My blog has moved to Heraldtribune.com

At the suggestion of colleagues at the Herald-Tribune, I'm moving this blog to my company's Web site. The blog is getting a new name, Beer Geek, and a new Web address, heraldtribune.com/beer, where you can read all my new posts.

The mission of the blog -- covering the craft beer scene in Southwest Florida -- is staying the same.

I'm going to keep my old blog entries here and cross-reference them as needed.

I hope to see you all at Beer Geek!

Extreme beer goes in a different direction

Greg Kitsock at The Washington Post wrote an article on extreme beer with quotes from Jim Koch, founder of the Boston Beer Co., which brews Samuel Adams beers. Koch says he coined the term "extreme beer" when his company brewed Triple Bock in 1994. It was the strongest commercial beer at the time at almost 18 percent alcohol.

Kitsock says that people often wrongly think that extreme beer also means strong beer. Not so. Extreme beers can also be beers made with unorthodox ingredients.* Kitsock writes about several such beers**, but the one that really caught by eye was by the Scottish brewery BrewDog, a brewery that happens to be a new arrival in the Sarasota area.

They brewed an extreme beer called Nanny State, which weighs in at the ultra-low alcohol level of 1.1 percent. I could say that's extreme on its own, but Nanny State is also supposedly so full of hops that it's the most bitter beer out there. You can measure how bitter a beer is by testing it for IBUs.

IBU stands for International Bitterness Unit. The higher the number, the bitterer the beer. Hops make beer bitter. Nanny State's IBU level is 225. For reference, Kitsock writes, "Budweiser measures about 12 IBUs; Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, 37; a typical imperial IPA, 75 to 100." I've read that the human palate can't detect anything beyond 90 IBUs, so Nanny State's professed level of 225 IBUs is just a gimmick.


But that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to try it. Too bad it's not sold in the United States.

*See my post about a Dogfish Head beer made with corn moistened in the brewer's mouth.


**He includes Stone's Sublimely Self Righteous Ale, a dark beer that's very hoppy and good: I've had it at the Cock & Bull; Brooklyn's Manhattan Project, "a draft-only offering using the same botanicals that go into vermouth and bitters, adding a dash of tart cherry juice and aging the beer in Rittenhouse rye whiskey barrels;" and Otter Creek's Quercus Vitis Humulus, which is "fermented with sauvignon blanc grape juice, fermented with a champagne yeast and aged in French oak."

Cigar City has problems with a batch

Tampa's Cigar City Brewing's founder, Joey Redner, posted on his brewery's blog that there is a problem with bottles of their excellent Bolita Brown. They are apparently infected with brettanomyces yeast, which gives them a slight sour, funky flavor. It's not a safety issue, rather it's an issue of quality. The Bolita won't taste like Cigar City intended.

Redner writes that he believes the yeast was on their bottling equipment from a previous batch of beer, Guava Grove, that used brettanomyces. He writes:

What this means is the Bolita that went out just fine in its bottles, is now very much not as was intended. If you like brett or bretty oud bruins I suspect you are going to be really tickled about this and want to lay some down for a year. But if, like me, you prefer Bolita the way it was intended I sincerely aplogize. This is my nightmare and the simple fact is we failed on this batch of beer.

Redner is very apologetic about the issue and offers to give everyone who brings a bottle of the beer (all bottles of Bolita are affected*) to the brewery a $10 credit, no questions asked. He continues:

Again, I sincerely do apologize. I know these things happen to the best of breweries, much less our ragtag operation, but it doesn't make me feel any better. I take the quality and integrity of our beer very seriously and this batch ended up with a noticeable infection. You have our promise we will work to remedy the situation as best we can.

This issue does happen to all breweries, and I think Cigar City is handling it really well. As a former homebrewer I know how tricky brewing and quality control is.

You can read their full blog post here.

Ever the creative brewery, Redner writes that they will make lemonade from lemons and take the returned Bolita, put it "in a barrel, add lots of additional bugs, some fruit and whatever else we think we need to add and make a small batch of some very tart and funky beer that started life as Bolita. Think of it as reform school for a beer gone bad. Only the idea is to make the beer go even worse to the point that it is good again!" That sounds like something I'd love to try, as I'm building up a taste for beers with wild yeasts.

*I didn't notice any funky or sour flavors in the bottle of Bolita I had in late August.

World of Beer celebrates grand opening Saturday

World of Beer has been open for a few weeks, but they are having their official grand opening celebration this Saturday, Nov. 14.

According to their e-mail, they are having an outdoor party from noon to 6 p.m. with a free cookout from 2 to 5. The party moves indoors at 6. They say they will be "family friendly" with games until 7 p.m.

The beer bar is at 8217 Tourist Center Drive off University Parkway near the Interstate 75 exit. For more information, call them at (941) 306-5868.

Cigar City's apocalyptic Mayan-inspired stout

Cigar City Brewing, which has some very creatively named beers,* occasionally brews a beer called Hunahpu's Imperial Stout, which is named -- according to that dubious source Wikipedia -- after a character out of Mayan mythology. Cigar City calls it a Mayan chocolate imperial stout "brewed with Peruvian cacao, Ancho and Pasilla chiles, cinamon and vanilla beans with a nod toward the frothy cacao drink consumed by the ancient Mayans."

The 12 people who have reviewed this beer on BeerAdvocate give it an average A+ grade. I only hope it's better than Dogfish Head's disastrous Theobroma, which is also inspired by pre-Columbian beers and brewed with chilies. I hope it is more like Rogue's wonderful Chocolate Stout.**

Anyway, Cigar City blogs that they are asked weekly about this beer and have set a release date for 750 mL bottles. It's Friday, March 12, 2010 at 7 p.m. at the brewery. The bottles will cost $20 each, which is certainly expensive but not outrageous. I paid that much for a bottle of Brooklyn Brewery's Black Ops.

Mark your calendars.***

*For example, Marshal Zhukov Imperial Stout and Warmer Winter Winter Warmer

**Ego note: Rogue pulled a blurb -- "Each time I have it I chuckle because it's so good" -- from my BeerAdvocate review for their newsletter way back in 2003.

***Cigar City -- as a joke -- has previously said that Hunahpu's Imperial Stout will be released in 2013 because some people believe that the Mayan calendar predicts the world will end in 2012.

Herald-Tribune writes about World of Beer

My colleague at the Herald-Tribune, Steve Echeverria, writes about World of Beer, the new beer bar on the border of Sarasota and Manatee counties, in his No Cover column in this week's Ticket.

You can read Steve's column online here.

Read my past coverage of World of Beer here.

Cigar City weekly draft lineup

I'm a day late posting this, but Sebastien Jadot with Cigar City Brewing e-mailed* me the beers they will be selling this week at the Tampa brewery:

Regular draft lineup
Maduro Oatmeal Brown Ale
Jai Alai IPA

One-off drafts
Maduro Oatmeal Raisin, which is Maduro with a hint of raisin and cookie spice. I've tried this beer at the brewery and I can tell you that Cigar City wields a subtle hand with the spices. This is not a sweet beer like other spiced beers.

Humidor series

Cigar City has a rotating offering of beers which have been aged on cedar. As I've written before, they won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival for their cedar-aged Jai Alai IPA.

This week Cigar City is offering Humidor Maduro for $7 and Humidor Marshal Zhukov (their Russian Imperial Stout) for $10. Sebastien writes that the beers will be put in 750 mL bottles and capped as each customer places his or her order.

Too bad I can't get up to Tampa this week, because I know the Humidor series beer will sell out fast.

*Read my earlier post on how to get on Cigar City's mailing list.

Review: Marshal Zhukov's Imperial Stout

One of Cigar City Brewing's seasonal beers is a Russian imperial stout* named after Georgy Zhukov, whom Encyclopedia Britannica calls "the most important Soviet military commander during World War II." If you are a student of history, I suggest you read about his fascinating history at your local library.

I bought a 750 mL bottle of this beer, which they release in August, at the brewery during a recent visit. They charged $10, which is cheaper than you would pay at a store and all the money goes to the brewery.

Cigar City suggests you age the beer a few months and drink it during the cooler temperatures of winter, although in Florida "cold" is a relative term. But I couldn't wait until winter to drink this beer, so here's the early review.

