What's on Tap: Florida Craft Beer at 5350

Ask the bartender what’s pouring at 5350 The Pour House and you’ll get more than a beer name — you’ll get a state. A good chunk of the taps and coolers behind our wine and beer menu are Florida craft beer, brewed a few hours up the coast instead of shipped in from somewhere with a bigger marketing budget. We’re a coffee house by morning and a bar by night, and the tap list gets the same attention as the espresso machine. Here’s what’s actually in the lineup on Anna Maria Island right now, and where a few of these breweries call home.

What’s on tap right now

The rotating tap list leans hazy at the moment. Palm City Brewing Co’s Hazify is the one people ask about by name — tropical fruit up front, a soft hop finish, and enough haze that you can’t quite see through the glass. Green Bench Brewing Co’s Skyway Hazy Double IPA sits next to it on tap for anyone who wants the same style with more weight behind it.

If you’d rather skip the haze, Kilkenny Red Ale is the steady option — a smooth, malt-forward Irish red that doesn’t ask you to think too hard about it. And Cigar City Brewing’s Jai Alai IPA, built from six hop varietals at 7.5% ABV, is the beer that put a lot of drinkers onto Florida craft beer in the first place. It’s been on our list long enough that regulars just order “the Jai Alai.”

For something lighter, South Beach Brewing Co’s Strawberry Orange Mimosa splits the difference between a beer and a brunch drink, which makes it an easy call if you’re ordering with breakfast on the patio and don’t feel like committing to a full IPA before noon.

The Florida craft beer behind the taps

Cigar City Brewing, the name behind Jai Alai IPA, is based in Tampa — brewing there since 2009. Head north up the Gulf and you’ll find Green Bench Brewing Company in St. Petersburg, the outfit behind our Skyway Hazy Double IPA. Big Top Brewing Company, which shows up on our bottle and can list with its Circus City IPA and Hawaiian Lion coconut coffee porter, got its start in Sarasota before it opened locations in Gainesville and Pensacola. Fort Myers Brewing Company, maker of the American Wheat we carry, has been brewing down in Fort Myers since 2013 (Wikipedia has the fuller rundown of Florida’s breweries if you want to go down that rabbit hole).

It’s not a coincidence that so much of the list comes from inside the state. A coffee house and bar on Anna Maria Island is close enough to Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota that pouring local beer is just the practical choice, not a marketing angle.

Bottles and cans worth a look

Beyond the taps, the bottle and can list rotates in a few more Florida names: Golden Road Brewing’s Mango Cart Wheat Ale for something sweeter, Green Bench’s Postcard Pilsner if you want crisp and easy, and Wicked Weed’s watermelon dragonfruit sour if you want something tart. None of it is fancy — it’s just a solid, mostly-Florida lineup meant to go with whatever you’re eating, whether that’s a flatbread off the dinner menu or nothing at all. It also changes; a can that’s here this month might be swapped out the next, so what you read here is a snapshot, not a promise.

Next time you’re on Anna Maria Island, stop in anytime between 8am and 10pm and ask what’s freshest on tap — the lineup shifts month to month, and the bartender will always tell you straight rather than just pointing at whatever’s closest to the tap handle.