Beer in Florida

Beer Bites: Crawling, Liters and Monsters

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Gerard Walen

This is Rob Widmer. You can meet his brother, Kurt, next week in Orlando.

If you’re like me, you’re enviously following the tweets and Facebook updates from all the beer lovers lucky – or wealthy – enough to be attending the Great American Beer Festival this weekend in Denver.

But fear not, fellow Florida craft beer lovers. There are enough brew-happy events going on in the next few days that you will not go thirsty in our fair state.

Still … I’d rather be in Denver. Maybe next year.

On with Beer Bites.

Walking Before Crawling

The Ybor OktoberFest Pub Crawl will be Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m. in Tampa’s historic Ybor City. For $25, each participant will get a T-shirt, a 4 oz. beer sample at each of the 18 participating pubs and patio bars and a chance at door prizes, not to mention a lot of Oktoberfest-style music and other activities. Click here for more information.

ELLA, not Stella

The Ella Music Festival will be at Orlando Brewing on Saturday and Sunday. There’s way too much going on to list it all, so I’ll be sending you straight to the festival’s homepage.

No, No, Keep It

Willard’s Taphouse in Largo will have a Florida Avenue Keep the Pint Night Wednesday beginning at 7 p.m. Four of the beers from Tampa’s Cold Storage Craft Brewery will be on tap, including the new Reserve Amber. More on it here.

Take Me to Your Liter

Dunedin Brewery will kick off its three-day Oktobeerfest celebration on Thursday with the Literstein Release. The brewery will fill only its Literstein mugs that night. If you already have one from previous years, bring it along, or you can purchase one of the 1-liter glass souvenirs for $30 and get $6 refills of standard ales or $8 fills of seasonals. Read more here.

Monstrous

The Monsters Beertoberfest will be Saturday at Waterford Lakes Town Center on the east side of Orlando. Expect live music and food and beer tastings included with admission. More info here.

Explore your Craft

If you’re planning on being in Orlando on Saturday, October 8, you might want to buy some tickets for Explore Your Craft: An Unforgettable Evening of Beer, Food and Arts. It will be at the downtown restaurant/tavern Ember. But wait, Gerard, this is NEXT Saturday. Why is it in this week’s Beer Bites, you may ask. Here’s why. The event features food paired with offerings from Widmer Brothers Brewing in Portland, Oregon, and one of the brothers, Kurt, will be at the event. If you can’t make it to Explore Your Craft, you may have a chance to meet Kurt on Thursday night at the ABC Fine Wine & Spirits store at 11951 S. Apopka-Vineland Road in Orlando, which will be holding a Craft Beer Tasting from 6 to 8 p.m. For more information on Explore Your Craft, click here; info on the ABC tasting is here.

Lucky Number

The event itself won’t be till next month, but the Central Florida Home Brewers club will be putting on what sounds like a fantastic festival – the 21^st Anniversary Sunshine Challenge. And “21” symbolizes some important things to beer lovers. It’s the age at which a person can legally buy a beer in this country, and of course it’s the constitutional amendment that ended the horrible historical period called “Prohibition.” The CFHB is seeking artists to design a T-shirt to commemorate the amendment and the festival. The winner will receive a free pass to the festival and have the thrill of seeing his or her work proudly adorning the bodies of a lot of beer geeks. More information here.

That’s it for this week’s Beer Bites. Have a great weekend. Go Rays. Go Bucs. Go Bulls … uh, scratch that last one.

Please email trips4beer@gmail.com with any ideas or story tips. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Until next time, Florida, remember: We are Here! We are Beer!

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Posted in Beer bites | Tagged bands, beer, beer and food, beer travel, beer trips, brew pub, brewery, brewing, brewpub, central florida, contest, craft beer, craft brewer, craft brewing, downtown orlando, Dunedin, Dunedin Brewing, festival, florida, microbrewery, Orlando, restaurants | 1 Comment

Sarasota Brewpub Reportedly Has Poured Its Last Pint

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Gerard Walen

photo courtesy of mad crow brewery & grill

The Mad Crow Brewery & Grill in Sarasota has reportedly closed.

The Mad Crow Brewery & Grill reportedly has closed its doors after opening in Sarasota’s Rosemary District in January.

A post on the gastropub’s Facebook site says this:

I am sorry to say we are closed. Thank you for your friendship, we will miss you all!

Anyone looking for a great staff of chefs, bartenders and servers, please let us know.

– the mad crow staff

This followed a post last week that told customers the kitchen had been closed “until further notice” because of a “a major electrical failure in our kitchen.”

The brewpub received mostly positive reviews of its food and beer during the time it was open. Brewmaster and co-owner Darren Fehring prided himself on creating each beer only once so even regular customers would have a new experience each time they visited.

The motto on the website read: “If you like what you’re drinking come back tomorrow because it will be gone by Friday, if you don’t like what you’re drinking come back on Friday we will have something new for you to try!”

Beer in Florida sent an email to co-owner Kimberly Nealon to seek more information regarding the circumstances related to its closing. If she responds, we will post it here soon after receiving it.

We wish the best of luck to Darren, Kimberly and the entire staff of Mad Crow and hope the talent resurfaces soon in another location.

Thanks to Ticket Sarasota Beer Geek Alan Shaw for posting some of this information earlier and tipping us off.

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Beer Bites: Aging, Anniversary and Disco Balls

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Gerard Walen

Netflix-Qwikster! Facebook! ACK!

What a week for social media upheaval. But you know what one of the original social media apps is?

