Reviews of beers from around Florida.
When it comes to white wines, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of my favorite styles is the Sauvignon Blanc. And my favorite brands of that wine comes from the Marlsborough region of New Zealand.
This particular temperate region is well known for crops that have a sweet fruitiness, almost as if citrus flavors (without the citric acid) are blended perfectly with all the ripe juiciness of honeydew and cantaloupe.
Continue readingHaving not grown up in South Florida, I was completely unaware that the mascot for Florida International University wasn’t always the Panthers. Heck, they were only changed to the Golden Panthers in 1987, wisely dropping the ‘Golden’ portion some years later (just as UCF had done with their Knights).
But when the school was founded in the early seventies, they were something completely different: the Sunblazers.
And if you’ve ever seen a picture of the original Sunblazers mascot it is, well, interesting. Like a Sid and Marty Kroft fever dream, this giant yellow monstrosity with vastly oversized teeth and a semi-bemused expression was the mascot for FIU’s athletics for well over a decade.
Ron makes some fun stuff.
And by Ron I mean Ron Raike, brewmaster and owner at Playalinda Brewing in Titusville.
While its location as a relatively beach-adjacent brewery should not be underemphasized, and the historical novelty of their original hardware store location is a blast, they are right across the waterway from Cape Canaveral. As a result, they are understandably predisposed to produce slightly spaced-themed beers now and again.
Continue readingThis is a better question for them than it is a musing on a blog post, but I am guessing that Deland-based Persimmon Hollow has a cushy new distribution agreement. All of a sudden, I’m seeing them more and more in my local stores.
This is exciting. I remember very well, in the early days of the blog, desperately trying to hunt down their signature black cans of Daytona Dirty Blonde, Beach Hippie, or otherwise. Nowadays, not only are they appearing with more regularity, but it looks like they’re starting to push displays a little bit to get the word out that much more.
Continue readingIt is an undeniable fact of life that if you are a brewery that is on the coast (when I say ‘on the coast,’ you can’t get much closer to the water than Pareidolia Brewing in Sebastian because it’s right there), you’re going to have connections with local sailors.
They might be old naval officers that regale patrons with stories of the past. They might be fishing or dive charter owners that run a steady stream of snowbirds and tourists out to fishing locations for a few hours and a pompano or two. Sometimes they’re both.
Continue readingCan’t blame them for trying something new.
So barrel of monks, for many, many years, has been that brewery that does Belgian beers and only does Belgian beers and does Belgian beers very, very well.
I guess we should call them Belgian-style beers, technically, since instead of being made in Bruges they’re brewed in Boca Raton.
Continue readingBut wait, the Italians made beer? At least beer other than Peroni?
Yes, craft beer is basically everywhere. But it is rare that a particular region gets to claim a beer style that doesn’t have ‘India Pale Ale’ at the end of it.
Enter the Italian pilsner.
Continue readingI’m going to be honest with you: I feel I have to rethink my opinions of American Icon.
I had originally gone into them assuming this was a standard brewpub in a standard location making a lot of standard styles.
In a lot of ways that’s how they got their start, but recently they’ve been throwing some pretty significant curveballs. I still think Florida Heat is one of the best beers in the state and I will not back down from that opinion at all.
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