Brews With Attitude

We had an awesome time at Brews with Attitude 2016 sampling local Tampa breweries, Florida breweries, and out of state breweries with Unilocal Elites Emah, Amy, Stacy, Malary, Jamie, and Crystal! Brews with Attitude was held at T Pepin’s Hospitality Centre which is a great venue with tons of parking, a large indoor hall with plenty of breweries, and tons of more breweries setup outside. By the time we got to Brews with Attitude, the parking lot was full and we had to park in the grass outside the fence. I commend the event organizers for having people directing traffic so no one would waste time looking for parking in the lot when it was full! Otherwise, parking might have been quite frustrating. The breweries were well spread out so there was no confusion of which line you were in. Most breweries did not have any lines except for a small handful of the more popular ones. Even with the breweries that had lines, the wait to be served was less than 5 minutes. There was a band playing some pretty good old classic country songs including some by Johnny Cash. With the ability to sample over 100 craft beers with the official Brews With Attitude tasting cup and listen to live music for 4 hours 6PM-​10PM, the $ 35 tickets are a great value in comparison to other festivals that cost double the price! The only thing I would improve about this event for next year would be changing the day of the event from a Tuesday to a Saturday.
Brews with Attitude 2016 provided a great opportunity to sample some Florida breweries that aren’t in the Tampa Bay Area including: Darwin (Bradenton), Motorworks (Bradenton), Big Top (Sarasota), Fat Point (Punta Gorda), and Bold City (Jacksonville).
We also got the chance to sample the local Tampa Bay Breweries including: 3 Daughters (St Pete), Big Storm (Clearwater), Black Fox Meadery (Palm Harbor), Coppertail (Ybor), Florida Avenue (Now Brew Bus off MLK), Hidden Springs (Downtown Tampa), Mad Beach (Madeira Beach), Pair O’ Dice (Clearwater), Rapp (Seminole), Shipyard/​Sea Dog (Clearwate), Tampa Bay Brewing (Ybor), Wine Stream (Wine in Kegs), Saint Somewhere (Tarpon Springs)
Out of State Participating Breweries included: Blue Point (NY), Goose Island (Chicago), Green Flash (San Diego, CA), Kona (HI), Magic Hat (VT), Omission (OR), Redhook (NH), Rochester Mills (MI), Shock Top (CO), Southern Tier (NY), Stella (Belgium), SweetWater (GA), Victory (PA), Widmer (OR), Wild Ginger (TN), Woodchuck (VT), 10 Barrel (OR), and Elysian (WA).

Phenomenal beer fest! Been to many of them here in the Tampa Bay but this one was nicely done! Great job Pepin! Everything was very organized and neatly done. Loved how it was both inside and outside, wasn’t too hot outside so being able to go in and out was great. Loved the selection of both local and nationwide breweries. I also enjoyed the genius beer glasses/​necklaces!

I had an awesome time at Brews With Attitude. There were so many booths that I couldn’t pick a favorite. It was humid out and eventually downpoured but we had a lot of fun anyway. We were there early, so we made our rounds and picked the best spots first. Later on I realized that there were booths inside, but we decided to save those for when the weather got bad.
It was nice that they had the Lightning game on both inside and outside, even though it was raining. We got hungry about halfway though so we ordered a bbq burrito from the Just Smokin food truck. It was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. By the time we had our food, the rain had stopped so we sat outside with our beers and watched the game.
There were so many booths that it was hard to distinguish between them at times. The event menu was helpful for taking notes though. A few of my favorite breweries were Pair O Dice, Hidden Springs, Kona, Motorworks, and Mad Beach. Pepin did a really good job on this event. I just wish I didn’t have to wait a whole year to go again.

