Bowigens Beer Company: Two Touring Musicians Built Casselberry’s Ranked Brewery

The best brewery in Casselberry started as a band joke that got serious. Longtime friends Bobby Bowen and Kevin Wigen met playing in bands around Orlando, spent years in the East Coast music scene, and eventually traded tour schedules for a brewhouse. The name is simply the two of them spliced together — Bowen plus Wigen — and the brewery they built at 1014 State Road 436 has become the anchor of Casselberry’s food and drink scene. In our Orlando craft brewery rankings, Bowigens ranks No. 6 with a Net Score of 91.5. (The ranking’s category winner is profiled in our Crooked Can feature.)

The OG taproom, grown up

Bowigens opened its Casselberry taproom in 2015 — the company calls it “The OG” — and it has since expanded into a larger space with more than 25 taps of its own beer, plenty of seating, televisions, events and a full kitchen serving food designed to pair with what’s pouring. That kitchen matters: the early taproom years ran on the classic bring-your-own-food model, and the expanded room is a different, more complete night out. The original three-barrel brewhouse still sits at the heart of it, now serving as the pilot system and creative test kitchen, which means Casselberry drinkers get first access to small-batch beers, one-offs and taproom-only releases that may never travel.

Production muscle lives nearby: in late 2019 Bowigens opened a second facility in Longwood, just down the road, and a further taproom followed at the Marketplace at Avalon Park. But Casselberry remains the home room — the place where the experiments happen and where the brewery’s identity was formed. For the full area picture, see our Casselberry hub.

What to drink

The brewery’s own description of its philosophy is “artistic brewers” — brewing for taste rather than style rules — and the tap list backs it up. The names that recur include the 7 Layer Stout, a rich, layered dark beer that has been a calling card for years; the 407 Pils, a crisp local-area-code lager; Daydream Tangerine, a wheat ale with a bright citrus push; and a 1967 West Coast IPA for drinkers who like their hops assertive and clear. Around those anchors the list rotates through seasonal and experimental releases from the pilot system, plus house seltzers that have joined the lineup in recent years. The sensible order is a flight first — the range here is wide enough that committing to a full pour blind is a wasted opportunity — then a pint of whatever the pilot system just produced.

Open, brewing, and restructuring

Honest reporting requires a note on the business pages. In September 2026, Bowigens filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to restructure company debt, a step the owners publicly tied to the cost of the Casselberry expansion. The owners’ message to drinkers was blunt — they are not going anywhere — and the observable facts match it: both taprooms are open, the brewery is brewing and the kitchen is cooking. We cover Bowigens as what it is today: an operating brewery in the middle of a financial restructuring, pouring at full strength on SR 436.

The Casselberry night it anchors

Bowigens also works because of its neighbors. It sits in the same stretch of 436 as Vinzo’s Italian grill — dinner there, a nightcap here, one parking lot of effort — and a short drive from WA Sushi for the evenings that start with omakase instead. That cluster is the backbone of our Casselberry dining guide, and Bowigens is easy to find on the Orlando Top Spots Map. Eleven years after two touring musicians decided brewing was the next creative act, their splice-named brewery is still the first place we send anyone who asks what Casselberry tastes like.

Filed under Bowigens · breweries · Casselberry · craft beer · Dining

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