Mendez Fuel

July 31, 2014 by Marco Leyte-Vidal

Yes, I'm talking about a gas station. Yes, I'm talking about the gas station in a beer blog. Yes, the gas station sells beer you can't find in most other stores and has 16 tap lines for growler fills. Lastly, yes, they have a paleo section and make healthy and delicious juices, smoothies, sandwiches, and bowls for you to eat at their counter or take away. Can you get over the fact that we're talking about a gas station yet?

This place really is something. Its clean, organized, inviting, and most of all they carry some seriously good beer in bottles and on tap for growlers! Run by Andrew Mendez, the Mendez Fuel beer section is shockingly good, considering they carry beers from Cantillon (for an hour at a time), Mikkeller, Cigar City Brewing, Prairie Ales, Pretty Things, and locals like Funky Buddha and Wynwood Brewing on tap - all in a, yes, that's right, a gas station. What's best is that they have really reasonable prices and Andrew loves answering your questions about their selection and turning your attention to new things.

The reasonable prices, access to breweries you normally don't see, and the ability to get special release beer in growlers has business going strong for the Mendez brothers. Yet, although of course he understands he has a business to build, and he is doing a good job of getting it to grow, Andrew isn't completely focused on the money. He says what he likes best about the growth he's seen in the business is the new people he gets to meet and share his passion with and the ability to turn people on to new ideas and tastes they may never have tried before. Usually when you hear somebody say that you think: "yea sure, I believe that...", but with Andrew for some reason you seem to believe it wholeheartedly. It just makes you want to support them and help them push the craft beer scene in South Florida forward.

Michael Mendez, older brother to Andrew and owner of Mendez Fuel, is more proud of the health food and juice options available at Mendez, and trust me after having a few different things, I have a feeling I'll be grabbing my lunches from Mendez Fuel more often. Try the smoothies for a snack or meal replacement. Grab a bowl or a sandwich if you're more hungry. It's only fitting that they serve healthy food items alongside the beer. Hey if you eat something healthy, you can drink one more beer, right?!

Here's the valuable nugget of this story: we need to support local businesses like Mendez Fuel, who are working hard to get us better quality products (especially when it comes to beer), hiring local, and investing in the local economy! Go say hi to Andrew and let him know Craft Commander sent you! You might even consider filling your car with gas while you're there.

Mendez fuel is located at: 3201 Coral Way, Miami, FL

A Weekend in Tampa/St.Pete

July 22, 2014 by Marco Leyte-Vidal

We're no strangers to Tampa but every time we go we learn something new about the city and its culture and fall more in love with this seemingly sleepy "small" town. Once referred to as "Florida's armpit", Tampa and the surrounding areas are a mecca for Floridians who are seeking the best that Florida has to offer in the way of beer. Cigar City Brewing leads the way with other breweries like, Cycle, Rapp, Green Bench, 7venth Sun, Dunedin, and Barley Mow all producing unique, high quality beer. If you live in Florida, visiting Tampa for a weekend (with a driver who doesn't drink) is highly recommended and actually, well, you just need to do it.

This trip started with a visit to Cigar City Brewing in preparation for our interview with Wayne Wambles their brewmaster later in the day. We showed up before opening and were greeted by a line of people just waiting to get in... At 10:30 a.m. A tour of the facilities brought me back to the first time we took a group tour, one of about 15 people looking at the then tiny brewery and thinking to ourselves, this thing is going to blow up. Well, it did. The original brew-house is still there but now they've expanded into a second building (Brewhouse #2) which resembling a missile silo to the right of the taproom entrance. The massive fermenters fill the building and shine in the morning sun when the front door opens. It's a beautiful thing.

The original Cigar City Brewing brewhouse and our friend Mr. Bob Lorber

Walking through the fermenters I felt like what that annoying kid in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe must have felt like when he stepped into the closet and out into Narnia. Except, instead of trees and snow, I found large metal cylinders filled with award winning beer. Winning. The best part about this place was the smell - the smell of HOPS. Citrusy, wonderful, hops. Everywhere. I was politely asked to stop hugging the fermenters and led to the canning line.

