Cigar City "PAPAYA IPA"

Yesterday while at the CIGAR CITY BREWERY Taste Room I saw they had a Papaya IPA on tap as interesting as it sounded I wasn't too sure about it. (I described my experience at the Taste Room in my last blog. If you didn't read it then click HERE.) While there I saw these bottles on the shelve, come to find out they are called Growlers....

32oz 4 dollars

A gallon 7 dollars

They have both a 32oz and a gallon bottle. After asking Mary what they were for, I was informed that they can be purchased and filled with draft beer and brought back to be refilled. (Most of the beers run around 9 dollars for the 32oz and between 18-20 dollars for the gallon.) At this point I heard the most melodic harmony of angels coming from above. I half expected to be wrapped in a warm white light and have some sort of religious experience but as it turns out it was just a new song starting on Mary's iPod and not a sign from the heavens that I had reached beer Mecca. After having my pint and deciding on the bottle of Big Sound to bring home I started looking at the menu to see if there was anything else that caught my fancy. There way quite a few that really wanted to try, and probably will in the future but being the IPA fan I am I decided to stick with the papaya...

Price: 9.00 for a 32oz Growler plus the initial cost of Growler.
ABV: 7.5%
IBU: 64

I got my Growler filled and headed home. Now, I'm usually not a fan of fruit flavored alcohol but I am a HUGE fan of IPA's so I figured I'd give it a shot. There was no big surprise when I poured into my glass. It is a golden color with a nice thick, white head....

Sorry for the crappy picture. I still haven't figured out how to photograph beer in a decent manner.

 It's smelled like an IPA should with the strong scent of hops. The taste was pretty hoppy and relatively light. The one thing that surprised me about the IPA is that the papaya taste was present but not overpowering. There is a mild sweetness to it but you can't really place the fruit till afterwards. Even then it takes a few swigs to figure it out. After finishing the entire Growler I didn't have much of a buzz but then again it was only 2.5 glasses of a 7.5% so I wasn't expecting to have one. I would much rather drink a straight IPA but this wasn't too bad.
Overall this is an enjoyable beer. Nothing to write home about but if you enjoy IPA's then you may wanna give this a try sometime. This isn't a year round brew. I heard them say that was the last keg. I don't know if that means it's done for the season or if they just didn't have anymore kegs available of it at that time but if you enjoy IPA's and you're in the Tampa area it can't hurt to swing by their Taste Room. Hell, even if they are out of this I'm sure they'll have something you will enjoy.
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Till next time...

Cigar City "BIG SOUND SCOTCH ALE"

Today I decided to head over to Tampa and visit CIGAR CITY BREWERY.  After getting in stuck in traffic in Tampa and it taking me 30 minutes longer to get there then it should have. I promptly drove right past the place. I turned around and pulled into the parking lot. It is very easy to miss, it's a very small place. I had visited their website (see link above) and decided to go check out their "Tasting Room" which is basically a bar in the room next to the brewery. I wasn't expecting it to actually look like a bar but to my amazement it did. The bartender Mary was very easy on the eyes and they had a good selection of music playing from what I'm gathering was Mary's iPod docked in a player on the shelve. They have a menu of beers that you can choose from, probably a total of 12-15 different kinds. All Cigar City beers, of course. I had a pint of Jai Alai IPA as I was mulling over the menu trying to decide what to bring home. I bought two but all I'm concerned with right now is this one...

Price: 9.00 for a 750mL bottle

ABV: 8.50%

IBU: 30

I has absolutely no idea what to expect from this beer. I kinda read the description on the menu but it wasn't very helpful. It said something about it being a SCOTCH ALE and something about a 'Malt bomb' with 'cherry and toffee'. Let me tell you right now, if there is any cherries in this beer they are well hidden. Once I poured it into my glass my heart sank...

  

I am NOT a fan of dark beers. Every one I have ever had tasted and felt like I was drink tar. Even as I was pouring it I was almost dreading the first taste. It poured very thick appearing and had a dark color of maple syrup. The head was a caramel color and dissipated relatively quick.
Remember when you were a kid and your parents made you take cough syrup? That feeling in your stomach that you knew you were about to put something into your mouth that you were not going to enjoy? I had that exact feeling as I was about to take my first taste of this beer.
To my amazement I was pleasantly surprised when my taste buds didn't get the overwhelming sensation of cool black tar but a very interesting mixture of some kind of chocolate (probably that toffee I spoke of earlier) and maybe brown sugar. There is for sure a beer taste there, it's not hoppy like an IPA, but you can definitely taste the beer. The other stuff is there but it's taken me almost an entire bottle to try and place it.
Overall I enjoyed this one. I'm not sure if it'll end up on my personal favorites list but if I was out somewhere and they had this on tap I might have a glass.
After doing some research on this beer I found out that it took the gold at the US OPEN BEER CHAMPIONSHIPS  so congrats to them.
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Till next time... (which will be Thursday)

Brouwerij Van Steenberge "Piraat"

HEY! Let me start this off by saying that I am writing this while feeling the effects of this beer (I'm a bit drunk) so if the grammar isn't all that great that's why.


