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.