Editorial
Miami's Wynwood craft beer boom is mostly over. J. Wakefield, Wynwood Brewing and Concrete Beach have all shut their taprooms, and the rest of the old lists were taco stands and tequila bars wearing a beer label. Two real craft beer rooms still pour, ranked by what is in the glass. One sits on Miami Beach, the other a drive south. Honest beats padded.
The Abbey is Miami Beach's oldest brewpub, brewing its own since 1995 in a narrow room off Lincoln Road on 16th Street. The Trappist-style house beers carry it: Brother Aaron's Quadrupel, the Immaculate IPA, plus more than 150 bourbons behind the bar. Open daily until five in the morning, which makes it the rare beer room that doubles as a late-night refuge. Go off-season, grab a stool, order the Quad.
Miami Brewing pours its own beer out of a 10,000-square-foot taproom at Schnebly's winery in Homestead, well south of the city. The beers lean tropical and local, brewed with South Florida fruit, and there is cornhole, pool and live music in the room. It is a drive, not a walk, so make a day of it. Best on a Saturday afternoon when the taps and the patio are both full.
The Wynwood brewery cluster that built Miami's beer reputation has thinned to almost nothing, and what is left sits at the edges. The Abbey covers the late-night, in-town end on Miami Beach. Miami Brewing covers the destination-taproom end in Homestead. Drink the house beers at both, since the imports are beside the point.
The Abbey runs latest, open to five in the morning. Miami Brewing is a weekend daytime trip.
Morten Andersen writes about beer and the kind of bars that do not ask for attention. He clocks the pour, the crowd and the prices before the decor.