Tonight I decided to go with a beer that I have been looking at and wanting to try for some time now. It's from the Belgium brewery Brouwerij Van Steenberge, which has been around since some time before 1784. (I couldn't find an exact date. That is the closest I could find.) They have had over 227 years to fine tune their craft and I think they have it down to a science. Here is what it looks like...


The six pack...


The bottle...

Price: 17.99 4 pack of 11.2 fl oz
ABV: 10.5%
IBU: 30.35

This beer is much different the other beers I have reviewed so far. For starters it's a Belgian Strong Ale so, unlike all the other beers I have reviewed so far, it's not an American beer and the IBU's are relatively low when compared to the other three.
After my last experience with a 10+% beer I really wasn't expecting this beer to be that good. I anticipated the strong alcohol taste to over power the entire taste but I was really surprised when I took my first drink of this beer and it tasted amazing. It is very light tasting, which I wasn't expecting from such a high content beer. I can for sure taste the alcohol but it is has a sweet almost fruity under tone that compliments the alcohol taste very well. I can't quite place what fruit but I'm sure it's something tropical. I wouldn't be mentioning it if it wasn't extremely noticeable.
I can now see why pirates enjoyed doing what they did. If I could drink this all day then go and pillage a town or have a crazy open sea battle with another ship I don't think I would mind it as much.
Overall this beer is very enjoyable. It is light enough to not realize you are drinking a beer with such high alcohol content but has enough of that "beer" taste to know you are having a well very well crafted beer. I really wish this beer wasn't so damn expensive, it could easily replace my regular beer if it wasn't. I will for sure be getting this beer again at some point just for personal drinking.

At this point I have finished the entire 4 pack and have a really nice buzz. I'm not to the point where I am stumbling over stuff or unable to think but it's a nice buzz. I have to highly recommend this beer if you don't mind spending almost 20$ on four beers.
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If you are into camping or kayaking, my good friend Jaysun has a blog all about that. Hell even if you don't do either, you should go check it out, his last one is pretty damn funny. It's all about some Ape-man that he hangs out with. Click  HERE to check that out.
Till next time...

Lagunitas "WILCO TANGO FOXTROT"

Good afternoon! So how was everyone's weekend? Did you try any new beers?
I have another Lagunitas beer for today. I need to make a serious conscience effort to try and avoid them for a little while. They have 3/4 of my reviews right now. I already have my next few beers picked out in my head though. I picked this one up when I got the Gnarly Wine last week. I really just liked the look of the label so I figured I would try it...

Price: 6.00 per 22oz bottle
ABV: 7.83%
IBU:  64.20

This beer is an American Strong Ale (I won't bore you with the details. Click the link if you wanna know more) and was surprisingly good. After my last two experiences with this brewery my hopes weren't that high. The pour was really good with a nice thick, off-white colored head. The beer is a brownish red color. I tried getting a picture but I am a horrible photographer. I need to get with my buddy Jay and have him show me the best way to photograph beer but I digress. The initial taste was very good it has the malty "beer taste" that I enjoy. I expected it to be heavy tasting but it surprisingly wasn't. There is also a taste of what might be caramel but it is very slight and buried under the rich malty flavor.  It leaves that nice "beer", or as my wife puts it "ass", taste in your mouth. (She's a wine drinker so you'll have to forgive her) I think if I were to drink a couple bottles of this it would result in a very nice buzz. I could see myself sitting around on the weekend having a few of these while playing online poker or watching football. Overall I'm really impressed with this beer. I look forward to reviewing more of Lagunitas beers in the future as they always have interesting stuff to try, it'll just be a while. So many beers so little time.
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Till next time...

Lagunitas Olde Gnarly Wine

I decided for today's review that I was gonna try the strongest beer at the store. That ended up being another Lagunitas. It beat out a beer that I intend on trying here in the next couple weeks by only 0.6%. It comes in at 10.6%. That's more than double what a Bud Light is. Here is what it looks like...

I'm no photographer so here is a better look at the label.



Price: $6.00 22oz bottle
ABV: 10.6%
IBU: 69

This was not what I was hoping. It is a limited run that Lagunitas does at the beginning of every year and apparently is a highly anticipated beer by the hoity-toity beer types. I am not one of those. It looked really good when poured but when I smelled it I knew something was off.

