Gameday Beers of the Week: Florida
It’s the SEC Championship game, and while the Crimson Tide aren’t looking past a Florida team which ever-so barely defeated Florida Atlantic in overtime a mere two weeks ago, I am looking past them. In that spirit of brazen confidence, the ONLY beers I’m recommending this week are Celebration beers. Pop some caps & get your mind right for the playoff.
Celebration beer of the week: Cigar City Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout
Arguably the most notorious beer in the whole state, Hunahpu’s is the gigantic stout, brewed with chocolate and cinnamon and chile peppers, that Cigar City releases at a big ol’ clusterfuck event each year. Mules from all over the nation try to get tickets to buy their allotment of this Mexican chocolate-inspired ale. This genre of stout has other contenders (notably Westbrook’s Mexican Cake line, and especially Perennial’s Abraxas — both of which are beers that also come from SEC states), but Hunahpu’s is the trailblazer. Cigar City loves to push boundaries with their strong ales. Sometimes that results in flabby beers that you have to chase with insulin. Other times it results in classics like this beer.
Celebration beer of the week: Saint Somewhere Saison Athene
Saint Somewhere is a tiny garage brewery in Tarpon Springs, Florida, assembled mostly from winemaking equipment. Which makes it feel connected in spirit to many old farmhouse breweries in Wallonia, Belgium. Which is pretty grand, because brewer/owner Bob Sylvester is quietly one of the forefathers of the rising American Farmhouse Ale movement. His Saison Athene (among his other farmhouse ales) is one of the more traditionally executed Saisons brewed in the U.S.: it’s yeasty-fruity, kissed with lactic acid, and dry as shit. Just a light, pale, dry, carbonation monster, gushing forth like Derrick Henry out of lineman logpile two yards past the line of scrimmage. I can’t think of any beer that would better fight off the Florida humidity. It’s like Southern Champagne or [insert some tired Food & Wine Magazine style cliché here]. Thanks to Shelton Bros. distribution you can find this in higher-end Alabama bottle shops, even. Pop the bottle, spray into mouth.
Grandpa’s Celebration beer of the week: Duff Beer
Yes, that Duff Beer. Like from The Simpsons, yes. Florida Brewing Company (a name somehow less inspired than “Duff”) was contracted by Universal Studios to brew this inoffensive guzzler for sale at their giant theme park. It’s available chiefly at the Moe’s Tavern at the park which, yes, also exists. Is it possible to smuggle a growler of Duff Beer out of the park to celebrate with? I don’t know, but Scott Cochran is leaving to follow Kirby Smart to UGA, so what do you have to lose by trying?
Celebration beer of the week: Funky Buddha Last Snow
Funky Buddha is the spearhead of a recent brewing movement in Florida to make the “Florida Weisse” style a thing. It’s not really a thing, though. Like the Pacific Northwest’s hilarious attempt at making “Cascadian Dark Ale” an industry standard style name, despite the black IPA being inarguably first introduced in Vermont (and, arguably, invented in Europe centuries earlier as a hoppy porter), the so-called Florida Weisse is just Berliner Weisse flavored with tropical fruits that wouldn’t grow in the German climate. I bring all of this up as 1.) facts to mansplain to an uninterested somebody during halftime, and 2.) to segue into the idea that Funky Buddha knows their way around adding adjunct ingredients to beer. Last Snow is not a sour wheat beer, but a big ol’ porter brewed with coffee and coconut. Coconut! It’s like drinking an Almond Joy!
Don’t celebrate with this one, please: Landshark Lager
While not technically brewed in Florida, the Sunshine State is the U.S. state most associated with the Margaritaville cult of one James “Jimmy” Buffet, bard of the beach. Landshark is the crap Corona clone that Anheuser-Busch puts out under the “Margaritaville Brewing Company” shell name. This beer wants to be for the Gulf of Mexico what Corona is for Actual Mexico: a popular piece of shit skunky beer that everyone inexplicably drinks. AB even went so far as to purchase the naming rights for the stadium where the Miami Dolphins play, naming it Landshark Stadium (naming rights have since been taken over by Sun Life Financial). You should not celebrate with Landshark, not because it is a barley-based falsehood and an avatar of capitalist machinations, but rather because it tastes not good.
