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In today’s Calendar, we tell you how to tackle the Central Florida Ale Trail, an association of local breweries that spans three counties. Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford star in “Blade Runner 2049,” a sequel 35 years in the making. Find out if you should make it part of your weekend. Plus, see movie listings, what’s going on around town and more.
Dispatches from our Central Florida Ale Trail correspondents.
Trevor: The Central Florida Ale Trail: It’s a harrowing 2,000-mile hike through rough wilderness, riddled with typhoid and … wait, that’s the Oregon Trail. The Ale Trail is an association of 17 breweries (and counting) running from DeLand to Orlando and out to Winter Garden. It’s a remarkable showcase of local beverage creativity, but the sheer number of beers this represents can be daunting. You need to come prepared with a map, a strong stomach, fur blankets, two spare wagon wheels … I’m getting my trails confused again.
Think of the Ale Trail as a treasure hunt. Use an official map (available at participating breweries) as a guide. Collect stamps from each place along the way and win a prize (more about that later). And it helps to have a partner. So I snagged trusty ol’ (well, almost 30) Lauren to hit the road with me and taste what Central Florida has to offer.
Lauren: Excuse me, I’m 28. Give me back those two years. I need them to complete this Ale Trail.
Kidding! We managed to complete the Ale Trail within 6 weeks, thanks to a plan of attack created by yours truly. We snagged beer flights for $7-$12 each at the breweries. The secret to completing the Ale Trail and receiving the holy grail (a free growler): Group your breweries. It’s silly to visit Ten10 Brewing in Orlando’s Mills 50 neighborhood without heading down the road to Redlight Redlight in nearby Audubon Park.
Of course, that brings up this word of caution. Any time you’re drinking, whether it’s at one brewery or four, make sure
you have a safe ride home via a designated driver, Uber, Lyft, public transportation or your trusty oxen.
Audubon 50
One of our shorter excursions was to Audubon 50, our new nickname for the Audubon Park and Mills 50 neighborhoods. It includes Redlight Redlight (2810 Corrine Drive, Orlando, 407-893-9832, red light red light beer parlour.com) and Ten10
Brewing Co. (1010 Virginia Drive, Orlando, 407-930-8993, ten10 brewingcompany.com).
Lauren: Most of the beers on Redlight Redlight’s menu come from other breweries. At least one of its own creations, mostly sour or wild beer, is available at a time. On our visit, we liked an avocado saison named after a Maiyan Legend (The Farmer, the Farmer’s Wife and the Tapir).
Ten10 Brewing offers sandwiches, snacks, wraps and more to wash down your beers. The Havacow was an easy-drinking milk stout that was a good balance of sweet and bitter (like a cup of coffee with cream in it).
Trevor: What Redlight lacks in original brew selections, it makes up for in ceiling height. It’s an old air-conditioner dealership, which is definitely a unique location for a bar, but the wide-openness makes for a good Audubon Park gathering spot.
All bars should learn from Ten10’s example of having food on hand. And the brewery itself is the kind of place that gets to know its regular customers, some even have beers named for them. Hard to beat that dedication.
Casselwoods
The smaller portion of our map’s northeast corner includes Casselberry, Longwood and Winter Springs, hence “Casselwoods.” The stops include Bowigens
Beer Co. (1014 State Road436, Casselberry, 407-960-7816, bowigens.com); Hourglass
Brewing (480 S. Ronald Reagan Blvd., Longwood, 407-262-0056, hourglass brewing.com); and Red
Cypress Brewery (855 E. State Road 434, Winter Springs, 407-542-0341, redcypressbrewery.com).
Trevor: All located at strip malls, each of these watering holes has a certain charm. Bowigens is an intimate spot for close conversation. Red Cypress has regular food truck and trivia nights and a friendly atmosphere that brings the locals back. It only barely falls victim to one of my bigger pet peeves about breweries: It’s cavernous.
Hourglass, which features my favorite selection of sour beers on the trail, is a full-blown hub. Enjoy comedy, trivia, art shows, a wall of classic toys and figurines, and food from the neighboring restaurants. This spot looks to keep you entertained every night of the week.
Lauren: Bowigens had the smaller lineup of brews in this portion, but the drinks on tap were of a higher echelon. By chance, this is where we ended our Ale Trail. Both of us filled our free growlers with “I'm A Peacock, You Gotta Let Me Fly!” — a malty Bière de Garde that reminded us of a sour.
Red Cypress’ beers skewed toward the pale ales. Although Trevor and I tend to shy away from this hoppy beer style, the peach Pale Ale Summer Nights was an easy favorite (who can be mad at peach?).
Hourglass is just a fun stop for some (literally) funky beers. I’m still trying to identify the cheese flavor we found in “Wuk Up,” a sour wheat beer.
Downtownish
Although not properly downtown Orlando, we decided to combine the breweries in the southern part of the map into Downtownish. They include
Broken Cauldron (1012 W. Church St., Orlando, 407-986-1012, broken cauldrontaproom.com);
Ocean Sun Brewing (3030 Curry Ford Road, Orlando, 407-745-5551, oceansun brewing.com); and Orlando Brewing (1301 Atlanta Ave., Orlando, 407-872-1117, orlando brewing.com).
Orange County Brewers opened during our brewery hop, so we missed out on it. Add it to this portion of the Trail (131 N. Orange Ave., Orlando, 407-914-2831, theocbrewers.com).
Lauren: Broken Cauldron technically houses two breweries in one — self-described as the more malt-forward Black Cauldron and more hop-forward Broken Strings. Between the two, customers can taste from a fairly diverse menu of beer styles and flavors.