It looks good in the glass and has a thick caramel colored head. The first thing I noticed when I took a drink is that it's oddly thick tasting. Then the 10.6% ABV comes into play immediately. There isn't much of a 'beer' taste to this. It tastes like alcohol and some sort of sweetener. They were correct in naming this Gnarly, it is a very accurate description. I drank the entire bottle, against my better judgement and got a pretty decent buzz off of it but I don't know if it's worth getting a  buzz off a 6$ bottle of beer if I have to put up with that taste. I did some research on it this morning and apparently it's an A- beer on most sites and it's supposed to be more of a sipping beer. I don't know bout you but if I wanted to sip an alcoholic beverage I would have started drinking wine. I really do like Lagunitas, the people I've spoke to at their brewery are very friendly and helpful. I have one more of their beers in my fridge that I plan on drinking and reviewing this weekend hopefully it'll be better then the last two.
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Till next time...

Twisted Pine's Hoppy Boy

Good evening. So today I stopped back by my beer store and was trying to figure out what beer I wanted for tonight after looking and talking with the owner I decided on Twisted Pine's Hoppy Boy IPA. I must admit I'm a bit partial to IPA's and need to expand my horizon on here. On a quick side note. A good point was brought up to me today by a friend. Apparently there are these pesky laws about posting pictures of copyrighted images. So instead of doing a bunch of research on images and trying to find pictures that could be used legally, I just phoned Twisted Pines and after a short email asking for permission I received one back granting it that included a picture of the six pack I am drinking currently. I don't know if that is how I'm gonna do this from now on but it did the job for this blog.

Price: 11.99 6pk 12oz bottles
ABV: 6.2%
IBU:  65

I really enjoyed, actually as I write this I am currently enjoying this beer. It has a strong hoppy/bitter flavor, as most IPA's do. If you don't like the strong bitter taste of a beer then you probably won't like this or any IPA for that matter. It looks like a beer should when poured into a glass and has a very nice head.


I had three of these before dinner and had a nice little buzz. They aren't heavy like a lot of the stouts and brown ales are so there is plenty of room for food. I could easily drink the entire six pack and be set for the evening which I probably would have done if it weren't for the fact I have to work in the morning. This beer is good for bringing with you to a BBQ or just sitting at home on a Sunday watching football.
This definitely qualifies as a Real Man's beer.
Till next time...

Lagunitas Lucky 13

A local wine/beer store has a monthly beer tasting at their shop and last Friday I attended my first one. They had 10 different beers to sample. It was only 3oz samples so it was hard to really pin down whether or not the beer was good but Lagunitas (LAH-GOO-KNEE-TUSS) Lucky 13 stood out to me among the selections so I decided to buy a bottle and it's the LUCKY beer to get my first review. (PUN COMPLETELY INTENDED)


This beer comes in a 22oz bottle and runs about $6.00 a bottle. It contains 8.9% alcohol by vol, whereas Bud Light has 5%. On side note, I think in the future I'm just gonna put all this stuff at the very beginning to get it out of the way but I'm too lazy to go back and do that for this one so y'all will just have to deal with it. Now on to the good part...
Overall this beer is just okay. I like my "Fancy Beers" to have a hoppy taste, I am a big IPA fan, and this one didn't disappoint BUT after the strong hoppy start it then left the taste of grapefruit rind in my mouth which isn't a pleasant taste, unless of course you enjoy biting into a grapefruit rind and in that case you'll find it very pleasant. After drinking the entire bottle which consisted of about two glasses, my glasses are kinda big...

I did have a slight buzz but then again I'm running on 2.5 hours of sleep since 5 am yesterday and I spent all day kayaking on the river drinking Busch Light so I really can't comment as to if it was this beer or a culmination of everything.
I'm not sure if I'd get this beer again. I just can't get past the grapefruit taste, I know I said I wasn't gonna mention aftertastes and all that stuff but it's overpowering so I had to. I look forward to trying more Lagunitas beer, I hear they make some really good IPA's and their company logo is pretty damn cool...

Till next time...

P.S This my first blog so it's a little rough around the edges. As I do more it will get better and probably a little lengthier. If you have any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism please feel free to leave a comment. I want this to work so I need feedback. 

Okay, first things first, my name is Howie and I've decided to start this here blog on beer. This isn't gonna be your regular run of the mill beer blog where the writer sits here and talks about how the beer has a "mild oak aftertaste" or  "hints of walnut". No, this is gonna be a real look at beer. I'll be drinking what I like to refer to as "Fancy Beer". No Budweiser or Miller products, unless they come out with a seasonal or special run beer that I feel would be a good fit. It'll be either imports or craft beers from smaller breweries. I'll tell you what I really think and whether or not I think it's worth the money, as these beers are usually a bit more pricey.  I am by no means a "beer snob" but I do enjoy a good craft beer from time to time and figure I might as well share my thoughts on those beers with whoever wants to read it. So that's my little introduction to what I'm doing here, hope you enjoy.