Our Beer
Good beer takes patience,
a little stubbornness,
and a 3.5-barrel system.
Craft brewing in Tampa Bay is a community. We're proud to be part of it.
How We Brew
Twenty Years
in the Making
Rick Sommer started homebrewing over twenty years ago in his garage with a basic extract kit and a lot of curiosity. Batches got better. Recipes got bolder. Somewhere around year ten, he stopped thinking of it as a hobby and started thinking of it as unfinished business.
When Dented Keg opened in October 2020, Rick brought all of that experience to a 3.5-barrel system tucked right behind the bar. The setup is small on purpose. Small batches mean more control over every step, from grain to glass. If something is not right, we dump it and start over. That has happened more than once.
We source our grain from trusted maltsters and adjust the water chemistry for each style. An IPA gets a different mineral profile than a porter, and a saison gets treated differently than a wheat ale. Rick is particular about this stuff, and it shows in the finished product. The brewing schedule keeps things moving so there is usually something new hitting the tap wall every couple of weeks.
Our house lineup rotates, but a few favorites keep coming back. Double Down is a bold, hop-forward Double IPA dry-hopped with Citra and Mosaic. Even Keel is a smooth Baltic Porter with chocolate and coffee notes that sneak up on you. Garden of Funk is a Brett Saison brewed with sage and lemongrass that tastes like nothing else in the cooler.
Every batch starts with the same question: would we want to drink this all night? If the answer is no, it does not make it to the tap.
"If we would not want to drink it all night, it does not make it to the tap."
Our brewing rule
What's on Tap
Guest Taps and
Good Company
We love what we brew, but we also love what other Florida breweries are doing. That is why we always keep a rotating selection of guest taps alongside our house beers. You might find a West Coast IPA from Escape Brewing, a classic hefeweizen from SunCreek, or a peanut butter chocolate stout from Lost Coast on any given week.
We pick our guest taps the same way we pick our own recipes. If we would not want to drink it ourselves, it does not go on the wall. Most of the guest breweries are based in Florida, and a few of them are friends we have made through the Tampa Bay craft scene over the years. Supporting other small breweries matters to us.
Not a beer drinker? We have you covered. Our tap wall includes hard ciders from Keel Farms, seltzers, wine, and a non-alcoholic kombucha from Mother Kombucha for anyone who is driving or just taking the night off.
Tampa Bay's craft beer scene runs deep, and we are proud to be part of it. But Dented Keg is not trying to be a production facility or a chain. We are a neighborhood spot where the brewer is standing right there and can tell you exactly what went into your glass.
The 3.5-Barrel System
Small System.
Big Flavor.
A 3.5-barrel system means we brew about 108 gallons at a time. For context, most production breweries run systems ten to thirty times that size. Ours fits behind the bar so you can literally watch your next pint being made while you finish the one in your hand.
The small scale lets us try things bigger breweries cannot. If Rick has an idea for a sage and lemongrass saison or a blackberry sour with no added sugar, he can brew a test batch and have it on tap within a few weeks. Some of those experiments become permanent favorites. Others are one-and-done, which is part of the fun. Regulars know to check the chalkboard when they walk in because there might be something that was not there last week.
Seasonals play a big role too. When the weather cools off we lean into darker styles, porters, stouts, and the occasional barleywine. When summer hits, the sours and lighter ales take over. We do not follow a corporate release calendar. We just brew what makes sense for the season and what sounds good to us at the time.
We pair our food menu with whatever is on tap. A soft pretzel and a Baltic Porter. Loaded nachos and a hazy IPA. Wings and a crisp wheat ale. Ask the bartender what they would pair, and you will get an honest answer.
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