The review

It pours very black with a deep brown head and smells of roasted malt with hints of molasses and alcohol. This is a rich Russian imperial stout, but it's not cloying. Flavors mix to make a typical complex taste. The body is wonderfully slick.

Overall this is a fine RIS and another good beer from Cigar City. It's a seasonal release, so get one while you can.

I should have bought a second bottle of this fine beer. Perhaps I'll be able to find one here in Sarasota?

*As I've written before, imperial stouts were originally brewed in England and shipped to the Russian court. They are a lot stronger than regular stouts.

Cigar City now takes credit cards

I was in the Tampa area today and stopped by Cigar City Brewing to refill my two growlers with the world-class Jai Alai IPA, which I'm drinking right now.

They now take major credit cards, which is convenient and allows you to spend a lot more there than you planned.

Sebastien Jadot, Cigar City's Tampa area sales and events coordinator, was working there again and was very friendly and helpful. He answered all of my dumb questions and said if anyone is interested in brewery updates, including what they have on tap, e-mail him at sebastien@cigarcitybrewing.com and he will put you on a mailing list.

Sebastien says they are hoping to eventually produce more 750 mL bottles and are even trying to open up a bar next door, but that depends on approval from the city of Tampa, so don't hold your breath.

World of Beer first impressions

I stopped by the newly opened World of Beer on the border of Sarasota and Manatee counties after work on Friday night. I got there about 11:00. I only lasted five seconds.

The place was packed and they had a band playing in their loft with the sound set to concert levels. I turned on my heels and left. It's tough for a place to be more repellent than having smoking, but brain-breaking loud music is worse.

But I didn't want to give up on the place; after all, I went on a Friday night.

I went back on Tuesday evening and got there just before 7:00 to take advantage of their happy hour $1-off draft specials.

A good number of people were there, but there was still plenty of space. No bands, and the piped-in music was much softer than Friday night. It was a bit too loud for my tastes, but the sound wasn't in the danger level.*

I was welcomed by a server right after arriving and sat at the bar, where Josh tended to me. Nice guy. They were out of Cigar City's Jai Alai IPA, which was only a mild disappointment because I'm hoping to get up to the brewery on Wednesday. Josh suggested Hercules Double IPA, a great double IPA from Great Divide Brewing in Colorado, but the keg ran out. He then gave me a sample of Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA, another good, bitter beer. I had a glass of that, which was $5 with the happy hour special.

Some friends have called World of Beer a corporate place. I must be a corporate shill, because I liked it. Brick and dark wood with a wall of beer in coolers divided by about 30 taps. They have a covered lanai where patrons can smoke. It's connected to the bar by a big open doorway, so if you're really sensitive to smoke you'll need to keep clear.

This is a good bar. I will be returning to the World of Beer and suggest you check it out for yourself, just get their earlier when the music isn't so loud.

*I'm the guy who wears earplugs to concerts. My father had profound hearing loss and if the same thing happens to me, at least I'll know I didn't do it to myself.

Saint Somewhere in Food Network Magazine

Saint Somewhere Brewing is a little brewery in Tarpon Springs. They have been making two Belgian-style beers, Saison Athene and Lectio Divina, for a couple of years. The 750 mL bottles are about $10 each.

They are kind of a stealth brewery, making two good beers and keeping under the radar.

Their Saison Athene gets a mention in the November 2009 issue of Food Network Magazine. It's part of a neat little package, "Grape Escape" on page 43, on how great beers are a fraction of the cost of great wines.* They list 12 craft beers and how they can be substituted for wine.

Saison Athene is listed under "Instead of red wine." They write:

Made in Tarpon Springs, FL, this gently spiced beer is brewed with rosemary, black peppercorns and chamomile. Like zinfandel or syrah, it's a terrific match for lamb.

I've had this beer. It pours a very bright golden color with substantial bubbles and a very white head that reduces to a fairly thin ring in my tulip glass. It smells of spices, particularly coriander and orange peel. The taste is equally spicy, with big coriander flavors and notes of musty and earthy flavors. The body is quite light and crisp. This beer is well-attenuated.

I prefer Saint Somewhere's Lectio Divina, which has an earthy aroma with notes of grape and other fruit and has a pure Belgian fruity, earthy and yeasty taste. Grape flavors mix with hay and grass-like notes. It totally nails the Belgian style, better than almost any other American brewery.

*Dogfish Head's chief, Sam Calagione, has said that you can buy a six-pack of the best beers in the world for less than $20, while buying a bottle of the best wine will cost well over $100. And Brooklyn's brewmaster, Garrett Oliver, has even written a book, "The Brewmaster's Table," about pairing food and beer and has said that beer is more versatile than wine. I agree with both of them.

World of Beer opens, and I miss it

Wouldn't you know it, I leave town for a few days and World of Beer opens their newest beer bar on University Parkway on the Manatee-Sarasota county line.

I hear they planned on a "soft" invite-only opening but the word got out and lots of people showed up. I'm not sure if they have had the official grand opening cookout they promised on Twitter, but their Web site is fully operational.

I'll have to get over there ASAP and file a report.

Expanded "Kings of beer" story now online

My newspaper's sister site, yoursarasota.com, has posted an expanded online version of the "Kings of beer" story that ran last week in the Herald-Tribune and featured the Cock & Bull Pub and the Sarasota Brewing Co.* This version includes more of Chip Litherland's great photos.

You can read it here.

*Read my blog post on the article here.

Review: Maduro Oatmeal Brown Ale

I bought a 32-ounce growler of Cigar City's Maduro Oatmeal Brown Ale at the brewery when I visited it on Oct. 2. I drank the beer several days ago.

The review

It pours a deep brown in color with a large sticky head. The smell is of toasted and roasted grain: coffee, molasses and chocolate notes.

The roasted smell carries over to the taste. Bread flavors mix with light tastes of chocolate and espresso.

The body is nice and creamy, probably thanks to the oatmeal.

This is another good beer from Cigar City and one that's the most approachable and balanced. Jai Alai IPA is my favorite Cigar City beer, closely followed by Improvicasion.

As far as I know this beer is only sold in kegs. They told me at the brewery that since they bottle in 750 mL bottles only, they would not be able to price this beer low enough for it to sell, considering it's their most "normal" beer.

SRQ beer scene featured in Herald-Tribune

My colleague at the Herald-Tribune, Steve Echeverria Jr., wrote an article, "Kings of beer" in Thursday's Ticket section that features the Cock & Bull Pub, Sarasota Brewing Co. and the Shamrock Pub. I confess I've never been to the Shamrock. I'll have to check it out. The soon-to-open World of Beer also gets a mention.

Here are two great excerpts from the article:

"The guys who say they love beer but only drink Budweiser, or they like a particular brand, are not true beer lovers," said Vince Pelosi, brewmaster at Sarasota Brewing Co. "The true beer lover tries them all."

This is exactly the way I think about beer. I can't wait to try new ones. Who knows? The best beer I've ever had may be the next one I find.

The second excerpt:

"My husband created the beer culture in Sarasota," said Hochberg's wife, Dawn.

Dawn, you're not exaggerating. Sarasota owes its beer scene to Howie Hochberg. And I owe my love of beer to your pub. It's where I learned about the wonders of the hop and how great a Belgian strong dark ale is.

The Herald-Tribune's online version of the story does not have all the cool photos -- taken by our incredible ace photographer Chip Litherland -- that are featured in the print edition. Here's Chip's picture of Howie from Ticket's cover:

So I'm not just shamelessly pimping our product when I say you should try and find -- dare I say buy -- a copy for yourself.

Review: Imperial White

Imperial While is from Samuel Adams' sort-of new Imperial Series. They're brewing four bigger beers year-round and selling them in four-packs.* The beers are: Imperial White, Imperial Stout and Double Bock. They also make a seasonal Imperial Pilsner, though they don't consider it part of the Imperial Series. All of these are very good beers and are some of SA's best. I'll post reviews of the other beers in the future.

I bought this four-pack at the Publix on University Parkway in southern Manatee County. That Publix has one of the grocery chain's best beer selections.

Check out this post for background on witbiers, or wheat beers. Basically, they are like German wheat beers -- meaning they are brewed with wheat as well as barley malt -- but also have coriander, orange peel and other spices added.

