WHAT’S BREWING

P.2 Alan Newman

P.4 We All Scream for Beer

P.5 Pi lsner Urquel l

P.6 Made in Flor ida

P.8 Jdub’s Brewing Co.

JUNE/JULY 2016

ALLIE SMALLWOOD

abcfws.com

Off Tap. is a bimonthly publication of ABC Fine Wine & Spirits. Copyright 2016 ABC Liquors, Inc. All rights reserved. Not all products are available in all stores. If the product you’re looking for isn’t available, ask us to order it for you! Meghan Guarino Editor Allie Smallwood Contributing Editor

Follow us on Twitter @abcbeercountry Email us at offtap@abcfws.com

Our certified beer experts on Twitter: We have approximately 30 beer consultants on Twitter. To find the one nearest you, tweet us @abcbeercountry or email us at offtap@abcfws.com to be pointed in the right direction.

There are a handful of names that you should know backwards and forwards if you’re going to call yourself a beer junkie: Garret Oliver, Sam Calagione and Ken Grossman to mention a few. Alan Newman might not be on your radar if you’re an IPA-guzzling craft beer elitist. But he should be because he has effectively tackled the business beast of successfully marketing a new beer category. Magic Hat is one that everyone should know him for. House of Shandy is a project that less people know about.

“House of Shandy wasn’t working; it was an extra layer of explanation,” Alan said of the name. “You go where the customer goes, and you move along and listen to feedback and try to give customers what they want. We heard people were con-fused, and everybody called it Traveler Beer Company anyway, so we said, why don’t we just get rid of it and move into Traveler Beer Company?”

It seems that Traveler Beer Co., with its goals of initiating new members into craft beer land, is a business with carefree roots.

“The whole idea of shandy is about enjoy-ment, it’s about refreshment. It’s not about serious, comparing notes on hops and grains; it’s about having a good time! We wanted to make it fun and interesting and a little quirky.”

Alan first fell in love with shandy when he was traveling around Europe in his earlier days. “We were sitting around this outdoor café having a beer, and all of the sudden I noticed that there were these hazy looking beverages all around me that everybody’s drinking,” he said. “I looked at the bar and next to the tap there’s a can of soda and I’m watching him pour soda in, and the [bartender] said, ‘These are shandies. We mix lemon-lime soda with the lager.’ I said, ‘Oh, I’ll try one!’”

That fateful day led to a Magic Hat partner-ship, where, in a product development meeting, Alan suggested that they have a shot at shandies. “So we tried and honestly, we just couldn’t get there. But then we had this beer called No. 9, and it took off, so that distracted us from the shandy.”

Today, Alan is enjoying the benefits of finally having brewed a fantastic shandy. He says the goal now is to “bring more beer drinkers into the craft beer fold, and I’m thinking about where these new drink-ers are. I’m thinking about the millennials and I’m thinking about their desire for craft beer, but could they [the craft beer] be a lit-tle sweeter? Do they have to be so bitter?”

Now, let’s pause and think about how 10 years ago that would’ve been a standard question. But today, that’s a revolutionary (if almost risky) question, because of the evolution and adoration of hoppy beers. Alan Newman is boldly traveling into curi-ously deep (and satisfyingly sweet) waters.

There must be a distinction made here, however, because shandies are not to be seen as a gateway beer. In fact, Alan doesn’t believe there is such a thing as a gateway beer anymore. “There are no rules, and I no longer think of beer as entry level.”

So to be clear, Alan is serving both the craft beer bars and the never-sipped-an-IPA-in-their-lives consumer. “We thought we were going to be chastised by the beer geek bars,” Alan explained. “But some of our best accounts are those bars. We’ve discovered that the reason is you need

something that you can sit and drink [if you’re going to be hanging out].”

Why? Because for many beer lovers, including Alan, the beer should fit the occasion. “I’ve never been part of the beer snobbery and you know, to me, back in the Magic Hat years, there were beer snobs or beer fans. The beer snobs only wanted what wasn’t available. But as a beer fan, you want different beers for different oc-casions. Quite frankly, I always found the beer snobs offensive. Beer is a fun bever-age and it’s not about snobbery.”

But Alan is a car snob. “While I appreciate that a Honda is a perfectly good car, you will never see me driving a Honda… With beer, I’ll drink Hondas! But my point is that, if it’s a good Honda, I’ll drink it!”

So the battleground for Traveler Beer Co. isn’t the drinker. It’s the occasion, specifi-cally the idea that shandy is a summer- only sip.

“There’s a place for shandies year round in my opinion, and we’ve taken old world style and applied good ‘ole American entrepreneurial ingenuity to it, because the concept of putting pumpkin in a shandy will not make sense in Europe, I promise,” he joked. Illusive Traveler Grapefruit Ale is his favorite, and there’s a new one com-ing down the pipe. It’s been a year in the works, and Alan had just approved the final recipe right before we chatted: “Hoppin’ Traveler and it’s an IPA Shandy.”

