a US summer? Florida of course – why wouldn’t you leave the late 70’s/early 80’s to travel to somewhere that is humid and in the mid to late 90’s…! Our tip was not based on the weather of course but rather on my wife’s work which included attending a conference in Orlando, but this did seem like an ideal opportunity to take in some breweries and Craft Beer bars along the way.

Roanoke Railhouse Brewery

Our first stop was in the city of Roanoke, Virginia, which started with a visit to Roanoke Railhouse Brewery on the edge of town. The brewery is located within a building that is part of a tire company and after going through the entrance we passed a number of cars including a convertible Ford Mustang.

Whilst at the brewery Steve Davidson, the founder & owner, showed us around the brewery explaining the operation of their 7 barrel system together with the story about how it was founded and the railroad theme of the beers. One unusual feature of the brewery is that the Boil Kettle doubles as a Mash Tun but after mashing the grain is then pumped into a Lauter Tun and then sparged whilst the wort is pumped back into the Boil Kettle. Additionally the system includes a Whirlpool, Hot Liquor Tank and filters/chillers.

During our visit we sampled and drank the following beers:

• Track 1 Amber Lager (Munich Dunkel style) – 4.5%
• Caboose Imperial Lager (Helles Bock style) – 8.5%*
• Railhouse IPA – 82 IBU, 7.0%

* denotes our favorite(s) from the above beers.

The Caboose obtains its caramel flavor by heating the first runnings in the boil kettle. The Railhouse IPA is hopped 5 times: bittering, flavor, aroma then whirlpool and dry hopping. Track 1 can be purchased in cans as the brewery uses a mobile canner.

Beamer’s 25

Following our brewery visit we headed to Downtown Roanoke and called in Beamer’s 25 craft beer bar for some sampling and a bite to eat. This bar has a great selection of Craft Beers and below are our samplers.

Sampler #1 (photos are left to right to match the top-down list):

• Roanoke Railhouse Switch Monkey belgian unfiltered ale – 38 IBU, 5.5%
• Parkway Brewing Ravens Roost baltic porter – 20 IBU, 7.1%
• Bull & Bones Maroon Effect brown ale – 20 IBU, 5.3%*
• Devil’s Backbone Vienna Lager – 20 IBU, 4.9%
• North Coast Old #38 Irish Dry stout – 53 IBU, 5.4%*
• Wild Wolf Blonde Hunny belgian blonde ale – 21 IBU, 6.8%

Sampler #2:

• Brother Thelonius belgian abbey ale – 32 IBU, 9.4%
• Bell’s Oberon belgian wheat ale – 18 IBU, 5.8%*
• Flying Dog Raging Bitch belgian style IPA – 60 IBU, 8.3%
• New Belgium Fat Tire american amber ale – 5.2%*

* denotes our favorite(s) from the above sampler.

Blue 5 Restaurant

Next we visited Blue 5 Restaurant which is also in Downtown Roanoke, the bar was very busy and had live music playing. First of all we enjoyed the following beers:

• Star Hill The Love hefeweizen – 4.6%
• Allagash Black belgian strong dark – 7.5%*

After the above we enjoyed a sampler (photos are left to right to match the top-down list):

• Schneider Aventinus weizen bock – 8.2%
• Allagash Curieux bourbon barrel aged tripel – 11.0%*
• Young’s Double Chocolate Stout – 5.2%
• Moa Imperial Stout – 10.2%

* denotes our favorite(s) from the above sampler.

It is worth noting that Allagash Curieux is one of the best beers we have enjoyed since Westvleteren 12 – a truly delicious beer!

Asheville visit

After leaving Roanoke we made our way to Asheville in North Carolina, please see the following articles about this leg of our Road Trip:

• Day 1
• Day 2

Molly MacPherson’s Scottish Pubs & Grill

As an overnight stop we stayed at Richmond Hill in Georgia and called in Molly MacPherson’s for something to eat and to enjoy the following beers:

• Belhaven Scottish Ale on Nitro – 3.9%
• Orkney Brewery Skull Splitter scotch ale – 8.5%
• Corsendonk Pater Dubbel Ale – 7.5%

Cigar City Brewing

One brewery we have heard a lot about within the US Craft Beer scene is Cigar City Brewing so prior to reaching our end point of Orlando we included a slight detour via Tampa in order to enjoy some samplers (photos are left to right to match the top-down list).

Sampler #1:

• Hotter Than Helles Lager – 5.0%
• Pre Prohibition Pilsner – 7.0%
• Nitro – 5.0%
• Florida Cracker white ale – 5.0%*

Sampler #2:

• Good Gourd Imperial Pumpkin Ale – 35 IBU, 8.5%*
• Marshal Zhukov’s Imperial Stout – 80 IBU, 11.0%
• Oktoberfest Marzen – 5.5%
• Jose Marti American Porter – 65 IBU, 8.0%

Sampler #3:

• Maduro Brown Ale – 25 IBU, 5.5%
• Blackberry White Ale – 5.0%
• Chocolate Vanilla Brown Ale – 5.5%*
• Ben Romanos IPL – 5.9%

* denotes our favorite(s) from the above samplers.

Big River Brewing

We reached our destination of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and 5 minutes walk from our hotel was the Boardwalk area which is where the brewpub Big River Brewing is located. We visited this location, which was busy with tourists coming back from the various theme parks, and selected the following sampler:

• Southern Flyer Light Lager – 12 IBU, 3.6%
• Gadzooks Pilsner – 32 IBU, 5.0%
• Steamboat Pale Ale – 36 IBU, 5.5%
• Red Rocket Ale – 46 IBU, 5.6%
• Summer Wheat hefeweizen – 8 IBU, 4.3%*
• IPA
• Summer Honey Ale

* denotes our favorite(s) from the above sampler.