The review

It pours a cloudy copper in color after swirling the final ounces in the bottle. The head is thick, but not huge. It has a light banana and clove aroma, which are aromas typical of this style of beer.

The taste is very good. Big spice flavors like clove mix with sweet malt flavors and yeasty notes to make a super wheat beer. It's like a hefeweizen, but jacked up. The high alcohol is quite noticeable in the fusel flavors.

The body is also great: Smooth and creamy and slick.

This is a very good beer and one of Samuel Adams' best. I highly recommend it. Seek it out.

*Each four-pack sells for about $10, which is fine except that SA used to sell their Double Bock for the same price as their regular beer (about $7) in six-packs back when they only brewed Double Bock seasonally. Dollar, dollar bill, ya'll.

A visit to Cigar City Brewing

On Friday I drove to Tampa to visit Cigar City Brewing. The brewery is open for tours, tastings and sales Wednesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. I got there a little after 4.

Like most breweries, it's a utilitarian place (no air conditioning) designed for brewing, not hanging out. The tasting room is a cordoned-off area of the warehouse.

They are a friendly bunch and were very willing to talk about the brewing process and their beers. They were very happy about winning a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival -- especially so because they have been in business for just seven months.

They had two beers available that day: Jai Alai IPA and Maduro brown ale. I had a (free!) sample of both of them and bought a growler of each. A growler is a to-go container that's filled with draft beer. Typical growlers in other states are 64 ounces. But, Florida law being what it is, Cigar City can only sell growlers that are 32 ounces (a quart) or less or 128 ounces (a gallon) or more. I bought two 32-ounce growlers.

You can bring empty growlers back to the brewery for refills. New 32-ounce growlers cost $4. Filling them with either Jai Alai or Maduro costs an extra $6. Refills are $5. New gallon growlers are $7 and filling them with Jai Alai or Maduro costs $18. Speciality beers cost a bit more. They also sell kegs.

Beer in growlers does not keep very long once you have opened it. I would suggest drinking it all within a day, otherwise it will be flat and the oxygen in the air will dull the flavor.

Cigar City photo gallery

Hover your cursor over each picture to read the cutline. I'd prefer to have cutlines appear beneath the photos but I haven't figured out a way to do that that doesn't look bad. Any ideas?

At a ball game, craft beer wins

My wife and I took her mother to see the Tampa Bay Rays beat the New York Yankees 5-3 on Saturday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. It had been about 10 years since I last went to a Rays game.*

I planned to get a draft beer at the game and remembered the choices being rather stark: Bud or Bud Light.** So I was surprised to see a Gordon Biersch counter on the way to our seats. Gordon Biersch is a craft brewery based out of Palo Alto, Calif. They brew good German-style beers and are a recent arrival in Florida. I bought a glass (I'm guessing it was about 16 ounces) of their Marzen, which is an amber lager traditionally brewed in March (hence the name) and conditioned (lagered) over the summer when higher temperatures made brewing difficult in the days before refrigeration. This style is also known as Octoberfest.

The beer was $9, ouch, but they filled my glass right to the rim. And all other beers sold there were either $8 or $9; a $9 craft beer beats a $9 Coors Light every time.

And the craft beer options didn't end with Gordon Biersch. I also saw Anchor Steam ($9) on tap at another drinks counter closer to our seats. 

*And I'm pretty sure the last game I saw was TB vs. NYY.

**That beer choice reminds me of the line from "The Blues Brothers," "We have both types of music: country and western!"

Review: Jai Alai IPA

Cigar City winning a gold medal for its barrel-aged Jai Alai IPA made me want to try its draft-only cousin. I've only heard good things about it and as a hophead I was feeling the urge after reading Cigar City's description:

Jai Alai IPA is a monster interpretation of an American IPA. In fact, it is so big that it equals the alcohol of some double IPAs on the market. Our IPA uses 6 different hop varietals, with Simcoe hops only being used for dry hopping. The rest of the hop additions are blended at different IBU's (International Bittering Units) in groups of three hops per addition in order to create more hop complexity.

The ever-helpful Kat told me that the Cock & Bull Pub had it. So I headed over there on Tuesday night and it was still available. Cock & Bull publican Howie Hochberg tells me that Jai Alai is only sold in 5-gallon kegs (compared to 15.5 gallon "regular" kegs). So it can sell out quickly.

From my notes:

It's orange -- almost red -- in color without much of a head and an intense hop aroma. The taste is great. Hops, hops and more hops. The hop flavor is almost juicy and fruity. This really reminds me of IPAs from San Diego. The body is light.

This is a wonderful beer and the best of the four Cigar City beer's I've had. I can't really do justice describing its hoppy flavor: You just have to try a sample to see what I mean.

I can see why its barrel-aged cousin won that gold medal.

And Cigar City, I have a two-word request regarding Jai Alai IPA: bottle it.

P.S. The Cock & Bull also had Cigar City's Maduro brown ale (another brew I haven't had) on tap, but since I was driving I didn't want to have a second beer. Next time, Maduro, next time ...

A judicial opinion on Cigar City's IPA

Melissa Cole, a judge at the Great American Beer Festival, blogged about the beer that made the biggest impression on her at the festival, and it was Cigar City's gold-medal-winning Humidor Series Jai Alai IPA:

The stand-out beer for me that I judged, in terms of innovation, was the winner of the gold category in wood-aged beers, the Humidor Series IPA, Cigar City Brewing, Tampa, FL. It is aged on the wood of cigar boxes, which is called cigar cedar but is actually from the mahogony family, and the spice and aroma it imparts to the beer is absolutely incredible. The base beer IPA itself was technically flawless and the pepper, sandalwood, vanilla, cinnamon, cedar, leather and tobacco notes that poured off it were more akin to a rum descriptor than a beer but still incredible nonetheless.

As Johnny Carson might say, wild stuff.

My super-helpful newspaper colleague and fellow BeerAdvocate member Kat tells me that the Cock & Bull Pub has had the regular, non-Humidor Jai Alai IPA on tap recently. But since Cigar City's beers sell quick, you might want to call the pub before making a special trip.

World of Beer starts training

World of Beer posted on Twitter today that they have started training their staff at their in-progress beer bar off University Parkway in southern Manatee County. So they are another step closer to opening.

Cigar City and The Bruery to collaborate

Tampa's Cigar City Brewing will work with Orange County, California's The Bruery to create a beer made with two unannounced fruits that will be aged in barrels. They haven't announced what the style of beer with be, but Cigar City's Joey Redner posted the following on BeerAdvocate:

So without confirming anything, maybe the idea is to use fruits cultivated in Florida/California rather than specifically native to California. Or maybe not. Personally I think they are going to try to beat Sam Calgione to the punch and recreate one of the few traditional beverages left he has yet to attempt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_drink

They plan to brew it in October or November in California and don't expect it to be released until July or August of 2010.

I've read good things about The Bruery and their unique ales. Their beers aren't sold in Florida yet.

Cigar City IPA wins a gold medal

Cigar City Brewing in Tampa won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

Their Humidor Series Jai Alai IPA took first place in the wood- and barrel-aged beer category, beating 32 other entries. The GABF is one of the largest beer festivals in the world and this medal is a big deal, especially for such a new brewery.

Here's what Cigar City says about their Humidor Series:

The Humidor Series is a rotating offering of Cigar City Brewing beer aged on cedar. We change the offering for every release so that more of our beers get to luxuriate in cigar box cedar.

Cedar has a more subtle effect on beer than more traditional woods like oak. But, we think that once you taste it you'll agree that cedar deserves a place along side oak in the brewer's wood-aging toolbox. Humidor series beers will vary due to style, but are always a good option for pairing with a fine cigar.

I haven't had their IPA, let alone its Humidor Series cousin. Now I'm even more excited about trying this beer.

World of Beer pushes opening to October

I visited the Web site for World of Beer's coming Sarasota-Manatee beer bar and they have pushed their grand opening back to October. Originally they were hoping to open in August or September.

I'm not surprised, considering the state the bar was in when I stopped by recently. Starting up a place like that always takes more time than planned.

When they open, I'll be there.

Skunks, temperatures and beers

A reader a while back asked about "skunked" beer, which is also known as light-struck beer.

