Hustle and Flow

Beer #483 Dos Anos / Cigar City Brewing Company, Tampa, FL
Previously from this brewery: Hotter than Helles and Jai Alai

Flow  [floh]
1. to move along in a stream: The river flowed slowly to the sea. (verb)
2. to circulate: blood flowing through one's veins. (verb)
3. glamorous, wavy locks of hair; often referred to as 'luscious': Ladies love to run their hands through my luscious flow. (noun)

Instead of pulling weeds from the garden or putting down mulch on this sunny day, I was getting my flow in order, as I was a bit overdue for a haircut.  For those who only know me on the internet, it's important for you to understand I possess an awesome head of dark, thick, dreamy hair.  Thankfully, everything is back in order courtesy of a shampoo, a face & scalp massage, some hot towels, and skilled scissor work.  In case you were wondering, here's a picture of me post-haircut, with my flow back in full force:

FLOW.

But enough about me, you're also here for the beer.  Today's brew is an unusual find at TJ's yesterday after work: the Dos Anos from Cigar City Brewing. I call it unusual because how often do you find a kumquat berlinerweisse out there in the world?  Not often.  In the glass, it was a cloudy yellow, with a very thin head.  Your nose finds aromas of tart and sour fruit, and when you take a sip you get a blast of fresh fruit, followed by a tart sourness.  More citrus than funk, which ended up making this a rather drinkable beer.  As I wrote in my notes: "So that's what a kumquat tastes like."

Who loves bad camera phone pics?
This guy!

Berlinerweisse beers can be a bit of an acquired taste, I suppose, as you need to appreciate that sour quality to truly enjoy the style.  However, if you want something with a good fruit quality, definitely give this one a whirl.

Thing to Think About Today:
Here's how the last five minutes of my life just went:
/ searches iTunes for songs about hair; finds little worth noting in this space
// contemplates searching for references to kumquat, thinks better of it
/// searches 'songs about hair' on google, depresses self with lack of good ideas
//// realizes someone called Willow Smith wrote something called Whip My Hair; gives up

So, instead of something wonderfully clever about hair, I'll just close things out with a song about what life is like when your flow is luscious.  The good hair might be mine, but the floor belongs to Right Said Fred:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39YUXIKrOFk

"I'm too sexy for my shirt / too sexy for my shirt / so sexy it hurts"

The Countdown Begins!

Beer #336 Swamp Ape / Florida Beer Company, Melbourne, FL
Beers to Go: 30

As you see, the countdown is officially on!!  We're now just 30 beers away from crossing the finish line, which is very exciting.  If anyone out there knows someone at a publishing company who might want to buy the rights to our novel, please send them my way.  I really need to figure out a way to pay for all of the beers along the way.

Today is a PSU game day, and I'll be watching at a tailgate fundraiser.  This is important because I'll be watching on a thirty foot screen, which is a completely surreal way to watch football.  And what goes better with football than beer?

Today's beer is the Swamp Ape, an Imperial IPA from Florida Beer Company.  When you pour it, you see a hazy honey amber color.  The aroma is floral, with citrus and pine, and is that hint of smokiness perhaps?  When you take a sip, you get some honey sweetness, malt, and a dry, bitter finish.  This beer confuses me, because I swear upon all that is holy I picked up a bit of bacon flavor in there.  Maybe I'm wrong, what do I know.  If you're in the market for an Imperial or double IPA, you can give this one a shot, but you might be better off with beers from Hopping Frog, Dark Horse, Central Waters, Bell's, or Weyerbacher, to name a scant few.

I do like the packaging. That ape means business.

If you're ever driving from Daytona south to West Palm Beach along US 1, feel free to stop in and pay these guys a visit.