Awesome Event! The most amazing part of it besides the beer of course… A/​C!!! I heard that last year this event was outside. Oh no no no no! Who the hell wants to be outside sweating, wiping sweat off your forehead constantly, running into other sweaty people while trying to enjoy your favorite beers? Not I my friend, not I! It was in the 90’s too so there was no way in hell I would have gone if it were outside. Plus, it rained like 2 times so I would have been pretty pissed.
I must say everything ran very smoothly. It was a very well organized event from the check In. I loved the little lanyard sample cup holders. That alone kept the whole event very clean. No plastic cups everywhere on the floor, etc. We all know that a lot of people for some reason don’t know how to use the garbage cans. Plus, it’s a nice little souvenir .
Lines at the stands moved pretty quickly with no problems. My favorite standout beer of the night was Rapp Peanut Butter Stout of course, but they had some competition because Big Top Deckins Indulgence, a peanut butter brown ale… was just as same level A-​M-​A-​Z-​I-​N-​G ! I could not get enough of those two!
I also liked Darwin Charapa Spiced Porter
Southern Tier Oat
Goose Island Muddy
Pair O Dice Lowball Session IPA
I loved this event! I had a great time sampling a lot of out of area beers that I never knew existed. Met some new people, ran into some Unilocalers which is always nice. I would have liked to sample some of the food trucks, but I was too busy drinking & socializing and ran out of time. :-) thank U Stacy, winner of Brews with Attitude tickets for inviting me! Thank u Pepin Team for putting on such a great event in the A/​C! Oh, and the complimentary bottled waters! I needed those!

Brews with Attitude was such a fun event!
I didn’t read any reviews from last year’s festival, so I was surprised to see that everything was outside! Thankfully we discovered there were booths inside as well, because the weather did not cooperate for the second half of the night. The Pepin team always does a great job with their events and this one did not disappoint.
We received mini glasses on lanyards to test the beers from dozens of booths. I love ciders and there were plenty of options. Some of my favorites were Wild Cider’s berry flavor and the combinations from the Cider Mixology booth. It seemed like Mad Beach was the most popular table; their line was always the longest! I have to admit that they had the most interesting flavors, plenty of ciders, and even two types of sangria available. For someone as picky as myself, I was really shocked that I was able to find something I liked at nearly every booth.
We were also able to watch the Lightning v. Canadiens playoff game on a huge screen outside, and later inside on multiple televisions, which was nice since is was a prerequisite to my boyfriend agreeing to go. TPepin was offering tours of the facility, but we missed the earliest group and after that the game was on. Sampling so many delicious beers and ciders made us hungry, so we scoped out the four food trucks to find something to eat. There were sandwiches and burgers, but we opted for Just Smokin’ BBQ. SO GOOD! We actually ended up there twice!
I thought it was great that water bottles were made available throughout the evening and were passed out as everyone was exiting. It was awesome to be able to try out so many different breweries that I haven’t had a chance to travel to yet. I am so glad that this festival made it on our radar, because we will absolutely be returning next year!

Brews with Attitude is now officially my favorite festival in Tampa! TPepin did an amazing job in 2015 and fixed the issues from last year. They eliminated VIP, so everyone was allowed inside in the air-​conditioning. This really came in handy when it poured in the middle of the event. They also had FREE water bottles for the entire event.
Here is the basic gist: You receive a lanyard with a loop that holds a small beer cup. You then take your beer cup to whichever vendor you want and try one of over 100 beers. Down it and repeat as often as you want in 4 hours. It is a great way to try a lot of craft beer and ciders. They also had a specialty beer truck and even a cider mixology tent this year (mixtures of ciders and beers).
They also accomodate the local sports scene if necessary. We had the Lightning game on dozens of tv’s and large screens inside AND out. Despite the rain, we had one of the best nights we have had in awhile.
Major Props to TPepin. See you at Brews with Attitude 2016!

Extremely well done! Great beer! Fantastic food, clean accommodations and restrooms! Cannot beat it! Great job, Pepin!

Those Pepin guys. the ones who want to play middlemen between the consumer and craft breweries by forcing distribution are the guys who hosted this event. I had a good time, liked the beer lanyard caddies which I have used at other beer events, and enjoyed the food trucks. Beer politics aside I thought it was weird that they allowed patrons only on their hot asphalt parking area while the air conditioned spacious indoor area remained unused and off limits. I had a lot of beer fun and thats where I’ll end it for now.

Great event. Although it’s outdoors, the weather is nice and the lines are flowing like the beer from the taps. The food truck selection is limited, but we are here to drink, not eat. Last year, I attended the beer fest in Jacksonville and it was probably 3 times as large with a few thousand beers to choose from, so I was a little bit shocked when I saw how tiny this event was. It’s possible that these are only craft beer that are distributed by Peppin? Not sure, but I’m not complaining. I loved the intimacy of this even as opposed to the one in Jax.
My only suggestion is for the indoors/​air-​conditioned area to be used as well. All that wonderful space sat blocked and unused.
The facility is nice and all the staff is great! Next up, Coppertail brewery from Ybor.