BeerAdvocate has an excellent article on the subject. Basically, you should keep your beer away from light, and particularly direct sunlight, because light causes the beer to break down and can give it a sulfur-like character. Brown bottles can slow this process, but don't prevent it.* If you're really anal, you should only buy beer that's kept away from all light.**

That being said, I can't remember the last time I had a light-struck beer. Building on the BeerAdvocate article, a lot of what people think of as "skunked" beer is actually a deliberate character of the beer created by certain strains of lager yeast. I hear about Heineken being skunked a lot. I'm betting it's not skunked -- Heineken is just supposed to taste that way. Check out German pilseners (a loosely related style to Heineken) to see what I mean.

Temperature

The same reader asked about beer's temperature.

In a perfect world, you would always keep your beer refrigerated or at least below 60 degrees. This being Florida, that's not bloody likely unless you have a big fridge. From my experience, taking cold beer from the store and letting it slowly warm up to room temperature in your pantry and later putting it back in the fridge does not cause any real harm. Is it optimal? No. Just don't put cold beer in direct sunlight for any length of time, because then you'll have hot, light-struck beer.

While we're on the subject of temperature, I want to write about serving beer. Most places serve beer far too cold. It shouldn't be just above freezing, because that masks the flavor. Remember: cool, not cold. Stronger beers in particular should be drunk at warmer temperatures -- 50s and 60s -- so that you can fully taste all the complex flavors. I will take a bigger beer (Double, quads, imperial stouts, etc.) out of the fridge and set the kitchen timer for 10 minutes to allow the beer to warm a bit before drinking. The only beer to drink in the 30s is crap beer, and why drink crap?

Also, don't drink beer in a frozen glass because when the beer hits the glass ice particles form, masking the flavor and diluting the beer. But I'm not a jerk about this at a bar or restaurant: When I get an iced glass I simply hold it in my hands to warm it up before pouring the beer into it.

And now the simple act of storing and drinking beer has become complicated. Woo hoo!

*Cans, which got a bad reputation in the past before their technology improved (linings now prevent the beer from touching metal), are the best way to store beer. No light can pass through them and they are more recyclable than bottles and are allowed places glass isn't. More and more brewers are canning their fancy craft beer: Check out Oskar Blues. And if you still poo-poo cans, remember that a keg is just a big can.


**Even I don't do this.

Full Sail IPA is just a great beer

A quickie post today. It's been a few months since I bought Full Sail IPA. I picked up some last week and was reminded how good it is.

It's bitter and hoppy in that great West Coast way. Drinking it reminds me of my visits to Oregon, where Full Sail is brewed. Plus it's usually less than $8 a six-pack, which is a bargain for beer this good.

And Full Sail is employee-owned, which is also pretty neat.

My notes:

Great hoppy aroma: citrus and herbs. The hoppy aroma carries over to a nicely bitter flavor, this isn't balanced at all, but that's the way I like it. Hop flavors abound, of course, with a nominal amount of malt flavor. It has a nice, slick body with plenty of heft. Easy to drink and pretty easy on the wallet.

This is the best of the Full Sail beers (Amber, Pale Ale, Session Lager) available in Florida on a regular basis. For hopheads, this is a great default beer.

A final note: Full Sail has best-by dates stamped on their bottles, which is a good way to tell if the beer is fresh, this is one beer you don't want to drink when it's old because the hop flavors will mellow. For more information on fresh beer, check out this previous post.

Review: Improvicasion

Cigar City likes to make interesting beers. Their creativity reminds me of Dogfish Head.

They call Improvicasion an "oatmeal rye India-style brown ale." OK, I haven't had one of those before.

Oatmeal makes beer creamy and adds slickness to the body. Rye, according to Brewingtechniques.com, adds further complexity to beer's malt flavor. It doesn't make beer taste like rye unless a good amount is used. And the India part makes me think they've used more hops than you would normally use in a brown ale.

Here are my notes:

Pours almost totally black with a big frothy brown head. The hoppy aroma was surprising for a beer this dark. It's quite floral. The taste is also all about the hops, with big citrus notes that mix with a chocolate malt flavor. It's bitter and malty and very nice. The body is creamy and works great with the chocolate flavors from the malt.

This one is for hopheads and brown ale fans. Think of it as a brown ale mixed with an India Pale Ale.

This is another great beer from Cigar City. I've had three of their dark beers; I need to try a pale one now.

Review: B.O.R.I.S. The Crusher Oatmeal-Imperial Stout

This is the third of three Hoppin' Frog beers* I bought recently, seeing as they are new in Florida.

As I've written before, imperial stouts were originally brewed in England and shipped to the Russian court. They are a lot stronger than regular stouts. Hard drinkers, those Russians. B.O.R.I.S.** is 9.4 percent alcohol and won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2008.

Pours all black with a chocolate-brown head that almost instantly reduces to just a ring in my glass. It has a light aroma of roasted malt and alcohol. The taste is creamy and chocolaty, with big alcohol flavors that are overpowering the malt. A very nice body, no doubt thanks to the oatmeal and high alcohol.

This is a decent imperial stout, but there are better -- and cheaper -- ones out there. Check out North Coast's Old Rasputin and Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout (that's only a winter release, though) for excellent examples.

After trying all three Hoppin' Frog beers, my opinion is their beers are very overpriced at $9 to $12 a bottle. This 22-ounce bottle was $10 at Total Wine & More.

*Check out my reviews of Mean Manalishi Double IPA and Hoppin' To Heaven IPA.

**Hoppin' Frog says B.O.R.I.S. stands for Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout.

Review: Bolita Brown

When I see Cigar City beers in stock at a store, I pick one up: They bottle in very limited amounts and when something's gone, it's gone.

I picked up a 750 mL bottle of Bolita Brown, one of Cigar City's seasonal beers, for $10 at my go-to beer store, Total Wine & More. I find myself going there a lot more than to Whole Foods, even though that store is right near where I work. For one, Total Wine's prices are usually better than Whole Foods and they have a larger selection, though Whole Foods frequently has beers Total Wine doesn't.

According to the label, the name of this beer was decided by a contest and refers to the old Ybor City lottery game called bolita, or little ball. The illegal game was often fixed, they say.

Back to the beer. From my notes:

Almost black, this beer lets just a bit of deep ruby light through. It has a nice light brown head. A big aroma of roasted malt: coffee, toffee, caramel and chocolate. The taste is super creamy, like a nutty, roasted malt-coffee shake, but not as sweet as that sounds. It's just really good. The high alcohol level is almost totally hidden. A wonderful body: glassy and slick.

The second Cigar City beer I've had. This one is excellent. I enjoyed it a bit more than their 110K+OT. I'm looking forward to drinking my bottle of Improvicasion, which Cigar City calls an oatmeal rye India-style brown ale.

A beer that's been chewed up and spit out

An alert Sarasota Craft Beer reader* tipped me that The New York Times wrote Tuesday about how Dogfish Head, who are known for brewing high-concept beers** has done it again.

According to the Times, Dogfish's founder, Sam Calagione -- a craft beer celebrity and master pitchman who comes up with all these high concepts -- decided to brew chicha, a traditional Latin American corn beer. OK, that's not that weird; many beers (Budweiser) use corn.

But Calagione wanted to make it the traditional way, which involves milling the corn and moistening it in the brewer's mouth.

That's right, Calagione and some helpers (two professors of anthropology and archaeology) chewed up corn, formed it into patties, let the corn sit for some hours and then brewed with it. They say the enzymes in your mouth help convert the starches in corn into sugar, much the same way that steeping malted grains in warm water (mashing) does in the brewing of malt beer. During fermentation, yeast converts the sugars into alcohol.

As Calagione points out, there's nothing unsanitary about the process because the wort is throughly boiled before fermentation.

Well, the chewing of the corn didn't go quite like they planned. You should really read the Times' story; it's quite funny.

*Thanks, Mom.

**See my reviews of Sah'tea -- made with tea and juniper berries -- and Theobroma -- made with chilies and cocoa.

Review: Sah'tea

I had to buy a bottle of Dogfish Head Sah'tea ($14 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine & More) after reading about Dogfish Head brewing it in The New Yorker. It's a modified sahti, which is a Scandinavian style that, according to BeerAdvocate, dates back to the 1500s. The malted grains were boiled in wooden vessels that had heated stones dropped into them. The wort was then poured into another vessel that was lined with juniper branches, which served as a filter while infusing the wort with juniper.