Thing to Think About Today:
So, I've never run across a swamp ape, but I do fondly recall Grape Ape.  Who's with me on this?  Kids today don't need all of these strange new shows (the Wiggles? Seriously?), they need some Hanna-Barbera and Warner Brothers cartoons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXxkfxRiAEY

Beer 332: Florida Beer Co. Swamp Ale and Random Thoughts

Did you vote? I voted. I was #92 at my polling station. I wish I remembered what position I held in previous elections to know whether there were more or less people voting. I tend to show up at the same time every year so the nerd in me is curious about it.

In addition to doing my civic duty, I'm also trying to eat healthier.  It started with a fancy-pants new juicer and a boatload of fresh fruit and veggies. Wegman's is probably wondering who stole my frequent shopper card and is buying all that produce! I am the world's worst quasi-vegetarian. But now once a day, I take a pile of stuff that looks like this:

2 cups grapes, 2 handfuls spinach, bunch of kale,
head of broccoli, lemon, lime, apple, pear

...and turn it into two pint glasses of deliciousness. Or at least what could be construed as delicious if I got the sweet to savory ratio right. So far the juices have ranged in color from brilliant green (should have gotten a photo of that one!) to the color that results after giving a 4 year old all the orange, green and brown crayons to color with. I couldn't bring myself to create evidence of that one. Hopefully as I get more adept at making juuice, I'll share some of the results. For now, you're better off not seeing the fruits (ha!) of my labor.

In other random thoughts, did you know there's a song about James K. Polk -- the 11th President of the United States? Oh there is thanks to They Might Be Giants.

James K. Polk by They Might Be Giants

Things I like about President Polk. If it wasn't for his passion for the Oregon Territory, Portland, Oregon may not have become the beer mecca that it currently is. 54-40 or fight, indeed. 

Speaking of beer but not one from Oregon, let's talk Swamp Ale Imperial IPA from the Florida Beer Company.  This is a whopper of an imperial IPA weighing in at 10% ABV.  The label tells me that it is brewed with five distinct varieties of hops to create an unbelievable, relentlessly hopped India pale ale. They got that right.

It poured an apricot color with a fluffy white head.  Lots of sweet and bitter hops leap out in the aroma.  The flavor is pepper, fruit esters, cinnamon, rum, burnt sugar. Some nice, rich malts are also hiding in there to balance the intensity of the hops. Oddly beeradvocate.com slammed it in the reviews, but I like it. And I like it enough to give is a great rating.

Cheers!

Beer 140: Cigar City Brewing and an Afternoon Beer

Despite swearing that I was spending today in a coma in my pajamas, I managed to get a ridiculous number of things done.  The contractor finished up the latest round of work at our house.  I found a new little project for myself that took me to Lowe's and we swung by Ikea in search of new glassware, ended up with new lanterns and a good idea for a replacement couch.

The afternoon ended at TJ's and me finding a tasty beer from Cigar City Brewing.  Hotter than Helles is a Munich style lager.  It poured a cloudy lemon-yellow shade of beer with a thin head.  It smelled bready and grainy.  The flavor was surprisingly sweet, malt and very smooth.  I noted faint hints of orange undertones.  It was very quenching and  clean.  I could have put a few of them back.

Cheers!

Beer 125: St. Somewhere Saison Athene

I’m writing this with an endless loop of Funky Cold Medina playing in my head thanks to the description provided by The Boilermaker of a “funky saison”.

I know it doesn’t rhyme and the meter is off, but here I sit, typing away, wondering “why you so fly?”.  It’s the funky cold medina.

***

Evidently Birthday-Celebrating-Marci
forgets to take photos

I banked this beer on my birthday bar tour -- ok my birthday bender -- at The Boilermaker.  St. Somewhere is brewed in Florida, which I never associate with craft beer.  But 125 days into this adventure, we’ve encountered two breweries already.  The Saison Athene poured a dark yellow and had a slightly floral aroma with a little spiciness.  The taste was awesome -- balanced, lots of carbonation, kind of tart, a little earthy and citrusy.  I also wrote “cherries? candy?” in my notes.  Then I drank a lot that day/night and have no clue what that meant.

Overall I would drink the Saison Athene again if I encountered it.  I’m also definitely going to check out some of the other offerings from St. Somewhere.

