Yes, there is good beer in Miami - Zeke's.

Trendy places rarely have decent beer prices. I expected as much of South Beach, Miami, but Zeke's was there to prove that somebody in southern Florida cares about drinking good beer. This little bar boasted about 180 beers (so the menu said), at for $4. If you know your beer, there are some good deals to be had at that price, such as Stone IPA and Leffe Blonde. I also appreciated the food menu, which in its entirety read like this:

Hot Dog - $3
Chips - $1
Popcorn - $1

Beer in Miami: Imperial

A big thanks to Chan and Tim for hosting us in Miami for the weekend. The area isn't exactly known for it's beer. In fact, many beer lovers know it for its lack of beer. Still, I persevered and found the local flavor - beer from Latin America.

On the way to the beach Friday we picked up a cold sixer of Imperial, a simple adjunct-lager from Costa Rica. Just like I say about PBR, this beer is excellent for what it is. In this case, a refreshing beach beer.

C+ / 3.1
look: 3 | smell: 3 | taste: 3 | feel: 3.5 | drink: 3.5

Picked up a six-pack for $7 from Publix in Miami and brought it down to South Beach. This was a great beach beer, sure it didn't taste like much, but it was refreshing and clean. Really, it's just a plain, light bready water taste with very light touch of hops in the aftertaste. Really, this beer is the ideal adjunct lager - no flavor flavor, with absolutely no off-flavors. I'd take this over Miller Lite or Budweiser any day.

South Mountain Porter Update

Watch out for this beer. When it's good and done, it'll be taking names and kicking asses. I just siphoned it into the secondary fermentor and it tastes amazing pre-coffee with a mixture of bitter chocolate, burnt/roasted grains (already coffee-like flavors), and a little kiss of citrus hops from the Willamette I threw in.

I also now weighs in at 6.7% ABV. Apparently I underestimated my brewing efficiency and this baby is becoming a bit of monster. Damn this beer is going to rock.

For anyone that's not familiar with common beer ABV's, here are a few generally accepted approximations of popular beers for reference.

Guinness Draught - 4.0% (though many claim it's only 3.8)
Bud Light - 4.2%
Sam Adams Boston Lager - 4.8%
Pabst Blue Ribbon - 5.0%
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - 5.2%
Anchor Porter - 5.6%
Olde English 800 - 5.9%
Colt 45 - 6.0%
Schlitz Malt Liquor - 6.2%
Redhook IPA 6.5%

Hombrewing: South Mountain Porter

I finally got a new batch of homebrew rolling last night. South Mountain Porter will be a coffee porter with either beans or espresso from South Mountain Cycles & Coffee Bar added during secondary fermentation. Here are the stats:

Recipe:

8 lbs Marris Otter (pale malt)
1 lb American Munich
1 lb 140L Crystal Malt
8 oz. Chocolate Malt
4 oz. Carafa II
1 oz. Willamette hops @ 90 min
1 oz Willamette hops @ 30 min
Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast (Sierra Nevada's yeast)

4 oz. crushed espresso beans in secondary

Mash 153 F for 60 minutes, 2 liters/1 lb grain, 75% efficiency (pictured)
Original Gravity: 1.061
Final Gravity: 1.009
ABV: 6.7% ABV
IBU: 30

Beer Review: Drinking Shit

There's nothing I could add to this description:

This imperial Oatmeal stout is brewed with one of the world’s most expensive coffees, made from droppings of weasel-like civet cats. The fussy Southeast Asian animals only eat the best and ripest coffee berries. Enzymes in their digestive system help to break down the bean. Workers collect the bean-containing droppings for Civet or Weasel Coffee. The exceedingly rare Civet Coffee has a strong taste and an even stronger aroma.

So just to summarize, I drank beer brewed with poop-coffee. And I liked it. In fact, it might be the best beer I've had this year.

Beer Geek Brunch (Weasel)
Mikkeller
American Double / Imperial Stout

A / 4.3
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | drink: 4.5

Found a bottle hiding on one of the bottom shelves at Abe's Cold Beer for $11.25. I'm not usually impressed with big stouts, but this beer was fantastic. My first issue with imperial stouts is drinkability, but I split the bottle with a friend and could have easily split a second or drank it myself. My other typical concern with the style is that they all have the same heavy roast and cocoa flavors without much deviation. This beer started with a very unique, earthy coffee flavor that rolled off into chocolate liquor, cherries, and then a punch of citrus finishing hops. There was an incredibly long aftertaste that wouldn't seem to quit, though when it finally did, I wished I had more beer.