Southwest Florida Breweries Win Big With Best Florida Beer

If you're a fan of craft beer, there's some places you'll need to add to your list as 3 Southwest Florida breweries won big with Best Florida Beer.

One of my favorite things to do with my family, locally and when we travel, is to visit different breweries. Where I used to live in northern Illinois, there really weren't that many before I left back in 2017. So imagine how excited I was when I moved to Sarasota and there were breweries everywhere! Then just over a year later, I moved to Fort Myers and in Southwest Florida there are even more. I'm always intrigued by the flavor combinations they come up with. My favorites are usually the wheat or fruit beers, but I like a good porter and am getting into the sours too.

Every year Best Florida Beers holds their annual Best Florida Beer Brewer’s Ball. This year it was in Tampa on March 3rd.

Fort Myers Brewery was honored with the title of Florida's Best Large Brewery. They also won gold medals for its OYA Double IPA and Czech Around Pilsner. A silver medal for its Penny Lager and bronze medals for its Chocolate Stout and High 5 IPA.

Scotty’s Bierwerks in Cape Coral took home some hardware as well. They won a gold medal for their Oatmeal Stout, which is actually one of my dad's all time favorites. They brought home a bronze medal for their German Pilsener as well.

Point Ybel, another Fort Myers brewery also won gold for its Dodgy ESB.

For a list of all the winners, click here

If you're a fan of craft beer and haven't tried these yet, definitely put them on your list! You'll get to experience something new, and support a local business while doing it.

It's officially fall . Not only is it time to grab a beer and watch some football, but also enjoy Oktoberfest celebrations. When it comes to enjoying a quality cold brew, what are the best cities for beer lovers in the United States?

Thanks to the folks at Lawn Love, we now know. The company did some digging and looked at the beer culture of more than 180 of the biggest cities in America to come up with this list.

Some of the criteria used for establishing these rankings includes things such as number of breweries, beer gardens, and pubs per square mile. There's nothing like a good put crawl.

Surveyors also took into consideration the number of award winning brews, beer-centered festivals, and the price of a pint. In addition, they looked at the size of the beer-loving community, which seems like it could be hard to gauge. But hey, it's part of the overall ranking.

No surprise, cities in the Pacific Northwest dominate the list. This part of the country seemed to steer the trend with craft breweries and beer culture. Florida, as in many things, was slower to catch on. While the number of craft breweries across the Sunshine State has grown exponentially, it's hard to compete with places like Portland. The city is affectionately referred to as "Beervana."

Miami was the highest ranked Florida city at #20. Fort Lauderdale came in at #25.

Find the complete ranking list here. And if your into all things pumpkin spice, including seasonal beers, check out this new pumpkin spice latte ale!

Here are the top ten best cities for beer lovers.