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February 6, 2017: COPPERTAIL BREWING, TAMPA, BEGINS DISTRIBUTION IN JACKSONVILLE, NORTH FLORIDA MARKETS

Tampa, FL:  Jacksonville and North Florida craft beer fans will be able to sip beer from another Florida brewery, as Tampa’s Coppertail Brewing enters the local distribution market. Distributed by Champion Brands, Coppertail’s beers will be available throughout Jax beginning with introductory spotlight events this week. Coppertail Brewing announced the Official launch events today via its social media pages, as follows:

Tuesday, Feb. 7:

Mellow Mushroom (Airport), 6pm; Amelia Tavern (Fernandina Beach), 8pm.

Wednesday, Feb. 8:

Kickbacks Gastropub (Riverside), 5pm; European Street Market (Park St.), 7pm; Mellow Mushroom (Riverside), 8pm.

Thursday, Feb. 9:

Intuition Ale Works (Downtown), 3pm; Mellow Mushroom (Jax Beach), 6pm; Mellow Mushroom (Southside), 8pm.

Friday, Feb. 10:

Prohibition Kitchen (St. Augustine), 6pm.

This writer is no stranger to Coppertail Brewing, located in the Ybor area of Tampa. Coppertail opened in 2014, founded by Kent Bailey, a former attorney and homebrewer. Casey Hughes is the Brewmaster. At first, the tap room occupied space in an adjacent building. The brewery occupies a two-level structure across from the IKEA Store in Ybor, and the new tap room opened in Spring 2015. Built for production with a 50-barrel brewhouse, the brewery also boasts four 50-bbl fermenters; four 150-bbl fermenters; a 150-bbl brite tank, and a 50-bbl brite tank. There’s also a 15-gallon pilot system (the little homebrew system). Two grain silos provide the grains to the brewhouse mash tun. The main downstairs tap room is a large, open space with high ceilings and a view of the brewhouse. Upstairs is an event space, which features a second bar and a balcony. Although food is not currently served at the brewery, food trucks are often onsite.

Coppertail has already entered other markets in Florida, and you may or may not be familiar with its four core brews: Free Dive IPA (5.9 ABV), hoppy with citrus and pine, yet well-balanced; Unholy American Trippel (9.0 ABV), brewed with Belgian yeast and American hops; Wheat Stroke American Wheat (5.0 ABV), brewed with citrus peel, a refreshing wheat beer for warm days; and, my personal favorite of the bunch, Night Swim Porter (6.2 ABV), a rich, roasty, chocolaty, tasty libation. All of the core beers are available in bottles at retail. Coppertail bottles its beers onsite. In addition to the core beers, the brewery brews constant one-offs in a number of different styles. The brewery won a Silver Medal at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival in the Field Beer category for its Slam Piece Berliner Weisse. For a look behind the scenes at the brewery from my first visit there in 2015, take a look at this link.

Welcome Coppertail Brewing to Jax!

Cheers,
Linda Johnson, Certified Cicerone®

(photos by Linda Johnson)