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Orlando

Discuss beer travel and regional information, including the best bars and places to check out around in Canada and around the world, and other chat that is not specific to Ontario.

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Ralphus
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Orlando

Post by Ralphus »

I'm going to Orlando a for a few days for a conference in May. Anyone know of some decent places to drink or buy beer? I'll be close to the conference center on universal but willing to cab.

Also, in the off-chance that someone reading this is going to EMC world, let me know.

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northyorksammy
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Post by northyorksammy »

knightly spirits

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JerCraigs
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Post by JerCraigs »

Check the places section on Ratebeer. I think that there a good number of Orlando folks on Ratebeer if you were looking to get some local tips.

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Derek
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Post by Derek »

Knightly Spirits is a good bottle store. I took a cab to the original one that's WAY north of where you're staying. I did this to go to the "Florida Tap House". Unfortunately the tap house has 2 locations and it was the other one that was featured on their website. The one I went to was more of a sports bar in a mini-mall and didn't have food (though they had pizza menus so you could order in). It was weird. They had half a dozen craft brews on tap, but it was a little too smoky to really enjoy them.

It was a couple of years ago that I was on Universal, but the only good place was Tu Tu Tango. Really cool atmosphere (with artists & performers) and some great brews for this wasteland.

Cagiva650
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Post by Cagiva650 »

I just returned from a week in Florida. I visited a few good beer spots in the Orlando area. As mentioned above, Knightly Spirits on South Orange Blossom Trail is THE best bottle shop I have ever been too. Great selection of American micros. But there are also some Nogne O, Mikkeller, Baladin (Italy) loads of Belgians. The Shipyard Emporium in Winter Park is a nice pub with all of the Shipyard beers from Portland Maine. They also have a lot of other micros on tap. Florida's Saint Somewhere and Cigar City had taps.
The Shipyard has a good selection of six packs of Maine and Florida beers.
If you like German beer, Hollerbach's Willow Tree Cafe in Sanford has what you are looking for. They have about ten German beers on tap and about another thirty in bottles. I enjoyed my German sausages with an Adventinus :) Disney's Boardwalk has its own brewpub. The Big River Grille & Brewing Works. I had a sampler tray of the beer. Not much to get excited about. But On the way out I spotted a cask behind the bar labelled 'Cask Conditioned Orange Peel Pale Ale' . The bartender told me it wasn't working properly so I couldn't try it. :(
There are some good beer spots in Orlando. Even the Publix supermarket had a decent selection of American mircros.

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Ralphus
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Post by Ralphus »

It was a couple of years ago that I was on Universal, but the only good place was Tu Tu Tango. Really cool atmosphere (with artists & performers) and some great brews for this wasteland.
Agreed.. Tu Tu tango was great. I ate and drank there a number of times and was impressed with the food, beer and atmosphere each trip. The Whole Foods Market not far from Universal has a v. good bottle selection for a super market.
drinkvine.com - a better way to find your beer and wine.

matt7215
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Post by matt7215 »

im gonna be in orlando for a week may 5th - 12th

bottles from Knightly Spirits and a night at Redlight Redlight are planned

probably gonna do a session at Oblivion Taproom as well

im pretty excited

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grub
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Post by grub »

hit knightly last summer. great spot. think it was $8/six for CCB stuff - cold from the fridge and ready to drink. only problem i had on that trip was NOT bringing a spare bottle shipper and figuring i could pick one up. had no luck anywhere i called/visited, so i went home empty handed aside from a couple bottles in the baggage.

kafercrazy
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Post by kafercrazy »

We're heading down to Fla. in a couple weeks. I might only be able to hit one place for beers ... I'll be in Tampa, should I hit Cigar City OR stick with Knightly Spirits when I'm in Orlando?