Dogfish Head used hot rocks and juniper in Sah'tea, but, in their typical iconoclastic style, added more herbs and spices to compliment the beer. According to The New Yorker, they added cardamom, coriander, ginger, allspice, rampe leaves, lemongrass, curry powder, and black tea to the Sah'tea test batch at the end of the boil. I'm guessing a similar mixture is in this batch.

My notes:

A cloudy golden color without really any head to speak of. The smell is sweet, tea-like herbal and spicy and very nice. The taste -- as the smell -- reminds me of Belgian beers. Lots of spice and herbal flavors are working here, but the beer isn't cloying: the chai tea and juniper are under control. It's been a while since I had a beer with juniper in it, but this beer reminds me that juniper berries are good stuff. The high alcohol level is totally hidden: I don't detect it at all. It has a slick and smooth body, which I would expect from a 9 percent beer.

This is a great beer and another winner from Dogfish Head. Their Theobroma slightly shook my faith, but Sah'tea has restored it.

For tea fans especially, I highly recommend this beer. Though at $14 per bottle, it will remain an occasional treat for me.

Waiting for World of Beer

I drove by the soon-to-open World of Beer off University Parkway in southern Manatee County today after visiting Total Wine & More.*

Looks like they still have a ways to go; I didn't notice much progress since my last visit a couple of weeks ago.

And a source within Sarasota's craft beer community tells me that World of Beer may allow smoking inside if they can't get approval for their patio. Let's hope the place can be nonsmoking: A nonsmoking beer bar will be a big hit with all the beer fans who would never go to a smoky bar. Perhaps one day Florida will follow other states and ban smoking in all businesses.

*I went there to buy my wife some Saranac Root Beer, a great root beer that she loves. I told myself I wasn't going to buy any beer, since two weeks ago I spent almost $80 on a few 22-ounce bottles (see my post on Hoppin' Frog).

I decided to walk past the beer shelves to see what was new so I could blog about it. Well, they had a new Cigar City beer, Improvicasion ($9.99), and Dogfish Head's Sah'tea ($13.99), which was the beer they brewed while being visited for an article by the New Yorker.

So my willpower snapped and I bought a bottle of each and hope the Dogfish Head Sah'tea is better than their Theobroma.

And I see that my footnote is now longer than the main post. Great.

Review: Mean Manalishi Double IPA

Mean Manalishi Double IPA from Hoppin' Frog Brewery in Akron, Ohio, is one of the most expensive I've had: $12 for a 22-ounce bottle at Total Wine & More.

The Double IPA is my favorite style of beer. They are very hoppy, very bitter and usually pretty strong. Mean Manalishi is 8.2 percent alcohol.

From my notes:

It's ruby in color with a sticky off-white head. Big aroma of hops: citrusy. A big citrus hop flavor with an equally big bitter bite. I'm also noticing big alcohol notes. Oily and slick body.

This beer was not the hops assault I was expecting, considering Hoppin' Frog says it's 168 IBUs.*

It's a fine Double IPA, but at this price there are better, cheaper alternatives. One that springs to mind is Lagunitas Hop Stoopid, which is less than half the price for a 22-ounce bottle.

*IBU stands for International Bitterness Unit. The higher the number, the bitterer the beer. Hops make beer bitter. For reference, Budweiser has about 8.5 IBUs, according to that dubious source, Wikipedia. I've read that the human palate can't detect anything beyond 90 IBUs, so this beer is probably overkill.

Review: Cali-Belgique

I was happily surprised to see a note on BeerAdvocate that Cali-Belgique from Stone was in stock. I heard from friends that this beer started out as a one-off, but was so popular that Stone is brewing it year-round. A 22-ounce bottle was $6 at Total Wine & More on Aug. 20, but I heard it was part of a special order, so don't be surprised if they are out of it.

Stone calls this a Belgian IPA, which, according to BeerAdvocate, is a style Belgian brewers started making after having hoppy American beers. The key to these beers is Belgian yeast, which adds its special spicy, earthy -- even funky -- notes to beer. So now Stone makes a Californian (Cali) version of a Belgian (Belgique*) beer that was inspired by hoppy American beers like Stone's regular lineup. You can call this the circle of life.

From my notes:

What a beautiful beer. It's bright gold in color with a large sticky white head. The aroma spicy and lightly hoppy. It has a similar taste of spice and general Belgian beer flavors. Mild levels of hops for a Stone beer, which takes little getting used to. But after wrapping my mind around it I like it. There is still a good hop presence, but it a non-Stone way.

Overall this is a very good beer and a neat departure for Stone from their normal hoppy brews. This is a beer to seek out.

*Note: You may see this beer labeled Cali-Belgique or Cali-Belgie. Why? As usual, Stone writes a lot of notes on the back of the bottle. They explain that they don't want to alienate Belgians, some of whom speak French, some of whom speak Flemish. So about 50 percent of the bottles are Cali-Belgique and 50 percent are Cali-Belgie.

Review: IPA "Finest Kind"

The Smuttynose Brewing Co.* from Portsmouth, N.H., is a relatively new arrival in Florida.

But I remember having their beers years ago at the Cock & Bull Pub when it was still on Main Street in Sarasota. I guess they stopped distributing at some point but decided to come back. Welcome back!

They call their India Pale Ale "Finest Kind." I don't know why. But I can say that this is some fine beer.

From my notes:

This beer pours golden in color with some sediment and a big head that reduces to a layer of foam in my glass. It has a light aroma of bread and hops. The taste is nicely hoppy and bitter, with a light malt touch. It's quite bitter, actually. Good smooth body.

Overall this is a fine IPA and I can see why it's highly rated. This is a beer made for fans of hops, but it's not too extreme for the rest of the beer world.

*You have to love their logo: a smuttynose seal.

Review: Sparkling Ale

When I saw this bottle of Bell's Sparkling Ale on the shelf, I thought it was a low-alcohol beer like Cooper's Sparkling Ale. But at $2.50 per 12-ounce bottle, I realized it must be something different. Reading the label set me straight. This is a Belgian Tripel, a strong golden ale usually brewed with coriander and dried orange peel. Bell's is almost 9 percent alcohol. They say this is their take on a glass of "bubbly."

From my notes:

It pours a nice golden color with a big head that quickly reduces to a ring of foam in my glass. It has a fruity and lightly spicy aroma. Nice. The flavor is lightly spicy and rather sweet, with light malt notes and a light flavor of alcohol. The body is nicely fizzy.

Overall this is a pretty good Tripel.

But if you want to try a great Tripel, check out Abbey Triple from Sprecher in Milwaukee. I bought a bottle at Total Wine & More in March. Great stuff.

Review: 13th Anniversary Ale

Stone makes some mean beers. They're not for the craft beer newbie.

As I've written about before, I'm very excited to have Stone's 13th Anniversary Ale after reading their comments that it's the hoppiest beer they've ever made. That's like Barrett Rifles saying they've made their biggest gun yet.*

From my notes:

It's very, very deep red with a big foamy light brown head. The aroma is hoppy, of course, and even spicy. A depth of hops, if that's such a thing. The strength of the beer must be controlling some of the hops, because this isn't slamming me with hop aromas. The taste is barleywine-like. Big, warming malt flavors (toffee, caramel, biscuit) combine with huge hop flavors (spice, citrus, floral) to make a really big, hoppy beer. A smooth and creamy, even oily, body. Slick.

You might as well call this a barleywine, and this is a good one. Seek it out.

I bought two 22-ounce bottles ($7 each) at Total Wine & More on University Parkway. I'd be surprised if it's still in stock, though, because I hear they only had one case of 12 bottles.

*I see that Stone uses 4.5 pounds of hops per barrel with this beer. Samuel Adams used 6 pounds of hops per barrel for their LongShot Double IPA. Take that, Stone! And for those keeping score at home, a beer barrel holds 31 gallons.

Review: Hoppin' To Heaven IPA

Hoppin' Frog Brewery from Akron, Ohio, is another new arrival in Florida. It seems we're getting a lot of new beers these days! As our former president said, "Bring 'em on!"