We followed Billy Burnes (seen left with a Marshal Zhukov work shirt), our gracious host, to the canning/bottling line. They've upgraded their canning line from a machine that would fill ~60 cans per minute to one that runs over 150 in the same amount of time. It's an impressive thing. Even more impressive is the walls of cans stacked up to the ceiling just waiting to be filled with beer, emptied into our glasses, and hopefully recycled and filled again. While this part of the brewery is not currently part of the tour, it's supposed to become part of the tour likely after the renovations that are set to take place soon.

We ended with a couple beers in the taproom, a single hop (experimental hop #527) IPA (very flowery and crisp) and a Horchata ale on nitro (think sweet, vanilla, cinnamon), as well as some samples, including their Peach American Sour Ale (incredibly refreshing, fruity, tart, sour, dank) and a really nice Dragon Fruit Lime Saison. After filling a crowler with Hoppier than Helles (an incredibly crisp and hoppy lager) we had lunch at taco bus - a must visit - and were off to meet up with Wayne at 7venth Sun Brewing in Dunedin.

7venth Sun is a small brewery in Dunedin, Florida, (4.5 barrels) that offers tons of brett options, saisons, barrel aged beers, and really unique, hop forward IPA's. It's a straight forward approach to beer - letting the ingredients shine, letting the yeast and barrels do their thing, but most of all, turning that into a dance between ingredients most breweries only wish they could achieve. There's no over hopped IPA just for the sake of saying their beers are hoppy - it's about creating balance! This is why we're such big fans. They create balanced beer NOT gimmicks! Best thing of all is that they are really nice people who all love beer and are knowledgeable in their offerings. In fact, all bartenders are cicerone certified - think sommelier but beer - and will very readily and willingly answer any questions about the beer you're about to spend your hard earned money on. The service you get here makes your experience with their product that much more enjoyable and sets 7venth Sun apart from many other breweries we've been to. For example, a craft beer novice can walk into the taproom, ask questions and not feel judged by asking those "dumb questions" they've been looked at weird for asking at other breweries. Instead, their questions will be met with an answer that actually helps you understand why what you are drinking is so special and why it tastes different than Corona or Bud Light. We need this attitude to permeate into every taproom in the country if this craft beer revolution is going to continue to strengthen and turn into a part of our mainstream culture.

The takeaway here is GO. Go now and go often. [For details on the interview with Wayne check out our conversations page.]

From 7venth Sun we set our course to Cycle Brewing in downtown St. Pete. This is one of my favorite breweries because of the quality of the beer they produce is just really damn good. You can get the beer at Cycle in downtown St. Pete, where we went on this trip, or at the original location, Peg's Cantina in Gulfport (we really love the feel at Peg's). I love their IPA's, their sours, their porters, and I especially love their roasty, sweet, chewy stouts (especially when they've sat in barrels). This visit I was rewarded with the Berry Best, an incredibly balanced and just sour enough Berliner Weisse that was a really nice, rich, pink color. The berries shine through up front and the sourness was just enough to put you on the verge of puckering - just right, and really refreshing. Sitting in the modern taproom with modern art on the walls and just about everything made to resemble parts of a bicycle or made from bicycle parts, you feel like you are in a completely different world than 7venth Sun's tap room just 30 minutes away. Not any better or worse, just different. The beers here are top notch and worth the 35 minute drive from downtown Tampa to St. Pete. Again, do yourself the favor and go.

We rounded out our day with our first visit to Green Bench Brewing. The tap room is really nice and inviting and was PACKED! We had a flight of beers and were happy with the offerings. Two different stouts and two different IPA's - I know, I know... we really did our best there to get a feel for their wide array of beer styles... The tap room screams vintage, woodsy, Americana, or an Abercrombie and Fitch bag from the early 2000's. That's not a bad thing! I've always loved the vintage outdoorsy feel and the Americana vibe. Plus, their taproom really sets itself apart from other breweries'. It's a great place to come in and have a few beers and you somehow forget you're sitting in a brewery even though you can see the brewhouse lit up through the massive glass windows just behind the bar. Just a few minutes walk down the street from Cycle Brewing, make this part of your visit to St. Pete.

