We’ve visited the Fort Myers area several times but have never really taken the time to explore the area. When we had 5 uninterrupted days off around Christmas, we decided to explore one of our favorite things in the area: breweries. We did this self-directed Fort Myers Breweries tour the day after Christmas, which was a Thursday, and we started around noon. Because it was early-ish on a weekday, some of the breweries weren’t open when we started our road trip. Unfortunately, it didn’t make sense to backtrack to the closed ones we missed once we moved out of the area. Therefore, this is not a conclusive list of breweries in the area, but definitely a good start!
Big Blue Brewing
This was our first stop and is more of a restaurant than your normal brewery so it’s a perfect first stop to grab some food before heading out. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t do much research and ate right before we showed up. We didn’t have fast service, which was a little confusing since they didn’t appear to be very busy, but all of the employees were very friendly so we’d definitely give it another shot, especially for lunch or dinner.
Big Storm Brewery
We actually have a Big Storm here in St. Pete and we love it, so we were excited to check out the Cape Coral location. We were surprised how busy they were in the middle of the day (always a good sign!) but it didn’t faze the amazing bartender, who was efficient and friendly with an Australian accent to boot! Their beer, as always, was lovely. When I posted a picture of our flight on my Instagram stories, someone commented that they’d never seen so many colors of beer and I had to agree. We always have some of Big Storm’s beer in our fridge and Tropic Pressure has always been our go-to. However, on this trip we tried their Bromosa Tangerine IPA in Cape Coral and it’s my new favorite!
After Big Storm, we checked into our Fort Myers hotel. We knew that we would be missing out on quite a few breweries in the Cape Coral area by doing this, but several of them weren’t open yet and we wanted to be able to leave our car at the hotel as we transitioned to Lyft. From our hotel, we started to check off the Fort Myers breweries.
Millennial Brewing
This was my favorite brewery and is on our must-visit list every time we return to the area. We loved the wide-open feel, the unique Christmas tree made of beer kegs, and the fun games. Of course, the beer was delightful as well. We each tried a couple, loved every one, and probably would have stayed for a third if we hadn’t been so hungry. They have a wide range of brews, so you’re sure to find one that you love but my personal favorite was the Clever Girl IPA.
Millennial Brewing is family and dog friendly. They often have fun events planned like dog night, trivia, video game night, and German food night so I highly recommend checking their schedule. Perhaps one of the biggest perks is that you can park in their huge lot for free. They don’t even require that you buy a beer in exchange, though in my opinion, you’re missing out if you don’t. As someone who hates driving all over the place to try to find parking in downtown locations, this is a huge benefit to us when we return in the future. Just make sure you are driving responsibly!
From Millennial Brewing, we walked to downtown Fort Myers and stopped at Blu Sushi for a late lunch/early dinner. We’ve been in the area before to eat dinner with our family, but haven’t spent much time exploring and we really enjoyed it. I wish we’d spent more time walking around because there are a lot of shops worth exploring, but we’re sure to be back so I’ll add it to our list for the future.
Coastal Dayz
From downtown, we wandered to Coastal Dayz. This was another brewery that was really busy, especially for a weeknight. I must admit that I’m always a little biased towards the coastal-themed breweries and this one fit the bill. They had a BBQ caterer and the food smelled so good. Since we’d just eaten sushi, I unfortunately wasn’t hungry, but almost wanted to grab some BBQ anyways. It really smelled that good. As we took in our surroundings, we noticed several posters from local groups on the wall. It’s clear that many groups meet here; one group in particular stood out to me which was a runner’s group. Maybe if I joined a runner’s group that ran to breweries, I’d finally be motivated to run. This is clearly a place that locals meet up at regularly and I can see why. Good music, cards to play, and good beer. What more could you ask for?
Old Soul
We were feeling pretty tired by the time we got to Old Soul, but we didn’t want to miss it. This may have been a mistake because I was practically falling asleep on the table. I would like to return to give Old Soul a fair shot next time we’re in town. I will say that I didn’t know until after we visited that the bar is a repurposed bowling lane and now I wish I would have paid more attention to that while we were there because I think that’s pretty cool!
Have you explored Fort Myers area breweries? Which one is your favorite?
Want to find out more about each of the breweries listed in this post? Check them out here:
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