A Visit to Florida

We’re on vacation in Florida and took this opportunity to drink some beer that isn’t distributed in Alaska.  Today, I had Shipyard’s XXXX IPA.  The beer’s drink before date was before today…  I still thought it was tasty because, well it was.  I have fond memories of visiting Shipyard’s brewery in Maine when I was in graduate school in the early 1990s.  Shipyard was an early pioneer into the craft brewing scene.  Cheers to them.
Yesterday we paid a visit to Cigar City Brewing in Ybor City (Tampa).  We had had the Jai Alia IPA in cans before our visit to the brewery and the IPA was impressive… hoppy and fresh.  When we arrived at the brewery for our tour (you can book online) we had to wait about 15 minutes so I asked for a Jai Alia in a pint.  Mark decided to try the Tocobaga Red Ale.  Was he sorry he didn’t get the IPA for his first draw.  The Jai Alia right out of their keg was super fresh and even better out of their keg.

 

We took a tour of their startup brewery.  It’s a 15 barrel two vessel system…  all but one of the fermentors were empty.  In the one that was “cooking” they were making a horchata beer.  It’s a bit sweet for my liking but certainly inventive and tasty.

 

After the tour, we sat in their tap room and had a couple of more beers.  I struck up a conversation with an employee who was sitting next to me.  Our paths crossed over his broken IPhone glass.  I suggested he bypass the “genius bar” and fix the phone himself.  He told me about his past and coming to work at Cigar City.  His passion, like mine, is drinking good beer and he told me he found his “people” in so many words.

 

Mark joined the conversation and we were lucky enough to be shown the rest of the brewery.  If I remember correctly, Cigar City’s actual product brewery is a 30 barrel brewery that they have quickly outgrown so they are installing some additional (120 barrel ***I think) fermentors.  In fact, there demand has been so great that they only distribute in the state of Florida, Denmark and Sweden.  God bless the Scandinavians.  I like people who like good beerJ.

 

We learned a lot yesterday during the tour.  Again, the message was loud and clear.  If you start off small, you’ll soon be out of space and good, tasty, fresh beer.  Second, sanitation is key.  Third, bottling beer is a pain in the arse.

Cheers y’all and pick up some Cigar City when you have a chance.  They produce great beer and their staff is totally committed and very well informed.

 

Karen