Monday, January 24, 2011

Slacking

Okay I am sorry I have not blogged in a while, meanly because I have not brewed in a while. I started a lager since I was traveling for a couple of weeks straight and would not be home to keep an eye on a ales primary fermentation. The lager is like most everything else I brew, influenced heavily from my Cuban grandmother , growing up in Florida and my time as cook and understudy to some guys with serious cooking/chef chops. I am brewing what I hope reminds my mother of summer vacations in Cuba before Castro. Style wise it is a premium American Lager, infused with fresh sugar cane, mint, rum and aged on red cedar.

During my recent travels, I did get to spend too much money at the Brick Store in Decatur and Hop City in Atlanta. If you are driving in GA and want to bring back beers you can’t find in Florida go to Hop City, and until Cigar City gets to GA take some with you for trading. The Brick Store was great, good food awesome bottle list and great tap selection. I am not going to recommend anything because it changes so often. What I will recommend is hitting the Sweet Water Brewery. I don’t know why the tours are only Wed-Fri 5:30 – 7:30, but I will tell you the tour, glass and 6 half pints are well worth it. Better yet, bring a friend that doesn’t drink or hates real beer, get their drink tickets, and have them drive you home. Big thanks goes to my boss who has started to drink craft and homebrew this last couple of months, however he is a one or two beer guy so I got his 4 leftover tickets. The brewery is the from what I’ve seen the largest craft brewery in the south east and is a sight for those looking for start-up inspiration.

Visited the Titanic brewpub in Miami last week and it was a breath of fresh air for the no existent south Florida beer scene. Good traditional ales and they did all Belgium’s for their winter seasonal offerings. Also found a place today I have not visited but I am thinking about it call the Democratic Republic of Beer. 500 bottles and a dozen taps. Since Miami is the Manhattan of South America and the Caribbean they carry every crap pilsner made south of Miami. However, they also have over 100 Belgium bottles and all of Hitachino Nest beer exported to the States and the two beers from Lao, which are perfect with Thai Curries.

Okay back to the day job, I’ll be brewing soon with tasting notes on some of the items I bottled recently.