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.