Traveler Beer shandies are for the people who want to promote beer in all its rendi-tions and glory. It’s for the beer fans. His mission with Traveler Beer Co. is to cultivate beer drinkers from all categories because after all, his ultimate goal is to make beer boom.

So beer snobs, beer geeks and beer junkies – if you want to be on the evolution wave of the next “it” beer style, imbibe a Traveler Beer Co. shandy. Al

an N

ewm

anis

th

e C

uri

ou

s

Trav

eler

June

/Jul

y 20

16

| P

age

3

MEGHAN GUARINO

You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Beer

Looking to cool off and get a buzz on a hazy summer day here in muggy Florida? We’ve got you, fam. Beer and ice cream go together like, well, beer and ice cream. It’s not your traditional pairing, but with the introduction of beer sodas, like Best Damn Cherry Cola and Not Your Father’s Root Beer, the advent of boozy

ice cream floats has surged in popularity. But instead of dumping a scoop in your pint glass, we suggest enjoying them as a traditional pairing: one lick of ice cream for every sip of beer. Here are our top ice cream and beer pairings for the summer. Tweet us your favorites at @abcbeercountry.

Strawberry &Blueberry Wheat

Rocky Road &Raspberry Framboise

French Vanilla &Milk Stout

Butter Pecan &Brown Ale

Pilsner Urquell

June

/Jul

y 20

16

| P

age

5

Pilsner Urquell is arguably the most influential beer in the history of brewing. A bold claim to be sure, but this was the very first pale lager beer, unlike anything that had been seen or tasted before. In 1838 the townspeople of Plzeň Bohemia (modern-day Czech Republic) were upset by a drastic decline in the quality of their local beer. To add to their frustration, an influx of quality imported beer from Bavaria showed them how good beer could truly be. In a show of protest they extracted 36 barrels of locally produced beer and destroyed them in the town square.

The citizens of Plzeň then hired a brash, 29-year-old Bavarian brewmaster named Josef Groll to run their soon-to-be-famous brewery. Groll combined his knowledge of Bavarian lager brewing with high-quality ingredients, state-of-the-art malting tech-nology and time-honored Bohemian brew-ing principles to create the world’s first pale lager beer. Unveiled on November 11, 1842, Pilsner Urquell (roughly translated as “Pilsner from the original source”) caught on like wildfire, and soon the entire world would be brewing and enjoying pale lager beers.

SENSORY EVALUATION

APPEARANCE: Pilsner Urquell pours a brilliantly clear yet deep and burnished gold color. As the glass fills, carbonation dances its way to the top of the glass to create a pillowy and bright white foam cap. When held to the light, the sparkling bubbles and rich color remind one of glit-tering gold. This beer is simply beautiful.

AROMA: The aromas from Pilsner Urquell are exceptionally clean and fit together perfectly. The initial whiff may bring you a delicate floral hop character of magnolias and lavender while also providing an earthy and herbaceous note of pepper spice. With subsequent sniffs you will discover aromas of freshly baked baguette with both the flaky golden crust and soft white insides lending separate but parallel character-istics. You should also notice a subtle

buttery character that ties in perfectly with the baguette, as well as notes of sweet caramel that weave in and out.

TASTE: The flavors of the first sip mirror the aromas and deliver rich and complex malt character akin to lightly toasted cia-batta. Mild yet noticeable caramel sweet-ness is detected mid-palate followed by a smooth yet fitting note of buttered bread. The true personality of Czech Saaz hops shine here as they deliver the delicate floral and spice notes mentioned before. They also bring an assertive yet soft bitterness that balances the malt sweetness perfectly. Everything is well proportioned and fits together in a way that makes this beer one of the most well-rounded and enjoyable beers on the planet.

MOUTHFEEL: Pilsner Urquell is medium-bodied due somewhat in part to the subtle amounts of buttery diacetyl often found in this style, which lends a smoothness to the mouthfeel and a slight but noticeable slickness on the tongue. Carbonation is moderate yet soft and doesn’t go so far as to be sharp or stinging.

FINISH: This is an extremely balanced beer with no discernable sharp edges. The beer opens up with comforting fresh baked goods with a flowery and delicate spice character. This fades somewhat quickly to a buttery mid-palate sweetness of caramel and lightly toasted malt that then transi-tions to a soft and balanced bitterness that lingers briefly. Pilsner Urquell is uniquely complex and elegant while still a satisfy-ing, crisp and clean refreshment, setting it apart from many of the Czech Pils offerings based on this true original.

ABV: 4.4%

IBU: 40

FOOD PAIRINGS: Fried calamari, roasted pork tenderloin with apples, grilled sausages or strawberry rhubarb pie.

