A few days after New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, Colo., (the brewer of Fat Tire) said that it hoped to start selling its beer in Tampa "soon," the brewery tells Brewbound.com that it will be expanding into Florida:
"Company spokesman Bryan Simpson told Brewbound.com that beginning in July, New Belgium will distribute its beer in Florida.
'Florida is a great craft beer market,' Simpson said. 'It was the right market for the amount of volume and capacity the brewery is able to handle this year.'"
The story says sales will begin with 22-ounce bottles. Draft will follow after a few weeks and 12-ounce bottles after that. The first beers to be offered will be Fat Tire, Ranger and 1554.
Brewbound and Craft Business Daily report that New Belgium hasn't finalized its contracts or chosen distributors.
I've heard that New Belgium would roll out statewide, rather than start in select Florida markets.
I've also been told that until New Belgium actually signs contracts with distributors, we should consider this to be pretty speculative. As characters say in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, "words are wind." Without a contract, nothing can happen, and even after one is signed it could take a while to get beer here.