Be ready to pore over Orlando Brewing’s hefty organic-only beer selection.
Finicky beer drinkers (Read: those particular to a certain taste or type) will do well in Ocean Sun. The Belgian Tripel was … complicated: fruity, yet spicy.
Trevor: If you want to understand exactly how different vibes can be, this is a great selection of diversity. Ocean Sun, for example, is where you take your family for a game of Jenga. Seriously, there were several families with children and dogs. Broken Cauldron, on the other hand, has exactly one too many light bulbs to be as dark as it feels. That’s not a bad thing. It’s not a dive. It’s just made for more cozy conversation.
Orlando Brewing is for events. Oh, you could make the drive into the weird warehouse district on an average Tuesday and share a pint and then drive home as many do. But Orlando Brewing has great bands on the weekends, pairings and art shows and yoga. It really calls out for planned entertainment.
North End
Dedicate a day to visiting these four breweries in the map’s larger northeastern section: Central 28 Beer
Co. (290 Springview Commerce Drive No. 1, DeBary, 386-668-2811, central28 beer.com); Persimmon Hollow Brewing (111 W. Georgia Ave., DeLand, 386-873-7350, persimmon hollowbrewing .com);
Sanford Brewing (400 Sanford Ave., Sanford, 407-732-6419, sanford brewing.com); and Wop’s Hops Brewing Company and Kitchen (419 Sanford Ave., Sanford, 407-878-7819, wopshopsbrewing.com). Trevor: Sanford has turned into such a good drinking town, having two breweries within two blocks of each other doesn’t seem odd at all. For distinction, Sanford Brewing is where you go when you want a straightforward selection and a straightforward atmosphere; Wop’s is where you go when you want to guess how your beer is going to taste and you want to eat a meatball on a stick they call a Wopsicle.
Getting to Central 28 takes me right back to my Oregon Trail metaphor. This is light-years from anything anyone would call a drag, much less a main drag. But right before the loneliness becomes crushing, you find a delightful, no-frills taproom that could accommodate most of the cast of Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat.”
Ignoring an argument between Lauren and me on the appropriateness of having an open garage door for an entrance, Persimmon Hollow is a party. Watch sports, play arcade games, pet a dog and join the mug club to get your name inscribed on a glass.
Lauren: Get ready to snack your way through the two Sanford breweries. Sanford Brewing offers a quirky menu of pub grub (burgers, pretzels, etc), and Wops Hops is puro Italiano.
Chances are, you have found a Central 28 brew at local liquor stores or restaurants. Make sure you try 28’s more seasonal beers in-house.
Persimmon Hollow was one of the few places we went beyond the usual four glass tasting flight. The limited-release beers were enticing — particularly a peach wheat.
Garage doors are great entrances, by the way. You can waltz in with a large group. Or if you’re klutzy like me, the chances of hitting a door frame are low.
Western Front
Head west, my friend, to Crooked Can Brewing
Co. (426 W. Plant St., Winter Garden, 407-395-9520, crookedcan.com) and Dead
Lizard Brewing Co. (4507 SW 36th St., Orlando, 407-777-3060, deadlizard brewingcompany.com).
Trevor: Second only to DeBary’s Central 28 in remote location, Dead Lizard requires that you drive through a desolate office park. Once there, you’ll find games and playthings for children while the grown-ups enjoy a pint.
Crooked Can is the exact opposite in terms of surrounding activity. Not only is this popular brewery in the heart of downtown Winter Garden, but it’s inside an open food hall. The place is constantly bustling, which is good, because you will need people to notice when these delicious beers drop you from your stool.
Lauren: Dead Lizard’s modest taproom is mirrored by its modest tap list, but the microbrewery isn’t afraid of flavor. The Key Lime Chameleon Cream Ale was velvety smooth with a very subtle tart bite at the end.
Crooked Can is becoming Central Florida beer royalty, and for good reason. Break out of your beer comfort zone here. You may find a new favorite.
Winter Park
These breweries are within about a 2-mile radius in Winter Park: The
Bear and Peacock (1288 N. Orange Ave., Suite 1A, Winter Park, 407-801-2714);
Cask & Larder, (inside The Ravenous Pig, 565 W Fairbanks Ave, Winter Park, 407-628-2333, caskandlarder.com); and
Deadly Sins Brewing (750 Jackson Ave., No. 102, Winter Park, 407-900-8726, deadlysinsbrewing.com).
Lauren: The Bear and Peacock’s compact drink list doesn’t skimp on creativity, particularly in the names. Fresh from watching an episode of “Game of Thrones,” we sipped on (The) Red Wedding, a coffee red ale that was heavy on the caffeine. The brewery also has snacks for sale as well.
Cask & Larder has perfected its main brews, including the light Lone Palm Golden Ale. Save room for some upscale bar food.
I don’t know if the brews are sinful at Deadly Sins, but the “If I Had a Nickel Imperial Brown” was earthy with cocoa, vanilla and molasses flavoring the beer.
Trevor: This is the date- night section. Meet for a drink at Bear and Peacock where an original brew will spark your appetite for adventure. Head over to The Ravenous Pig, home of Cask & Larder (not the airport location), and enjoy a well-crafted dinner with a well-crafted beer, suggesting long-term stability. End at Deadly Sins for something with a 7-plus percent alcohol content so you have an excuse to knock off the small talk.
Happy trails. ldelgado@orlandosentinel.com; tfraser@orlandosentinel.com