The Emerging Craft Beer Scene at Walt Disney World

Craft Beer at Walt Disney World

By: Nick

On our last 2 trips, in October of 2013, and this past January, I discovered several locations offering a fairly decent beer menu.

Let's start with what I found in October.

My wife, Barbie and I stayed at the Art of Animation Resort. The food court, Landscape of Flavors, has a fairly decent beer selection, including offerings from local Orlando Brewing. But I was really excited to find a couple of beers from the highly rated Cigar City Brewing out of Tampa Florida, as well as a couple other excellent choices from Bell's and Breckenridge Brewing over at Pop Century's Everything Pop food court.

I took a couple back over to Art of Animation to enjoy at the pool.

One of the best times for beer at WDW is during Epcot's International Food and Wine Festival. There are dozens of choices, with just about every food booth offering at least one beer. A couple of my favorites were found at the Florida Local stand.

Me enjoying a Cigar City Florida Cracker Belgian-style White Ale

 

In addition, there are booths dedicated exclusively to beer!

Menu from the Craft Beer stand.

 

It was on this trip that I also discovered one of Disney's best kept secrets located inside the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Epcot's Japan Pavilion. The Garden House Sake Bar serves Ginga Kogen, a wheat beer. It is awesome.

There is also a new permanent structure serving craft beer located outside of the United States Pavilion at Epcot called Block & Hans, which was a souvenir stand at one time. There were only a few beers to choose from, but they are quality choices. The cast member I spoke to said they would be expanding their selection in the future, which they have indeed done, as we'll see when we look at January's offerings!

One more stop from October can be found at Disney's Animal Kingdom. The Gardens is a gluten free stand which has some gluten free beers!

I confess, I didn't try any, but it's good to know these choices are available.

In January we stayed the The Villas at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort, and I was very happy with the beer selection at the pools and restaurants.

Both Beaches Pool Bar & Grill and Courtyard Pool Bar have a good selection.

The menus even break down beer by categories to help you decide!

Further assisting your choices is a description of the beers!

While not quite as extensive as the pool menus, the beer choices at Narcoosee's located on the shores of the Seven Seas Seas Lagoon has a pretty good list.

Citricos, located inside the Grand Floridian also has a few nice choices.

Let's shoot over to Epcot. In the France Pavilion at Le Vins des Chefs de France you'll find one of my favorite beers, 1664 Blanc, as well as Kronenbourg 1664.

Over in the Mexico Pavilion, La Cava del Tequila is now offering beer from Dia de los Muertos. I did not try them because when in Rome, er, Mexico, I drink Tequila, but I intend to try these out if I ever see them at a local beer store.

Last but not least, we'll return to Block & Hans, where, as promised, the beer selection has become slightly more robust.

They are also carrying Mickey-shaped and Jalapeno Pretzels, which are excellent with a Hopageddon Imperial IPA from Napa Smith, maybe one of the best India Pale Ales I've ever had!

There is a great site to visit for a more comprehensive overview of beer in Walt Disney World called Beers and Ears, in fact I reviewed their app a few months back. However, things constantly change at Disney World, and clearly this topic requires much further investigation, and I will endeavor to do as much research as needed in the future.

Nick co-writes the Disney Musings Blog