MEGHAN GUARINO

There is no denying that the popularity of craft beer has triumphantly risen above all other beer in recent years. It’s as though the movement picked up steam and never lost momentum, tearing through states across the country. California, Colorado, Oregon—all states that are easily top of mind when it comes to recognition as craft beer havens. Other states, like Georgia and North Carolina, come to mind too, and are quickly rising in craft popularity with incredible brews like those made by the genius brewmasters behind Terra-pin, SweetWater, Highland and Sierra Nevada. But the state we all really care about—selfish or not—is our own, and Florida is one of the fast-est growing craft beer states in the nation.

“What amazes me is that Florida, maybe 10 years ago, would have been considered a beer wasteland,” said Garrett Oliver, famed brew-master of New York-based Brooklyn Brewery, in an interview for our October 2015 issue of Off Tap. “Especially in the area around Orlando that’s dominated by chain restaurants to a large extent. And you’d go into those places and there was no craft beer. And now, with what’s going on with Florida craft, you have pretty sud-denly a really vibrant culture in Florida. And I think it’s due to a number of brewers.”

Cigar City, for one. The obvious one. In seven short years, this Tampa brewery grew to be one of the biggest in Florida and is coveted by beer enthusiasts nationwide. From eager beer bartering to the frenzied festival known as Hunahpu’s Day, Cigar City’s short time brewing has drawn thousands to Florida for brewery tours, samples and souvenirs from

their hallowed facility. In March 2016, it was announced the brewery was bought by a fel-low craft brewery, Denver-based Oskar Blues. The purchase speaks volumes to Cigar City’s known quality and the people’s demand for the brewery’s liquid.

But Cigar City isn’t the only force to be reck-oned with in the state. Ft. Lauderdale’s Funky Buddha drew masses at the 2013 Great Ameri-can Beer Festival with their satiating samples of food-inspired brews. The lines at their booth were boosted by their recent mention in BeerAdvocate magazine, an honor that called attention to the small brewery who had not yet, at that point, started bottling and distributing throughout Florida. The October 2013 article spoke of the growing craft beer scene in South Florida. Over two years later, Florida is still expanding the craft culture across the state, and our friends at Funky Buddha have thankfully started bottling their beer for thirsty enthusiasts.

That year, 2013, only one Florida brewery—Cigar City—placed in the competition at the Great American Beer Festival. The two subsequent events saw an emergence in Florida breweries competing and placing at the festival, including Wynwood Brewing (2014), Tampa Bay Brewing Co. (2014), Brew Bus (2015) and Aardwolf

Brewing Company (2015). As the quality of Flo-ridian beer garners attention, there is no doubt Florida will continue to take medals home, and not just at the GABF. We will be the competi-tion, not just another entrant.

In that same amount of time, 2013-2015, the number of craft breweries in the state rose from a mere 66 to over 150, according to Brewer’s Association, ranking us fifth in the country in breweries per capita (behind Vermont, Oregon, Colorado and Montana), and 11th in total num-ber of craft breweries in the state. It’s a good time to be a beer lover in Florida.

But what’s so exciting about Florida beer, is that even with all this growth and attention, brewers here refuse to sacrifice quality for quantity. It isn’t about getting more beer to more people. It’s about getting good beer to the people who appreciate it most.

In every corner and crevice of the state, you’ll find a local brewery ready to serve you a beer you’ve never before tried. And it will be deli-cious. And thirst-quenching. And all you’ll talk about until your out-of-state friends can’t take it anymore and have to try it themselves. Why? Because Florida beer is good, and as true craft lovers in Florida, we’re proud of our state for becoming one of the most coveted craft desti-nations in the country.

HMADE IN FLORIDAH

Augu

st/S

epte

mbe

r 20

14

|

Page

7Ju

ne/J

uly

2016

|

Pag

e 7

Bold City Brewery

Florida Beer Company

Florida Beer Company

Bold City Brewery

8989 SOUTH ORANGE AVE.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA 32824

From our Gulf Coast comes the easy-drinking beers of JDub’s

Brewing Company. Though this Sarasota-based brewery hasn’t

been in the craft beer game long, its local flavors, retro vibes

and laidback personality have made a splash on Florida’s beer

scene. With five year-round offerings and a slew of special

releases, the brewery has a beer for nearly every palate, espe-

cially if that palate is prone to Florida flavors. One such year-

round brew is a flavor-packed wheat ale called Passion Wheat.

A hazy, almost gold color, Passion Wheat emits aromas of tropi-

cal fruit, especially juicy mango and fresh passion fruit. It’s an

unparalleled bouquet of fruit flavors. A thin white head caps the

beer and breaks as you pour it into your ready mouth. Up front

you’ll find evident flavors of passion fruit juice and slight cori-

ander. The palate lingers with the light carbonation and nearly

no bitterness. It’s a refreshingly sessionable wheat that shows

balance, light body and a medium-dry finish.

A 6-pack of this bright brew is an incredible accompaniment

to warm days spent poolside. 4.2% ABV, 10 IBUs

Jdub’s Brewing CO M PA N Y

P A S S I O N W H E A T