If you guessed “sharing pints of beer in a pub,” you’re right.

And there are some really great ways to do that in upcoming days around the Florida craft beer scene, and there will be no changing up of apps, only taps.

On with this week’s Beer Bites.

Aging Well

Cigar City Brewing’s website has a new look. It’s much cleaner and user-friendly than the old site, which makes it easier to find out about such events as Saturday’s bottle release of three special barrel-aged versions of its delicious Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout, plus a fourth that will be only on tap and in growlers. Read more here.

Belgian Goodness

The two Florida breweries that specialize in Belgian-style ales, Holy Mackerel and Saint Somewhere, are teaming up for a five-course beer pairing dinner at Vienna Café & Wine Bar in Davie. More information here.

Funky Cheers

The Funky Buddha Brewery is celebrating its first anniversary Saturday beginning at 6 p.m. The Boca Raton brewery will have more than 18 beers on tap, live music and raffles. More information here.

Ziggy ziggy, Etc.

The fifth annual Orlando Brewing Oktoberfest kicks off Saturday at noon. Expect organic Oktoberfest beer, live German music, a cornhole competition, food and more. Oh, and the celebration runs through October 22. More here.

Disco Brew

Polish the polyester and slick up the platform soles before you head to Mr. Beery’s in Sarasota on Saturday as it time travels to the ‘70s for Saturday Night Fever. You’ll be expected to show off your best dance moves under the disco ball. Read more here.

For the Benefit of Art

The FAT Village Arts District in downtown Fort Lauderdale will hold “The Art of Brew” on Friday, Sept. 30, from 7 to 11 p.m. at The Projects Space. The event will benefit the Young at Art Children’s Museum and there will be plenty of artsy stuff going on. But you want to know about the beer. B.R.E.W. F.I.U., an organization created and managed by a collective group of students enrolled in Florida International University’s Hospitality Management Program, will be there serving six beers they’ve brewed for the event. Other local beers will be available as well. More information here.

You Scream, I Scream

Finally, this item about beer-flavored ice cream in Fort Lauderdale caught my eye. Riverside Market serves it, and flavors include “a Stone Chocolate Cherry Stout, Wild Blueberry from Boulder Beer Company, and Wells Banana Bread,” according to the blog post. Why the writer chose to focus on the Budweiser ice cream is puzzling, even though she confesses to it being her “go-to beer.”

That’s it for this week’s Beer Bites. I’m sure I missed a lot, so please let everyone know of other events and news in the comments section.

Please email trips4beer@gmail.com with any ideas or story tips. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Until next time, Florida, remember: We are Here! We are Beer!

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Posted in Beer bites | Tagged bands, beer, beer and food, beer travel, beer trips, brew pub, brewery, brewing, brewpub, central florida, Cigar City, craft beer, craft brewer, craft brewing, downtown orlando, festival, florida, funky buddha, holy mackerel, microbrewery, Orlando, restaurants, Sarasota, St. Somewhere, Tarpon Springs, top beer in florida | 1 Comment

Beer festival in Crystal River is cancelled.

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Gerard Walen

Many in the Florida craft beer community were looking forward to a brand-new beer festival scheduled in Crystal River for October 29, 2011. Unfortunately, a short but not sweet email landed last week in the inboxes of those who had signed up for them: “Due to circumstances beyond our control this year’s beer fest has been cancelled.”

Festival organizer Denise Burke, co-owner of the Burkes of Ireland pub in Crystal River, added: “It is with sad regret that I have to cancel this year’s Dark Arts Beer Fest, but will begin work on next year’s in January.”

Burke kindly agreed to an email interview with Beer in Florida to further explain the situation.

Beer in Florida: You seemed to be on track for throwing a really nice festival in Crystal River in October. What happened to derail it this year?

Denise Burke: Short and sweet answer – most of the brewers just couldn’t commit to being in the fest even though they were all excited about the idea and theme. Then the ones that did (only got six registered) just were not enough. We needed at least 20 to make it a successful beer festival and my count was under that. All the other preparations were set and ready to go, and all I had to do was hit a button to activate the online advance ticket purchase for attendees. Which by the way a a great disappointment to hundreds of them that I had to cancel the event.

BIF: Have you received any payments from sponsors or vendors that you need to refund?

DB: There were no sponsors as I (my pub “Burkes of Ireland”) was footing the whole bill.

BIF: Tell us about next year’s festival, and what your plans are to smooth out the hurdles you faced this year.

DB: For next year I plan to start on the brewers right after the first of the year to make sure I get on their events calendars, and as an incentive I am planning on offering something special to the first 15 who register by April 1, 2012.

BIF: Anything else you want to add for the readers of Beer in Florida?

DB: Just that it takes a lot of planning and money to put on an event that will introduce beer lovers to craft beers they may not have heard of.

It is simple promotion for the brewer: If a brewer gets the beer drinkers to sample their beer and then that drinker makes a request of their local bar, grocery or ABC store to carry it … it can and will be done … exposure + request = more sales to the brewery!

We at Beer in Florida hope the festival comes together next year because more beer festivals means greater exposure for the Florida craft beer scene, especially when they are in areas of the state that aren’t considered“hot spots.” Thanks to Denise for agreeing to clarify the situation, and we wish her the best of luck for next year.

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Posted in Beer festivals, Beer news | Tagged beer, beer and food, beer festival, beer travel, beer trips, brew pub, brewery, brewing, brewpub, central florida, craft beer, craft brewer, craft brewing, crystal river, festival, florida, top beer in florida | 2 Comments

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