Cigar City Brewing

Cigar City Brewing, LLC is a craft brewery in Tampa, Florida, at 3924 West Spruce Street. Founded in 2007 by Joey Redner, it has been producing beer in Tampa since January 30, 2009. It currently produces approximately 60,000 bbls of beer annually. Since 2009, it has brewed over 1,000 individual brands of beer.

History

Tampa native Joey Redner founded Cigar City Brewing in 2007 after holding positions with Dunedin Brewing and a beer writer position with the Tampa Bay Times. He hired Wayne Wambles as his brewmaster in 2008 and the pair brewed the first batch of Cigar City Beer, a batch of Maduro Brown Ale, on January 30, 2009. Additional brands followed, including Jai Alai IPA and Florida Cracker Belgian-style White Ale. Cigar City's Spruce Street brewery as expanded to include a 15 bbl and 30 bbl brewhouse, a packaging hall and a tasting room. The company has grown to produce 60,000 barrels of beer annually with distribution throughout Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New York. Florida currently accounts for over 95% of Cigar City's sales.

Since 2010, Cigar City has released Hunahpu's Imperial Stout every March with a large beer festival to celebrate the release. Each year over 5,000 beer fans attend and brewers from all over the world have poured their beer at the festival. Attending the Hunahpu's Day Festival is the only way to acquire bottles of Hunahpu's Imperial Stout.

Beers

Year-round Availablity

• Jai Alai: India Pale Ale, 7.5% ABV. Named after the fast-paced sport, currently accounts for over 55% of Cigar City's annual production.
• Maduro: English-style Brown Ale, 5.5% ABV. References a maduro wrapper on a cigar.
• Invasion: American Pale Ale, 5.0% ABV. Brewed originally for the Gasparilla Pirate Invasion and became a year-round brand in 2013.
• Florida Cracker: Belgian-style White Ale, 5.5% ABV. Named in honor of the cracker cowboys of Florida.
• Lager: Tampa-style Lager, 4.5% ABV. A German-style leichtbier.

Specialty Beers

• Hunahpu's: Imperial Stout, 12% ABV. Named in honor of a hero in Mayan mythology, the stout is brewed with ancho and pasilla chile peppers, vanilla, cacao and cinnamon.
• Good Gourd: Imperial Pumpkin Ale, 8% ABV: A barrel-aged version was ranked as the Best Pumpkin Beer of 2016 by Paste Magazine^[1]
• Marshal Zhukov's: Imperial Stout, 12% ABV: The base beer for Hunahpu's, named after Soviet general Georgy Zhukov.

Honors

• #9 Top Ranked Beer, Double Barrel-aged Hunahpu's, beeradvocate.com^[2]
• #3 Brewer in the World, 2010, ratebeer.com^[3]

Oskar Blues Partnership

As of March 2016, Cigar City has partnered with Longmont, Colorado based Oskar Blues Brewery to form Oskar Blues Holding Company which includes Oskar Blues, Cigar City, Perrin Brewing and the Utah Brewers Cooperative outfit that includes the Wasatch and Squatters brands.^[4][5]

References