MIAGuide
The Miami Breweries & Beer Bars With The Best Food
Next time you want to spend the day drinking beer and eating something delicious, head to one of these spots.
Much like finding decent parking on the beach or your dream of owning a home any time soon, gone are the days of breweries and beer bars serving up a bowl of stale pretzels. In fact, for the past few years, these places have consistently been home to some of the best food in Miami, either through their own kitchens, rotating pop-ups, or food trucks with cult followings. This guide has our favorite breweries, microbreweries, and beer bars with the best food options—because you’re gonna need something to wash down that IPA you try so hard to like.
THE SPOTS
The weekly food schedule at Wynwood’s J Wakefield is more stacked than the VIP list at a Bad Bunny concert. The laidback Star Wars and Marvel-themed brewery hosts some of the city’s best pop-ups, which rotate often but include names like Wolf of Tacos (tacos), Are You Hungry Grill (BBQ), Jenny with the Pot (tacos), and Ted’s Burgers (burgers, naturally). Their Instagram is your best bet for finding out who will be there and when. The outdoor picnic tables are perfect for enjoying a smash burger and a very Miami-named beer while that one friend goes on about how, actually, Darth Vader was really just misunderstood.
Cerveceria La Tropical has something more valuable in Wynwood these days than a rented Bugatti: space. The huge indoor/outdoor brewery has its own kitchen too, which makes this place feel like a proper restaurant. The menu is mostly Cuban/Caribbean dishes like yucca fries, churrasco, and pulled pork penne. The bar bites are great as well, like the housemade plantain chips with black bean hummus and the very aesthetic beer can bread.
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Batman and Robin, traffic and the Palmetto, the Dolphins and not making (or losing in the first round of) the playoffs—some things just go together. And Strange Beast takes the iconic duo of pizza and beer and does it justice. The West Kendall brewery is out of the way for most tourists, so it’s got a genuine neighborhood feel to it. Their seasonal pies are great, although you can always rely on menu staples like the Incan, which is loaded with lomo saltado. And if you happen to be closer to Palmetto Bay than West Kendall, check out their sister restaurant, Maxwell Bros., another spot that nails the pizza/beer combination.
Hialeah is known for many things, and Unbranded should definitely be one of them. The big, spacious brewery sits in the middle of the warehouse district. While they occasionally host pop-ups from brewery favorites like Ted’s Burgers and Luna Rossa Cucina, they’ve also got their very own smokehouse on site. From Wednesday to Sunday, Unbranded Smokehouse serves up tender brisket on nachos, in a quesadilla or taco, as a slider, or just on a big platter. They’ve also got wings and burgers (including a plant-based option).
Off Site is one of the only breweries in town where the food gets just as much of a spotlight as the beer. To call the dishes at this Little River spot “bar food” would be the undersell of the century. The fried chicken sandwich and hot dog are some of the best around, and they’ve even got caviar if you’re really looking to class it up.
The kitchen at this Doral brewery is run by Masa Craft, which serves a Cuban/Filipino menu. And it's their croquetas that are the stars of the show, having won quite a few of Miami’s many croqueta awards (yes, Miami has multiple awards dedicated to croquetas). Other hits included their housemade queso, fried chicken sandwich, and spicy guava wings, all of which are just perfect day-drinking meals.
Only in Doral can you sip on a sour mango ale while enjoying wagyu beef carpaccio, all under the watchful eye of a very stoned alligator. The kitchen at Tripping Animals is run by Meat n’ Bone, a Coral Way meat shop whose focus is bringing premium meats to the everyday Miamian. Their menu changes every month, but you can always expect high-end staples like filet mignon, a ribeye sandwich, and a shockingly good hot dog.
Farmhouse Barbecue runs the kitchen at Beat Culture, a big brewery in Doral. They serve up barbecue classics done very well, including some with a Miami twist—like the pulled pork tostones. The pork belly burnt ends and the queso frito with sweet honey are worth ordering too, especially if you need something to share with a group. And the desserts hold their own. They've got cornbread madeleines and crispy fried Oreos that would impress even the most die-hard Youth Fair food stans.
Union Beer is a refreshingly chill beer bar right on Calle Ocho, a street famously known for being “a lot." The theme at this bar seems to be “late ‘90s wrestling” for some reason, but we’re not really opposed to hanging out next to a bunch of Macho Man Randy Savage pictures all night. Two main pop-ups take turns in the kitchen here: Panolos runs the food situation on Thursday nights, serving up Cuban eats like the Panolo con bistec or lechon. Every other night, it's standard bar food like burgers and wings.
