Craft beers are popular, and a weekend event featuring them even helped a Winter Garden dog rescue, whose patrons include Maverick, below, a Jack Russell terrier.
CRAFT BREWING MORE THAN JUST PET PROJECT NOW
Surrounded by dogs, Rachel White, Spencer Molenda and Haven Richter sat with empty pint glasses in Orlando Brewing’s downtown taproom.
Their second brewery of the day, they checked off another stop on the Central Florida Ale Trail — a treasure map of sorts for Central Florida’s blossoming beer culture.
Orlando Brewing, a popular stop for craft brews in the SODO area, wrapped up its American Craft Beer Week celebration Sunday with Ales for Tails, which raised money for Polka Dogz Pet Rescue in Winter Garden.
“We’re really big into craft beer … when the ale trail came out, we began branching out,” said White, 22, who brought one of her puppies, named Khaki, with her. “This is my favorite week of the year.”
American Craft Beer Week is a national movement to celebrate small, independent breweries cropping up both across the nation and in Central Florida.
The Orlando area has mirrored national trends, which show a dramatic spike in brewery openings over the past few years. The Brewers Association, a national group that tracks beer statistics and consumption, says more than 5,300 small and independent breweries are now operational.
In 2012, just 2,475 breweries were in existence.
Bart Watson, the association’s chief economist, said there are 7,700 federal permits issued for breweries, “suggesting thousands more breweries are in planning.”
“The southeast has come on tremendously,” said Andy Sparhawk, who has worked with the association for nine years. “Ten, 15, 20 years ago, the outlook for beer of variety and flavor and diversity was not something that experts expected.”
Locally, many of Central Florida’s municipalities have seen this growth firsthand.
Crooked Can Brewing Company opened in Winter Garden in 2015 and is a key business to the city’s Plant Street Market downtown.
Other popular stops for Central Florida beer aficionados include Ten10 Brewing in
the Mills-50 district, Broken Cauldron in Parramore and Deadly Sins Brewing in Winter Park.
Orange County Brewers plans to open its brewpub at the former Fiat dealership at Orange Avenue and Jefferson Street in late June, a spokeswoman said.
“We've seen demand increases for fuller-flavored beers, more variety, and for local products from small and independent producers,” Watson said. “These shifts aren't unique to beer — and we've seen other artisanal products gain share with similar small and local trends, but beer's shift has been especially dramatic.”
Heidi Hardman, the president of Polka Dogz, said the partnership with Orlando Brewing was a positive experience. A new craftbeer drinker, she said she enjoyed the light, crisp pineapple-flavored concoction she sipped Sunday afternoon.
Nearby, some her rescue dogs frolicked with patrons, who brought pups of their own. She said Orlando Brewing’s patrons were happy to see the small dogs and were generous with their donations, which go toward medical treatments for the Winter Garden-based rescue.
Maverick, a 2-year-old Jack Russell terrier, scurried around in a wheelchair he uses to compensate for paralysis.
“I think it’s such a cool trend,” Hardman said of craft beer. “It really brings neighborhoods together.”
Molenda, seated with his friends in a corner of the taproom, said he figures millennials are a driving force behind the burgeoning industry.
“Millenials are starting to turn 21,” he said. “It’s a cultural change that happened a long time ago….we’re just catching up now.”