I bought one of each of their three beers that were available at Total Wine & More off University Parkway. These beers had better be good, because they are expensive. From $9 to $12 per 22-ounce bottle, to be exact.

Tonight I decided to drink their Hoppin' To Heaven IPA. My notes:

Pours a lovely deep copper in color with a sticky head that quickly turns into a thin layer of foam. Very strong citrus and earthy hop aroma. The taste is -- no surprise -- very hoppy. Big hop flavors mix with a honey sweetness and earthiness and finish with big bitterness. The flavors are so big I'd almost describe this as a Double IPA. A slick and oily body, thanks to the hops. Overall this is a very nice hoppy IPA. An Ohio beer that reminds me of California.

This is an excellent beer. Though at $9 per bottle, this isn't one I'll be buying often.

Beer haul: Cigar City, Stone, Hoppin' Frog and Bell's

After being alerted on BeerAdvocate that Stone's 13th Anniversary ale was in stock at Total Wine & More, I had to get some. (Remember, Stone calls this the "hoppiest beer we've ever brewed.") Sure enough, a phone call confirmed that they had 22-ounce bottles in stock for $7 each. So I headed over on today.

Not only did they have the anniversary ale, they also had Stone's Cali-Belgique ($6), their take on a Belgian IPA.

I also picked up a new Cigar City beer: Bolita Brown ($10 for a 750 mL), their double English brown ale that's 9 percent alcohol. Cigar City beers sell fast, so get them while you can at your favorite beer store.

I also bought three bottles of Hoppin Frog, an Ohio brewery that's a new arrival here. Pricey stuff for 22-ounce bottles: I hope they're good. The three: B.O.R.I.S. the Crusher Oatmeal Imperial Stout ($10), Hoppin' to Heaven IPA ($9) and Mean Manalishi Double IPA ($12!).

Finally I bought a 12-ounce bottle of Bell's Sparkling Ale, a Belgian triple that they compare to champagne. And no, we're not talking about Miller High Life.

All these are new beers for me. Exciting stuff.

New arrival: Magic Hat

Beers from the Magic Hat Brewing Co. of Burlington, Vt., are in Sarasota. So far I've only seen their flagship, No. 9, at the Cock & Bull Pub in Sarasota. Magic Hat sent our entertainment editor a press release (and a beer!) that also said No. 9 is at The Distillery and The Lost Kangaroo Pub in Bradenton.

No. 9 is a good beer. Spicy and Belgian-like, and easy to drink and very approachable for those who aren't beer geeks.

Charity beer tasting in Sarasota

Morton's Gourmet Market, 1924 S. Osprey Ave. in Sarasota, is hosting its annual Celebration of Brewing event on Saturday, Aug. 29 from 4 to 7 p.m. The event will benefit All Faiths Food Bank.

They say they'll have beers "from around the world" and "beer-friendly cuisine," which I would argue is pretty much all food because beer is so versatile, far more versatile than wine. (Check out the menu for Mattison's Brooklyn beer dinner to see what I mean.)

I also hope the international selection of beers isn't just the usual Bud-Miller-Coors suspects with Heineken and Corona thrown in.

There will also be cooking demonstrations with Morton's chefs and a charity raffle.

Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Call (941) 955-9856 or visit mortonsmarket.com for more information and to buy tickets.

Details on Mattison's beer dinner

To update a previous entry, Mattison's Forty-One restaurant, 7275 S. Tamiami Trail in Sarasota, is hosting a five-course beer tasting dinner on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. They are featured beers from Brooklyn, an awesome New York brewery. They supplied details on the menu:

Grilled Peach Salad: 
shaved prosciutto, bitter greens, goat cheese fondue and 
honey-thyme vinaigrette
. The beer: Brooklyner Weisse

Shrimp Cocktail: 
jerk-ginger marinated shrimp, avocado relish and preserved lemon cocktail sauce
. The beer: Brooklyn Sorachi Ace

Fish and Chips: 
Brooklyn beer tempura-fried grouper, fingerling potato chips,
 caper/garlic remoulade and malt vinegar syrup. The beer: Brooklyn Lager



Pork Tenderloin Medallions: 
herbed-caraway crusted pork medallions, apple/pancetta braised cabbage and
roasted pork demiglaze. The beer: Brooklyn Local 2



and for dessert:

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout Brulee served with Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

The event is $40 per person and reservations are required. Call (941) 921-3400 or go to mattisons.com to buy tickets.

Review: Theobroma

Dogfish Head likes to brew "high concept" beers. Like Pangaea, which uses ingredients from all the continents, including water from Antarctic icebergs.

Here's their description of Theobroma:

This beer is based on chemical analysis of pottery fragments found in Honduras which revealed the earliest known alcoholic chocolate drink used by early civilizations to toast special occasions. The discovery of this beverage pushed back the earliest use of cocoa for human consumption more than 500 years to 1200 BC. As per the analysis, Dogfish Head’s Theobroma (translated into 'food of the gods') is brewed with Aztec cocoa powder and cocoa nibs (from our friends at Askinosie Chocolate), honey, chilies, and annatto (fragrant tree seeds).

I love beers like this and have always been impressed with Dogfish Head. So I had to pick up a 750 mL bottle when I saw it at Total Wine & More. It was $14, expensive.

So I opened it tonight. I'll spare you my detailed review, which you can read here.

After drinking about eight ounces, I was getting a bad feeling in my stomach and did something I've never done before: I poured the rest of the glass down the drain.

I hate to give a bad review to a beer from such a great brewery, but this beer was bad. The flavor is mainly of bad chiles and a bit of cocoa.

I'm thinking of trying to get a refund from Total Wine. But I think the beer was exactly as Dogfish Head intended it and not spoiled. Should I just chalk it up to experience?

Review: Z Lager

Fort Collins is a new arrival in Florida. Total Wine & More stocks several of their beers. I had to pick up the smoked one, Z Lager.

Smoked beers are a fairly old style, since historically all grain was malted over wood fires, imparting a smoky flavor to the grain. The first time I had a smoked beer (Rogue's Chipotle Ale) I thought it was the worst beer I'd ever had. But the smoky flavor grew on me and now I love the style. The level of smoke flavor varies from brewery to brewery.

My notes:

This pours a nice copper/mahogany in color with an off-white head that reduces to a thin layer of foam.

Its aroma is lightly smoky.

The taste is also lightly smoky, with a nice malt flavor. It's balanced and not a big smoky mess.

Smooth and creamy body.

Overall this is a nice smoked beer that's subtle enough to be a beer to drink regularly and introduce people to the style.

Review: Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale

Fresh hop beers are relatively new. Instead of using dried hops, brewers use hops right off the vine, which gives the beer a more resiny and floral hop aroma and taste. You have to be quick, though, because hops degrade rapidly in a few days if they aren't dried. I've seen more western brewers do fresh hop beers, I'm guessing because American hops are grown in the west, particularly Washington. Rogue has brewed a fresh hop beer, Hop Heaven, where the hops were picked only hours before being thrown in the brewing kettle.

Fresh hops are only available in the fall. But Sierra Nevada decided to do a fresh hop beer in the spring/summer. To do that, they went to the southern hemisphere. They use fresh hops from New Zealand in this beer. Hence the name: Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale.

I don't consider this a true fresh hop beer because Sierra Nevada dries the New Zealand hops before shipping them to their California brewery. On the 24-ounce bottle's label, they said the hops were picked, dried, shipped and used in a little over a week's time. But still, the hops are dried and aren't truly fresh.

This is the second year Sierra Nevada has brewed this beer.

From my notes on the 2008 brew:

An almost-glowing copper in color with a large foamy head that is rock-solid.

The aroma is all about the hops: It smells of citrus, and, well, hops.

The taste is nice and bitter and hoppy, with just enough malt flavor to provide a slight amount of balance. If you aren't a hophead, though, this might be a bitter bomb.

The body is fine -- possibly even a little light.

Overall, this is a fine fresh hop ale. Probably for hopheads only, though.

I think the 2009 "vintage" isn't quite as bitter as the 2008 brew. It has a real depth of hop flavors and bitterness, but it isn't shockingly bitter. But then, my taste buds may have been further ruined by a year's worth of drinking primarily hoppy, bitter beer.

It's still a lovely hoppy beer. And the 24-ounce bottle looks like a bottle of malt liquor, albeit one that costs $5.49 at Total Wine & More.