Cagiva650
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Post by Cagiva650 »

kafercrazy wrote:We're heading down to Fla. in a couple weeks. I might only be able to hit one place for beers ... I'll be in Tampa, should I hit Cigar City OR stick with Knightly Spirits when I'm in Orlando?
Most of the regular Cigar City beers are available at Knightly Spirits. The Cigar City Taproom has one-offs and sometimes a cask ale. So it depends on what you want. If you want bottles to take home I would hit up Knightly Spirits (or Total Wines). If you want to drink some great beer Cigar City is the place. I really enjoyed Florida. Dogfish Head 60 Minute is in Walmart for goodness sake! :D

rejtable
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Post by rejtable »

I'll be touching down in Orlando this coming Friday!

kafercrazy
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Post by kafercrazy »

Cagiva650 wrote: Dogfish Head 60 Minute is in Walmart for goodness sake! :D
cool!

Knightly Spirits is forwarding me their inventory list so I can plan accordingly!

rejtable
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Post by rejtable »

Stopped at Orange Blossom on the way from the airport to my rental house. Neat little store. Not as well stocked as some of the better places I,ve been like Winooski, Premier or Beers of the World in Rochester, but still a pretty decent spot.

Off memory, I picked up:

DFH India Brown
DFH Festina Peche
Great Divide Collette
Great Divide Fresh Hop
Cigar City Guava Saison
CC Jai Alai
CC Red
Victory Summer Ale
Evil Twin Biscotti
Hoppin Frog 3XIPA
Bell's Two Hearted
Ommegang Scythe and Sickle
Great Divide Hercules

There were tons of other big beers that I didn't take as I had already tried, and I barely looked through the non-US stuff.

I got sick while I was there, so I didn't get to any beer spots beyond a pretty decent meal one night at one of the Orlando Ale House locations. I did a side trip and stopped in at Cigar City. Their new tasting area is huge, what a great spot. I had dinner just around the corner from CC at a place called "Brick Works" or something like that? Place was all guys as it was pretty much half-naked waitresses and such. Meal wasn't very good, beer list was only ok.

Kids had a great time and if not for being unable to eat for about half the trip I would have had a much better beer-cation, but oh well.

Thanks for the inventory!

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SteelbackGuy
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Post by SteelbackGuy »

I recently returned from a trip to Florida, and we made a few stops which may or may not have involved beer.

I had to make excellent use of my time, so I needed to go to places fairly close to where we were staying, as the itinerary was pretty hectic.

Orlando World of Beer- Dr. Phillips- Certainly an excellent stop if you are in the area. They have over 500 beers to choose from between taps and bottle. Mostly American Micros, but a lot of imports too.
Draught seemed pricey, a lot were $7.00 or so, but this is central Orlando and a heavy tourist area. I had one main gripe and that is that when our waitress brought us change (we did not have a tab, we paid per beer instead), she rounded down the change....so the one bottle I had came to $7.28 or something like that......., and I gave her a $10.00, I was owed 2 dollars and some change, well she did not bring the change, just the two bucks. This happened again on my next beer.......suffice to say she did not get a tip!!!!!!
The thing is, she was so friendly, helpful and knowledgeable, that I wasn`t too angered.

They also have a cigar smoking section which I like the idea of. Even though I have a Lung Disease and cannot smoke, I still love cigars!
If you`re reading this, there`s a 15% chance you`ve got a significant drinking problem. Get it fixed, get recovered!

uno99
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Post by uno99 »

Returned from Orlando and I didn't do alot of beer hunting, but I made a couple stops:

Redlight Redlight - highly reccomend on BeerAdvocate. The selection is VERY good, but the prices are INCREDIBLY high compared to what you find even in downtown toronto. I went though the whole bottle list comparing prices to Beerbistro, and easily prices were 2 - 2.5 times higher!

They did have a few "reasonable" priced finds however. I got a 2005 barrel Aged JW Lees for about $17.00 - Yes it was the 250ml nip sized bottle!

Player 1 - I highly recommend this place!! It's a full retro arcade where every machine is open play (no money needed), and the beer list is great and reasonably priced. They also have console video games at the bar (NES, Xbox one, Playstation 4 etc).

http://player1orlando.com/
@Wongafootball

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