Surveying The Tampa Brewing Scene

There is clear evidence that brewing of ale dates back 7,000 years in ancient Egypt, China, Mesopotamia and Sumeria. In Neolithic Europe, most of the beer production was done in the home. By 700 AD, European monks got a piece of the action. Today, beer is produced on an industrial scale, with more than 130 billion liters being sold to contribute approximately 300 billion to the global economy. The Tampa brewing industry has joined the beer fraternity, making its own contribution to the local economy. The St Petersburg/Tampa area has a lively trade in brewpubs, breweries, shops, festivals and other special events.

It wasn't that long ago that American beers were uniformly bland, distinguishable only by their advertising campaigns. The past ten or twenty years has seen a phenomenal explosion in the craft ale industry. This has been partly inspired by the British, who have a long-standing tradition of producing cask ale.

Britain distinguishes two fundamentally different approaches to brewing. One is cask-conditioning and the other is brewery-conditioned or keg beer. Cask ale is a living product, with the yeast continuing to ferment sugars derived from the main ingredient, malted barley, into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This gives the beer a natural, gentle fizziness. Cask ale is served from either firkins, which hold nine gallons of liquid, or kildekins, which hold 18 gallons.

Keg beer, on the other hand, is pasteurized. This kills the yeast, so the effervescence the drinker craves has to be artificially induced by the introduction of carbon dioxide under pressure. But, the lack of pasteurization makes the product somewhat vulnerable to bacterial or fungal contamination. It also loses its conditioning at temperatures above 54 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit. This means that in order to be financially viable, turnover needs to be high enough to empty a cask within a few days.

In the 1960s, trouble began brewing for the British beer drinker. Having cottoned on to the fact that by killing the yeast (pasteurization) and stuffing the beer artificially with carbon dioxide, they could produce something that at least looked like beer. It was cheap and easy to produce and required a lot less commitment and attention from the cellar staff of a pub. Keg beer was fast phasing cask ale, the British national drink, out of the pub.

Beer drinkers rebelled and by 1972, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) was formed by four intrepid and angry young men gathered around, of all places, a table in a pub. The campaign now boasts nearly 150,000 members and is widely regarded as the largest and most influential consumer organizations in Europe.

Forty years after the founding of CAMRA, beer is rapidly becoming the saving grace of the endangered British pub. The market in cask beer has grown from strength to strength, with new breweries springing up in London practically every month. Like many other wonderful imports from the British, the wave of fine brewing has flowed across the Atlantic to spawn a growing craft ale industry in America.

Tampa brewing is a fine example of the growth of craft beer. One of the oldest breweries in the country is stationed here. There are plenty of tours and tasting rooms to keep the discerning beer-lover happy any day of the week.

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