Brew Review – Mangolandia by Veza Sur @VezaSur

Love them or hate them, you have to admit that Veza Sur has an uncanny pulse on exactly what makes craft beer in Miami-Dade County tick.

For those of you unaware, Veza Sur is the fourth, and currently newest, brewery in the Wynwood district of Miami. It was opened as the collaboration between two breweries that had been purchased by the craft beer wing of Anheuser-Busch InBev and, as a result, they had a big marketing push in the region that continues to this day.

I have not had a chance to check out their tap room, amazing as I have heard it is, but I did have a six-pack of their core beer Mangolandia (Blonde Ale, 4.8% ABV) sent to me.

Brew Review – Pax Odeon by Coppertail Brewing @coppertail

Since I am at home and not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, I wanted to go through my notes and see if there are any beers that I’ve enjoyed, but never wrote up for the blog. I came across Pax Odeon (IPA, 8.4% ABV), an IPA in the Alpha Hunt series of exclusive beer releases from Coppertail.

Brew Review – Florida Hopped FPA by 3 Daughters Brewing @3dbrewing

I recently found out that 3 Daughters decided to do something that I had always hoped they would do, but they had never gotten around to it. They’ve been excellent at distributing their core brands around the state, and my opinion (favorable, by the way) over their new ciders and seltzers has been written numerous times on this blog.

As any taproom and brewery does, they also spend a lot of time releasing great small batch beers. The problem is unless you visit them in St Pete, you never get around to trying those beers. This year, current virus concerns notwithstanding, 3 Daughters finally going forward with their Small Batch Series, a rotating seasonal release schedule encompassing some brand-new beers and some previously taproom-only exclusives such as my beloved Brown Pelican Dunkelweizen.

Brewery Visit – Ancient City Downtown @AncientBrewing

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve pubished an article. Sorry, life has just gotten in the way. I hope to have more articles coming out soon for your quarantine reading pleasure, plus there’s also the Florida Beer Podcast, up now basically everywhere good podcasts can be downloaded!

Concerning the Podcast, it is with a heavy heart but I must tell you that I had to scrap the audio from a recent interview that I did with Greg Huddle, president and co-founder of Ancient City Brewing in St. Augustine. It’s a shame, because the interview was so good and it was great to speak to somebody who is, in essence, the biggest name in craft beer in St. Johns County.

Brew Review – Dec. Beers at Bone Hook @bonehookbeers

Bone Hook Brewing in Naples is one of those almost comic breweries that just keeps growing every time you see them. They’re not completely known in most parts of the state, but every time I check in on them, they’re still there. Just a little bit bigger than before.

Brewery Visit – Hell ‘n Blazes @HellNBlazes

Oh, the frustration of doing a podcast with substandard equipment.It’s not that I don’t want good equipment, but that stuff’s expensive ana I don’t have a sponsor yet. So when you go to certain places, unfortunately, you are at the mercy of whatever forces built the building and the surroundings environs.The funny thing is, a previous inhabitant of the hundred and twenty year old building that currently houses Hell ‘n Blazes Brewing in Melbourne had exactly the same issue with that building. They were a TV studio, but the building was so old and creaky, and they were so close to the train tracks, that when something happened outside you heard everything inside.

Brewery Visit – Bay Cannon Beer Co. @BayCannonBeer

When you write about beer in the state of Florida, you’re going to spend a statistically significant amount of time in Tampa. There’s just no avoiding it, Tampa really is the craft beer capital for the Sunshine State.

But Tampa is a big city and there are several neighborhoods which have more than their fair share of those breweries. Seminole Heights is definitely hopping, there’s a good chunk along the Riverwalk, and do we really need to talk about Ybor at this point?

Then there is West Tampa. To be honest, my experience of West Tampa is that place I pass by on Interstate 275 on my way between downtown and the airport or heading to Pinellas. There’s some expansion showing up, and one of those is the relatively new Bay Cannon Beer Company.

It was opened in August of 2019 and the name is clear inspiration from the cannons that used to adorn Henry Plant’s Tampa Bay Hotel, long before it became a museum and part of the University of Tampa.

Brew Review – Leatherback Lager by Darwin Brewing @DarwinBrewingCo @MoteMarineLab @WinnDixie

The Florida brewing industry is no stranger to making beers brewed for and benefiting various charities around the state. A lot of the time those beers are something local and Taproom exclusive, but then sometimes a brewery will package and distribute one of these special beers in their region.

Every so often, however, you get a statewide release of one of these beers, which happened recently with Darwin Brewing in Bradenton. Two recent beers were made and released to benefit Mote Marine Laboratory in nearby Sarasota.