Cheers! I'm off to find all my Tone Loc tracks on the iPod.

Somebody's Got a Case of the Mondays...

Beer #58 Saison du Chene  / Saint Somewhere Brewing Company, Tarpon Springs, FL
Getting my hustle on today, so I'll just stick to the facts.

One of the highlights of this beer adventure has been trying beers from new breweries, so when I saw Saint Somewhere on draft at Teresa's, I was intrigued.  At first, I was afraid this was some crap brewery that was using a line from a Jimmy Buffett song to hawk a "Margaritaville" experience - or worse, a Jimmy Buffett owned brewery (I guess Landshark has that one covered?).  No worries, this brewery is a legit one-man micro operation, producing a scarce 450 barrels of Belgian beers each year.

The Saison du Chene is actually a blend of another saison from two different points in the aging process.  In the glass it's a dark yellow, and gives off an aroma of  peanut butter.  Very dry, with a little citrus flavor hiding in the corners, and a funky taste.  Funk is usually a very good flavor in my book for saisons, but this pushed it a bit too far. I kept coming back to the same thoughts on the taste - barn, nut, earth. 7.5% ABV.  I can't lie, I wasn't overwhelmed with this one.  This being said, I'll likely try another St. Somewhere offering (likely the Lectio Divina) as anyone willing to swing for the fences like this deserves another trip to the plate.

Thing to Think About Today:
Hopefully your post-Super Bowl hangover was a small one, hopefully you caught the good commercials and went easy on the taco dip.  And hopefully you listened to my advice on Madonna and listened to better music at halftime.  But most importantly on a day where you wish you were at home, let's all hope that you didn't have a case of the Mondays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AB9zPfXqQQ

I'm not sure this movie is funny to people who've never worked in an office for a big conglomeration.  However, for those of us who have lived in the "cube farm", Office Space might be the best movie of all time.  Hopefully this clip will help cure any Monday issues for you....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEs67tv401o

Beer + Mac & Cheese: All-American Dinner.

Beer# 24 Jai Alai IPA/ Cigar City Brewery, Tampa FL
While all of you are complaining about being back to work after the holidays, I was working almost all weekend, so I'm still in the groove!  I'm itching to do some cooking this week, which totally explains why I'm making Kraft mac & cheese for dinner.  Sometimes, after a long day you just need comfort food.

On with the show. Today's beer is from a brewery I had no idea existed - but that's the point of the blog, after all.  Florida probably isn't one of the places front of mind when you think of notable breweries, but good craft beers truly are coming from everywhere lately.  My first foray into Florida brewing was Cigar City's Jai Alai IPA, checking in at a solid 7.5% ABV and 70 IBUs.   At first glance, the beer is copper colored, with a nice hop taste and some citrus balance.  Doesn't taste as hoppy as the IBU score suggests, and I could see myself putting a few of these down in a session.  For the uninitiated, a "session" beer is one that you can drink 12 of in a sitting.  No one wants to advertise that they intend to get drunk out of their gourd, so instead they drop the session label to make it seem more cultured.  Now you know!

Cigar City also makes a version of this IPA aged in white oak barrels, and their blog hints of a scotch ale aged in rum barrels.  Would definitely like to try both in the future.  Their website shares some interesting history on brewing in the Tampa area back to the late 1800's, but oddly not much about how Cigar City came into existence.  I always like reading about how breweries came to be...

Things to Think About Today:
If we're talking about Tampa, might as well highlight the best dining option in town, Columbia Restaurant.  They have outposts throughout Florida - we first had their dynamic cuisine in St. Augustine - but the Ybor City location is the original location, dating back to 1905.  With a huge menu of Cuban and Spanish choices, you can order just about anything and get an amazing meal, but do yourself a favor and start off your meal with a pitcher of Sangria de Cava and a 1905 Salad.  Definitely a must-visit when in the area, and far better than the mac & cheese I'm eating tonight.