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.

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: 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.

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.

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.

Review: Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Brewers put all sorts of interesting things in beer. Would you believe coffee? It can work really well in beer, especially in stouts and porters, which used roasted and blackened malt, which has some natural coffee-like flavors.

The best such beer I've had is Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout from Terrapin in Athens, Ga. It's also known as Wake-n-Bake. They use a special blend of coffee from Athens coffee company Jittery Joe's. This beer also uses oatmeal (as do some other stouts), which gives beer a velvety texture.

I recently learned from BeerAdvocate magazine that there is almost no caffeine in coffee beers. There's just not that much coffee in them. So that's good for those who avoid the stimulant.

Part of my review notes from when I had it on tap at the Cock & Bull in January for the first time:

The smell is great. Big coffee and chocolate notes.

The taste: Wow. This totally lives up to the hype. It's creamy and sweet, but not cloying. The coffee flavors are big, but there are no tannin notes of bad coffee. I just realized that this is a stronger stout. Its strength is very well-hidden. There are no notes of alcohol or solvent flavors.

It has a super-creamy body.

This is one fantastic beer. Terrapin only brews this in the winter, but I was able to get a 2008 four-pack ($12!) from Whole Foods last week. At 8 percent alcohol, this beer can age well, so there wasn't any worry of it being past its prime. And it was just as good as it was in January at the pub.

Read more reviews of it at BeerAdvocate.

Cigar City beers coming to Sarasota

Howie Hochberg, the owner of the Cock & Bull Pub, posted on BeerAdvocate that he's working to get all the brews from Cigar City Brewing, a new craft brewery that's just started in Tampa. Their beers are generating a lot of buzz in the beer geek community.

I haven't been able to try any of their beers. Howie had some of their Maduro brown ale, but he was out of it by the time I was able to stop by.

Here's the thread on BeerAdvocate.

Southwest Florida's craft beer renaissance

The craft beer situation here in Sarasota County, circa the late 1990s, was rather bleak. Remember in "The Blues Brothers" when the band went to Bob's Country Bunker? The proprietor said they played both kinds of music: County and Western. The beer selection here used to be like that: Bud and Bud Light. Until the Big Change.

But before the Big Change there were oases in the wasteland.

The first one I found was the Cock & Bull Pub on Main Street in Sarasota. I learned of it through co-workers. We went there after the shift one night, and I was hooked. I'll write about the Cock & Bull in another post, probably in the same one where I write about how I got into craft beer.

Seeking a bottle of Corsendonk ale I had on draft at the C&B led me to Blackburn Point Liquors on U.S. 41 in Osprey. I found it by calling all the liquor stores in the yellow pages. That was a great beer store, and the only store in the region that had a good selection of craft beer.

So what was the Big Change?

It was the repeal of Florida's old beer bottle size law. This law, which dated back decades, declared that beer sold in Florida had to be in 8, 12, 16 or 32-ounce containers. That kept out many American craft breweries, who bottled in 22-ounce "bombers," and many international breweries, who bottled in metric sizes like 500 mL and 750 mL. This law was supported by the big breweries like Anheuser-Busch and Miller, who didn't want the competition. I remember them arguing that there were already something like 700 beers available in the state. Wasn't that enough?

I can't remember which legislator wrote a bill to repeal this law. But the first year he introduced it the big breweries fought the bill and it didn't pass. The next year, the breweries didn't fight and bill went through and Gov. Lawton Chiles signed it. Under the new law all bottles were legal as long as they were 32 ounces or less.

I remember asking Neil, the owner of Blackburn Point Liquors, when the new bottles would come in. What a great day that was! I bought a bottle of Abbaye Des Rocs Grande Cru and loved it. Soon were were getting bombers from Rogue Ales in Oregon, one of my favorite breweries.

The repeal was the watershed moment for craft beer in Florida. It opened up our market to so much great beer.