Tag Archive for 'beer'
For probably the last year or so I’ve been following a blog about a couple of guys trying to start up a new micro-brewery over in Tampa, FL — where as I am located in Orlando, FL — and the interesting adventure they’ve gone through in order to start churning out beer. Between the City of Tampa, Hillsborough County, and numerous contractors they’ve hit just about every brick wall along the way. In the end of it all Cigar City Brewing is finally able to brew the nectar we all love so much . They have a great lessons learned for anyone else in the area hoping to follow in their footsteps, but most of it boils down to: have plenty of money and patience.
Cigar City has an interesting approach to all of the craft beers they create: incorporate local cultural and ingredients in all of the beers they create. As a step further they also age some of their beers in whiskey barrels or add cedar chips to the beer while it ages. The final product is damn good. So far I’ve only been able to sample 2 of their beers: Maduro Oatmeal Brown Ale and Bolita Brown Double-Nut Brown Ale. Both of these far exceeded my expectations (Redlight Redlight here in Orlando literally got the very first keg of Maduro).
There is a beer bar over here in Orlando, Redlight Redlight, that specializes in only carrying American and Belgium craft beers. These guys have 20 beers on tap and 70 more beers in bottles. Its a craft beer drinkers paradise. I was hoping to sample the Maduro again, but they finished it off and switched to the Bolita Brown. Here is what Cigar City has to say about their baby:
Bolita was a type of lottery popular with the working class citizens of the Ybor City district of Tampa. Bolita means, “little ball” but profits from the illegal (and often rigged) game were anything but little. In the 1920′s Tampa native Charlie Wall (center label donning the dapper hat) was the undisputed kingpin of the Bolita racket. Our Bolita is a Double Northern English-style brown ale that has a complex malt forward character with notes of chocolate, toffee and hints of roasted nuts in the finish. Bolita pairs well with Baklava, Big Band Music, Cool Evenings and robust cigars.
The tasting notes really do speak the truth. The chocolate and toffee is noticable in both aroma and taste. The roasted nuts in the finish? Yeah, theres definitely a finish of toasted nuts, but its not too strong. This isn’t a beer you drink fast by any means drink it slow and enjoy it. If you can find this on tap somewhere I’d recommend trying it.
We here at rowtow love beer, so I really enjoyed peeping this post. You should also check it out.
Illinois Central R.R., freight cars in South Water Street freight terminal, Chicago, Ill. (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.
What a beautiful photo. If I ever own a bar, a big print of this is going over the bar.
You can snag a high res tiff from the library of congress here. It’s 7829x6081pixels, making it high rez enough to print posters and shit. Best of all it’s public domain for US citizens, since it’s a government document!
For when you just have to throw a pint glass at a friend.
Mark this occasion: it’s the first bascule-posted Beer of the Day that Jesse might actually find tolerable.
For being so cheap, Schlitz manages to stand out by actually having a flavor. When other beers in the category, such as Budweiser, only manage to conjure a flavor that can be best described as “ass”, Schlitz actually manages to manage a flavor that one can actually describe as verging on “good”. PBR manages a not-so-close second in this category with its “skunk”, but that said, Schlitz actually manages a mild hop flavor, but certainly one not strong enough to be offensive to hop haters.
The Schlitz story in a nutshell: Decades ago Schlitz was #1 in America, but suffered disaster after making a number of substitutions of cheaper ingredients in the recipe. People were pissed off at how the flavor suffered, and the brewery whose beer “made Milwaukee famous” went bankrupt.
Fast forward to the present: the company who makes PBR started brewing Schlitz again a few years ago. It’s starting to find its way into bars and liquor stores.
When I eventually get over my microbrew beer snobbery and just want a nice cheap beer I can crack open at the end of the day, I can see it becoming Sclitz. This stuff rocks, and it’s cheap.
Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos heri like how i’m practically posed like the mummy on my t-shirt in the photo too
(I like how i’m practically posed like the mummy on my t-shirt)
Colorado finally fixed their retarded ass blue laws some what and this Sunday was the last day that liquor stores had to be closed by law. Next week they’ll be open if they so choose to be.
I happened to be at the grocery store on this day and I bought a 3.2 tallboy of PBR for the LULZ.
They could stop me from buying booze, but they couldn’t stop me from drinking Listerine!
Eat some tacos and pound down some Modelo, it’s your day!
PS, did you know that Morrissey has a huge Mexican following? Not too bad for an English maricon!
The Chosen Leader would like to remind you to have a Happy Fun New Year and be sure to honor and practice The Juche Idea constantly.
Oh…and pick up a pack of super fun happy luck smokes for him on the way back from Wendy’s.
I’m typically a sucker for a good booze label, and it usually results in some relatively crappy booze in the bottle. As a Frank Zappa fan, this label could have easily sold me a bomber of Jenkem. From Lagunitas Brewing Company, this IPA actually turned out to be pretty darn good. Packing a 7.8% ABV, slightly harsh, yet fruity pine flavor, this ended up being a good purchase. I’ll definitely be checking out more brews from Lagunitas in the future.
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