I was slight bone to pick with Florida’s craft brewers. And it starts with a question:
Off the top of your mind, what mixed drink do you think best represents the state of Florida?
I would assume that a lot of you would say the Mojito. Maybe some people would go for a strawberry daiquiri, but some people just like frozen slushies. What can I say.
If you were to talk about the American Southwest, I would easily give you the margarita. And yet here we are, in a state that favors rum and produces rum and loves rum, yet we are consistently making craft beers styled after the lime-infused tequila-based drink, not the lime-infused rum-based drink.
I have a slight issue with that. Not that margaritas aren’t good. They have their fans and that’s all right for them, and I also understand that a margarita is a slightly more accessible drink to beer-ize than a mojito.
Whereas a mojito has that mint that is relatively tricky to properly mull into a beer, the margarita is pretty simple. It’s lime and couple of other flavors, and this all is usually made accessible with the goze. This salted-water varietal has a ton of margarita style variations, such as Just Call Me Margarita (6.1% ABV) by 26 Degree Brewing.
And yes, there are a lot of Margarita goses (gosii? gose?) on the market, but for some reason this one hits differently.
There’s a standard pale yellow color, with a nice hint of lime in the aroma, but it’s the flavor and especially the mouthfeel really set this one apart.
The mouthfeel is beefier somehow. It’s got a richness that coats the mouth and really drives a lot of the previous flavors home. With the flavor, there’s just enough citrus sweetness to belie the margarita stylings of the beer, but it’s not overpowering and it’s definitely not a super sick sour.
Sure, the traditional gose style is going to be a slightly sour style, but I could not and will not consider this to be a sour-only beer. The team at 26 Degree focused more on the margarita side of things and they did so very, very well. Even with all this richness, it still has a medium body and is very simple to drink.
This is a great beer for either having on a nice sunny day out on a boat, or if you really want to take the step and throw a shot of tequila in there, you are more than welcome to. Personally, I like my rum a bit better, and I think that’s where I’m going to be staying.
But really, that mint that makes a Mojito. It’s just so hard to brew with.
Drink Florida Craft,
Dave
@floridabeerblog
floridabeerblog@gmail.com
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