Nora McGunnigle

Been more or less laying low since the fried chicken beer dinner- we went on vacation to our neighboring state of Florida and we were able to drink and buy Bell's, Lagunitas, Sweetwater, Terrapin, Victory, Southern Tier, and others to our hearts' content. Ahh. Couple of awesome things on the horizon: Next week is Coquette's Spirited Dinner that will involve beer and beer cocktails! Also pork. Lots and lots of pork.  Needless to say, I'm super excited. Also super exciting: Root will be doing beer pairing dinners on August 13 and 27 .  I'll have more info on the menu and the pairing next week- I'm going to help choose the beers to go with Chef Lopez's amazing food! That should be early next week so I am hoping to have a formal announcement by this time next week with the menu, pairing, pricing, etc. Needless to say, I'm honored that Root reached out to me to assist them in planning these dinners. The managing partners/owners have a real love of be...

So we cracked open a few of the beers we brought home from Pensacola. I had the (justifiably) well reviewed Bell's Brewing Two Hearted Ale, a complex but easy drinking IPA. Tom tried the Southern Tier Phin & Matt's Extraordinary Ale. I only had a sip of the Phin & Matt's, but its schtick is that it's brewed with three different hops and three different malts. The Bell's was awesome. Wonderful hop aroma and flavor- full of citrus and pine and pineapple. Balanced and drinkable and delicious. This bottle was dated June 30, 2011, so it was super fresh and tasty. Tried the Terrapin Rye Pale Ale. It initially suffered a little being drunk after the Two Hearted, but it is an excellent rye malt beer. The hops serve to support the spiciness of the rye, and allow the malt flavor to shine, without the characteristic significant malty sweetness. Very enjoyable. Glad we have six packs of these both- my inclination is to hoard them, but of course these beers won...

So, we went on vacation to Florida's Forgotten Coast (Port St. Joe and Cape San Blas area) and were able to drink new and exciting brews from Yuengling, Sweetwater (420, IPA, and Blue), Blue Point (Toasted Lager), Cigar City (Porter), and Pensacola Bay (Brown, Amber, and the Deluna XPA). We wanted to check out the Pensacola Bay Brewery but it was downpouring in an epic fashion on both the way to Port St. Joe and the way home. I liked the Sweetwater 420, it was an easy drinking and tasty beer for hot summer days (or the recovery from them.) We had a couple bottles of the Sweetwater IPA at the Indian Pass Raw Bar , which was good, but not the crazy hop bomb that the bottle boasted. Other places we found good beer to drink: The Thirsty Goat , Joe Mama's Pizza , Provisions , (all in Port St. Joe) and the Fish House in Pensacola. But the beer motherlode was when we came back through Pensacola and, upon the Beer Buddha's recommendation, we stopped at Four Winds International Fin...