Hourglass Brewing Poured Longwood Onto the Craft Beer Map
Founded in 2012 in a 12-seat tasting room, Hourglass Brewing is now a 200-plus-seat Longwood taproom with a glass-walled brewhouse, a barrel program and a No. 8 ranking among the region's best craft breweries.
3 minute read
Every craft-beer town has an origin story, and Longwood‘s starts on a back porch. Hourglass Brewing began as the dream of two friends who brewed at home, sold off toy collections and musical gear to fund the leap, and opened in 2012 in a 12-seat tasting room on State Road 434. It is generally counted the first brewery in Seminole County still pouring — and it has grown into something far bigger than a porch project: a commanding taproom at 480 South Ronald Reagan Boulevard, Suite 1020, a second location in Orlando’s Hourglass District, and a firm place in this magazine’s rankings, where it holds the No. 8 spot on our Best Craft Breweries in Orlando list with a Net Score of 90.3. (The category’s winner feature profiles Crooked Can; Hourglass is the ranked Seminole County standard-bearer.)
The Room: Geek Culture, Glass Walls, Good Dogs
The Longwood taproom seats well over 200 and wears its personality openly. The brewhouse sits behind glass, so the day’s work — mashing, fermenting, canning — plays out in view of the bar. Around it: nostalgic memorabilia, geek-culture décor, tabletop and console games free to play, and walls given over to local artists, with monthly art shows a fixture of the calendar. A dedicated barrel-aging program and the brewery’s Sourglass line of sour and wild ales run alongside the main tap list, which rotates through dozens of house pours — saisons, lagers with a wink in the name, barrel-aged heavyweights and whatever outlandish idea the brewers have lately turned, in their own phrase, into a nuanced, drinkable brew.
Outside, a dog-friendly patio spreads the room further. Food is handled the brewery way: neighbouring eateries in the plaza, including the attached taco and wing spots regulars pair with a pint, make dinner an easy add-on, and food trucks roll through for events.
What to Drink
The tap list rewards reading like a menu rather than a scoreboard. The Saison du Sablier — sablier is French for hourglass — is the house calling card, a farmhouse ale that shows the kitchen-sink creativity in its most disciplined form. The I-4 Eyesore citrus lager takes the opposite approach: a crisp, local joke you can drink, named for the downtown Orlando construction saga every commuter knows. Between those poles the board runs the full modern circuit — hop-forward ales, dark and barrel-aged pours that can climb into serious strength, and the Sourglass wild and sour program for drinkers who like their beer with an argument in it. With dozens of house taps rotating, the correct order for a first visit is a flight that crosses styles, then a full pour of whichever glass empties fastest. Cans and bottles to go extend the taproom home, and distribution around Florida means the Longwood original now pours far beyond the county that raised it — though regulars will tell you it tastes best within sight of the glass-walled brewhouse where it was made.
More Than a Taproom
What keeps Hourglass central to Longwood life is the programming layered over the beer: trivia nights, live music, comedy, pop-up markets and release events fill the week, and the room functions as a de facto community hall for the south end of the historic corridor. It is a short hop from the SunRail station and the historic district, which makes it the natural last stop after a walk through old Longwood — 19th-century cottages first, 21st-century saison second.
How to Do It Well
Go with a group and order across the board: a flight that runs from a crisp lager through the saison to something barrel-aged shows the range better than any single pint. Check the events calendar before you visit — art-show nights and release days change the room’s energy — and claim patio seats when the weather cooperates. Then keep exploring: Hourglass is one of the anchors of our Longwood dining roundup, and you’ll find it pinned on the Orlando Top Spots Map. A brewery funded by selling the founders’ toys could have stayed a hobby. Instead it became the place Seminole County’s beer culture calls home.
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