World of Beer Sarasota-Manatee micro-update

As I've noted before, World of Beer is planning on opening a new beer bar on University Parkway in southern Manatee County in September. To recap the details: 30 taps, 500 beers, nonsmoking.

They're on Twitter now, and posted that they are planning a grand opening celebration with free food, live music, giveaways and beer. No specifics on date and time, yet.

Review: Hop Ottin' IPA

It's been years since I had Anderson Valley brews. I visited their brewery in Boonville, Calif., in 2003 during a beer pilgrimage. It's a couple of hours north of San Francisco. And yes, there's not much there. A lovely rural area. They are a recent arrival in Florida, which is great.

Anderson Valley's beers have an illustration of a bear with antlers on them. The label says "The legendary Boonville beer." Bear + deer = beer. Too cute.

California breweries love hops. Not just to make beers bitter, but to give them lots of hop flavors. Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery in NYC, even suggests calling Double/Imperial IPAs "San Diego Pale Ale," after the city that really developed the style.

I bought Anderson Valley's Hop Ottin' IPA during a recent trip to Total Wine & More.

My notes:

A deep copper in color with a big foamy head. Nice.

The smell is all hops. Big citrus and floral aromas.

The taste is wonderfully bitter and hoppy. There's a bit of malt balance, but only a token amount. But as I've written before, who cares? Hops, hops and hops. A real depth of hops, likely from several varieties.

A slick and oily body.

Overall this is a great American IPA. It's very much an example of California's love of hops. A must-have, even at a bit more than $10 a six-pack.

Beer tasting dinner in Sarasota

Mattison's Forty-One restaurant, 7275 S. Tamiami Trail in Sarasota, is hosting a five-course beer tasting dinner on Thursday, Aug. 20 at 6:30 p.m. They are featuring beers from the Brooklyn Brewery, an awesome brewery. It's $40 per person and reservations are required.

Call (941) 921-3400 or go to mattisons.com to buy tickets.

Thanks again to H-T Assistant Business Editor Gerard Walen.

One final 'beer summit' post

I just read that craft beer was served at President Obama's "beer summit" Thursday.

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates drank Samuel Adams Light. Good for him.

Cigar city draft lineup for 7/31

I'm late with this news, but Cigar City Brewing in Tampa is having a release party tonight for their Barrel Aged Big Sound Scotch Ale. In addition to Big Sound bottles, they will be offering a very cool draft lineup of some limited beers:

Coco Loco: Bolita Double Nut Brown Ale aged on Cuban espresso beans, coconut flakes and Peruvian cacao nibs. 9% ABV 

Barrel Aged 110K+OT Batch #2: An Imperial Stout dry hopped with Mt. Rainier hops and lightly aged on toasted Spanish Cedar then further matured in former bourbon oak barrels. 11.5% ABV 

Mocha Cubano: Our Maduro Oatmeal Brown Ale aged on Cuban espresso beans and Peruvian cacao. 5.5% ABV

East India Trader: Bolita Double Nut Brown Ale aged on flaked coconut and chai spices. 9% ABV

Coconut Bolita: Bolita Double Nut Brown Ale aged on flaked coconut. 9% ABV

Jai Alai India Pale Ale: An American style India Pale Ale brewed in homage to the original extreme sport, Jai Alai. 7.5% ABV

Maduro Oatmeal Brown Ale: An English style brown ale. Lots of flavor yet nice and sessionable. 5.5% ABV

And this time they will be offering growlers of the above beers, but only after 9 p.m.

Their tasting room is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. today.

Craft brewery reacts to President Obama's beer choice

As I posted earlier this week, the beer choices (Bud Light, Red Stripe and Blue Moon) for President Obama's "summit" have raised concerns in the craft beer world. Craft brewer Magic Hat out of Burlington, Vt., (beer geek aside: I visited them while on my honeymoon!) has issued a news release on the matter, as reported by BeerUtopia.com.

Magic Hat writes:

Craft Brewers the country over are chagrined by the President’s choice to consume a beer owned by a company based outside of America’s borders. Bud Light, owned by Belgium-based AB InBev, and Blue Moon, owned by London-based SAB MillerCoors, together control over 90% of the beer market in the United States. However, the United States boasts almost 1,500 craft brewers, the majority being made up of small Main Street Businesses that employ less than 50 people. In the humble opinions of Magic Hat and American Craft Brewers, it would be a strong show of support for American businesses for President Obama to embrace the free and diverse expression that comes with each American-made craft beer.

Magic Hat Brewing Company urges its thirsty nation to contact the White House directly at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact to ask President Obama to drink American Craft Beer ...

 Let's hope it's not too late to change the beer menu at the White House to craft beer.

Thanks to Herald-Tribune Assistant Business Editor Gerard Walen for the story tip.

President Obama, please drink a craft beer

The New York Times (disclosure: I work for one of their newspapers) writes that Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department will be sharing a beer with President Obama on Thursday. It's an attempt to smooth out tensions over Gates' arrest. Here's what caught my eye:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs promised Budweiser, the all-American king of beers, saying that that’s what Mr. Obama drank while at a recent baseball game.

Mr. President, may I humbly suggest you and your party drink a locally brewed craft beer instead of Budweiser?

A quick search of BeerAdvocate shows there are at least three brewpubs in Washington, D.C. If they sell beer to go, Obama could buy a growler of fresh, locally brewed beer that has much more flavor than Budweiser and isn't brewed with adjuncts like corn and rice. The local breweries may even brew organic beers using local ingredients, something I know Michelle Obama is fond of.

And if the brewpubs don't work out, there are plenty of great craft beers brewed in the Washington region that are sold in stores throughout the district.

What better way to stimulate the economy than by drinking craft beer brewed by a local small business?

Bigfoot barleywine on draft

Fellow BeerAdvocate member DoppleThis reports that the Mellow Mushroom in Citrus Park (map) has a keg of 6-month-old Sierra Nevada Bigfoot barleywine on tap. A barleywine is a strong ale and one style of beer than can be aged. Bigfoot can be aged for years.

Bigfoot is a monster of a beer: bitter, sweet and alcoholic. It's very agressive and will be a shock the first time you try it. I love it. It's one of my Top 10 beers. Sierra Nevada only releases it around the new year and dates each year's release on the bottle caps and labels to help those who age it. The beer also seems to vary slightly from year to year.

I prefer to drink Bigfoot fresh because that's when its huge hop flavors are the strongest. Over time the beer becomes more mellow and balanced, and who needs that?

My notes on the 2009 vintage:

Pours a deep copper in color with a sticky off-white head that leaves chunks of lace in my glass.

It's got that barleywine smell: Citrus hops mix with toffee and caramel notes and a hint of alcohol. Nice.

The taste is perfect. This is what I think of when I think barleywine. It's bitter and malty with lots of hop flavors and a nice warming finish. It is not just a bitter beer: This has depth.

The body is thick and smooth and almost chewy with its heft.

This is one of my most favorite beers. I could drink nothing but this for the rest of my life.

If you're in Citrus Park, check out the Mellow Mushroom and have a glass of Bigfoot.

Review: Leviathan (Imperial IPA)

I picked this up at Total Wine & More the other day: $3 a bottle. It's great to see more Harpoon brews in Florida. I thought we were fated to only get their hefeweizen and IPA.

Leviathan is a rotating release from Harpoon. Each iteration is a different extreme beer. They have also brewed a Baltic porter, strong pilsner and quadruple. This is the first Leviathan I've had.

My notes:

Pours a nice golden/copper in color with a big foamy off-white head.

Big citrus hop aroma.

The taste is sweet, bitter and hoppy. Surprise! This is a sweeter double IPA than most others. It is also more balanced: Instead of being a huge hop bomb, it's a large hop bomb. The sweet, almost sugary, flavors offset the bitterness.

The body is light but slick from the alcohol.

This is a fine beer, but at 10 percent, I'd only have one.

Review: Hop Stoopid

My co-worker Kat told me I needed to try this double IPA from Lagunitas since she knows how much I love Bell's Hopslam, which currently tied with Rogue's Imperial India Pale Ale as my No. 1 rated beer.

So when I was at Total Wine & More this week I picked up a 22-ounce bottle for $4.49, which is a great price. I am a sucker for hoppy beers.

I love this beer's name. The label description, which is weird but not the usual Lagunitas claptrap that makes absolutely no sense, seems to indicate that they used hop extracts.

My notes:

Pours a lovely copper in color with a big foamy off-white head.

The smell is all about the hops. Huge citrus notes. The only beer that smells hoppier is Bell's Hopslam, which smells just like Hop Stoopid, only stronger!

The taste is like the smell: Bitter and hoppy. Big, big citrus flavors mix with vegetable hop flavors. Little malt flavor. No balance. No problem.

The body is light, but not watery.

This is a great double IPA. A must-have for hopheads. Kat described it well: Hopslam light. And that's not derogatory.

Review: LongShot Cranberry Wit

This is the third of three beers in Samuel Adams' LongShot six-packs this year. As I've written before, LongShot beers are the winners of Sam Adams' annual homebrew competition.

I've been slacking on this review. I'm so late, it's probably not in stores anymore. I didn't see any at Total Wine & More on University Parkway the other day.

A witbier, or wheat beer, is similar to a German hefeweizen. Both beers are brewed with malted wheat, in addition to the regular malted barley. Witbiers are a Belgian style that also use spices like coriander and orange peel. German beers cannot use spice because of their famous purity law, the Reinheitsgebot, which prohibits the use of anything in beer other than water, malted grain, yeast and hops. I totally respect the German law, because it means you won't have junk like rice or corn put in your beer without your knowledge, but it prevents German brewers from making some really interesting beers with fruit, spices, honey, etc.

Wheat beers are almost always unfiltered and therefore cloudy. Yeast and other perfectly safe sediment will settle at the bottom of the bottle. You are supposed to pour two-thirds of the beer into a glass, then swirl the remaining beer in the bottle to stir up the compacted sediment, and finally pour that into the glass. Without the sediment, the typical wheat beer flavors are greatly subdued.

What are wheat beer flavors? Banana and clove, primarily. And these flavors don't come from bananas or cloves. Instead, they are esters (flavors) imparted by the yeast.

A lot of wheat beers in restaurants and bars are served with lemon or orange wedges. I avoid garnishes because the citric acid can kill the beer's head and garnishes mask the beer's flavor. Whether to garnish or not is a hot topic among beer geeks.

My tasting notes:

A cloudy straw-colored beer with a big, white foamy head. Lovely.

It has a spicy aroma of cranberries and earthy yeast.

The taste is lightly spicy and sweet from fruit flavors, yet it has the classic witbier esters of clove and banana. I also notice the grains of paradise that appear in other SA beers. It's very easy to drink.

This is my least favorite of the three LongShot beers this year. But that sounds a lot worse than it is. This is still a very good beer. It's light and fruity and refreshing. It's good for all the hot days here in Florida.

Like its two brethren, this beer should be added to Samuel Adams' regular lineup.

Deal or no deal?

A friend told me about a deal on beer at a local store the other day.

His news reminded me that sometimes deals on beer aren't deals at all. Occasionally beer is put on sale because it's old and past its prime. And while some strong beers can be aged, about 99.99 percent of beers are meant to be consumed within a couple of months after being brewed.

BeerAdvocate Magazine recently wrote about this topic. They have some tips to detect old beer.

The first is obvious: Check for a best-by or brewed-on date. For brewed-on dates, don't buy beer that's much more than three months old.

If beer doesn't have an easily-readable freshness date (I think all beer should), a clue that it's old is dust on the bottles.

New beers at Total Wine

I wrote earlier about Anderson Valley beers coming to the Sarasota Whole Foods. Today I went to Total Wine & More near Interstate 75 and they also are carrying the brewery's beers. I bought a six-pack of Hop Ottin' IPA.

There were some other news beers there, too: Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, Lagunitas Hop Stoopid and Harpoon Leviathan.

I've had the Stone beer before and it's good. The Harpoon, Lagunitas and Sierra Nevada brews are new to me. I bought some and will review them soon.

One of my favorite beers, Bison Organic IPA, was back on the shelf. (All links take you to BeerAdvocate's pages for each beer.)

It's easy to spend way too much money on beer these days.

World of Beer Sarasota-Manatee mini-update

Back in May I wrote about the World of Beer bar that's coming to University Park in August or September. Here's a map from their Web site:

I was in the neighborhood today and stopped by to check on their progress. They had more info in the window about what's coming: 30 taps, 500 beers. Fantastic. The inside was still a long ways from being completed, looked like they had dug a trench in the concrete for pipes and drains.

The window sign also said they are hiring and to visit www.wobusa.com/sarasota.html for more info and to apply.

Celebrate Independence Day with craft beer

I'll take the opportunity on the Fourth of July to remind everyone that July is American Beer Month. So while you're celebrating our independence this weekend, why not drink American beer, the same thing our founding fathers drank? And try a craft beer, something made by the little guy, not a giant multinational corporation.

For those beer drinkers out there who "only drink imports," I can guarantee you that the best beer brewed in the world is brewed here in the United States. Any import you like has an American counterpart that will be fresher than a beer that's been shipped across the ocean.

So have a great Independence Day, especially those of you who have to work -- I work at a newspaper and know what that's like.

I'll end with the final -- totally unrelated to beer -- sentence of the Declaration of Independence, where the signers, knowing full well that they had committed themselves and could not turn back, wrote:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

What I drank on my summer vacation

I said I'd write a post about my trip out West. With the long weekend, I can finally get around to it.

The West has lots of great craft beer, and Wyoming is no exception. Some of the craft beers I had there are Old Faithful Ale, Bitch Creek ESB (very good), Sweetgrass IPA, Moose Drool (a world-class brown ale brewed by Big Sky in Montana) and Red Lodge Pale Ale. It's nice to have craft beer available at almost every restaurant. We're not anywhere near that here in Florida.

After visiting Yellowstone National Park we drove south through Grand Teton National Park and stayed in Jackson, Wyo. There's a good brewpub there called Snake River Brewing. From my notes:

My wife and I came here on a Saturday night in early June. It was busy and a little loud, but that had to be expected. It's all nonsmoking, which is great.

As a hophead, I wish they had something hoppy, but the beers I had were very good. I had their OB-1 Organic Ale on cask, which was yummy. I also ordered a sample of their Backdraft Lager and their saison. Both were good.

My wife had their pesto and I had the SRB Cobb salad. Good food.

Our server, Matt, was quick and attentive.

Overall, this is a fine brewpub with more to offer than the standard pub fare and beer.

As a "Star Wars" geek I especially love the name of their organic beer. OB-1, Obi-Wan -- get it? Good stuff.

We also visited Squatters Pub Brewery in downtown Salt Lake City. Nice ambiance, but the food and the beers were so-so. The beer quality may be due to Utah's law requiring beer to be 3.2 percent alcohol or weaker, which is rather weak for beer. But there is one good thing about 3.2 percent beer: You can drink a lot more of it and not feel it!

I highly recommend going to Yellowstone and vicinity. That there's good craft beer there is simply icing on the cake.

Review: Little Sumpin' Sumpin'

A co-worker gave me a bottle of this beer from Lagunitas Monday night. She bought it on sale at Whole Foods in downtown Sarasota. And it was cold, so I just had to drink it after the shift.

Lagunitas, from Petaluma, Calif., generally makes beers with pronounced hop flavors. They're the perfect example of a West Coast brewer. Their beers are also known for the crazy notes printed on them and on the six-pack holders. As a copy editor, the notes can drive me crazy since they read like stream-of-consciousness drivel. Anyway, I'm not going to fault a brewery for that. The real issue is that they brew some mean beers.

Lagunitas describes Little Sumpin' Sumpin' as "way smooth and silky with a nice wheaty-esque-ish-ness." I see.

My notes:

It's a bright gold in color with a sticky head.

It has a great hoppy aroma. Huge citrus and sweet notes bombard my nose.

The taste is all about the hops. Herbal, grassy and citrus flavors all mix with a good bitterness, but not in a hit-you-over-the-head way. Thryn said this reminds her of a lighter Hopslam, and I agree. I can't detect the wheat malt in this.

The body is light, slick and oily.

I like this beer. It's a good hoppy beer that could lead people down the dark path toward my favorite style -- Double IPA.