Here's the moral of the story, if you say you are a fan of great craft beer and you live in Florida, you need to go to Tampa/St. Pete, otherwise you don't actually like great craft beer. That's an exaggeration but I think it drives the point home! For you out-of-staters, Cigar City is in the Tampa airport for God's sake, what more of a welcoming invitation is needed to get yourself on a plane and into our beautiful home State for a weekend of brewery touring?

(More pictures of our Tampa tour are in the "snapshots" section of the page)

THE MIGHTY MIAMI

The Mighty Miami

June 20, 2014 by Marco Leyte-Vidal

"Good food and good beer always pair together." Ryan Brooks, owner of The Mighty, a restaurant/bar just outside of Miami's historic Little Havana, is on to something. This place isn't about frills, although it is really nice, modern, and clean, squeaky clean actually, and it's not about Ryan, who seemingly wanted nothing to do with our camera, it's about letting the food and the beer do the talking. And it does.

Ryan's love of craft beer began when he drank a 21A IPA from 21st Amendment Brewery, a place he would eventually work at and continue to grow his passion. He soon found himself running out to bars around the city after hours to get his hands on the latest Belgian import or newest release from one of San Francisco's various breweries. For those who have never been to San Francisco, it is a place where you can eat at a different restaurant (a good restaurant) and find a good beer in a different restaurant every day of your life without hitting the same one twice. It's a place that puts emphasis on what's on the plate or in the glass and not so much on whether the wall art is going to be considered trendy by Vogue magazine. Most of all, it's place where anyone can get a great meal and a great beer without spending a fortune. This is what Ryan wanted to bring to Miami. We think he did. We're happy he did.

Ryan's history and San Francisco influence is evident around the restaurant with this 21st Amendment artwork as an example.

This is a place that was created to be approachable. From the chalk board wall to the pool table, the design screams "Come in! Relax! Try our sausages!" The sausages, made from scratch, in house, are fantastic. Everything from the "Chicken Gorgonzola Mango" to the "Sausage of the Sea" which holds salmon, octopus, sea scallops, and roasted peppers, is phenomenal. Served with homemade sauces and their homemade mustard, which for mustard fans (weird to call yourself a "mustard fan") is a must have. Most importantly, the sausages pair really well with the selection of beers that Ryan has. Tonight I had Cigar City Brewing's Hornswoggled, a red ale aged with oak and vanilla and served on nitro, but take your pick there's plenty to choose from.

Pork sausage - sage, garlic, and fennel served over grilled onions and peppers.

But where The Mighty shines is its great list of saisons, sours, belgians, and other hard to find and very interesting beers. Best of all is the knowledge of what they have and why they are selling it. Ensuring that the Belgians and saisons stay on the menu because "they are great 'food beers'" is a concept that most restaurants don't understand but The Mighty embraces. You come here to try something new and to learn something new about beer, and Ryan says that most of the customers come in to The Mighty with open minds and lots of questions. Questions are good - questions mean that craft beer is only continuing to grow because it means that people are really starting to care. More than a "I got the rarest bottle of beer and I'm not sharing" kind of care, but a similar appreciation of craft beer as to wine. More like: understanding the processes that go into making the beer that you're about to drink and understanding the flavor profiles that will make your meal more pleasurable. And Ryan credits local breweries like Wynwood Brewing and Funky Buddha for educating the consumer down here - of course, you can always find their beers on tap at The Mighty.

The Mighty opened its doors with a bit of blind faith. Not knowing exactly what the Miami consumer would want to drink or whether this kind of place could survive in a market dominated by big chains and big beer. Yet, only a couple months in and things are going well. It's a sign that craft beer is garnering the attention it deserves at the table. It's a sign that people are opening their noses, palates, and minds to new experiences with their food and beer.

While we're still a far cry from the established beer and food culture that Ryan left behind in San Francisco, places like The Mighty are pushing our city in that direction. Serving craft beer, sausages, and stiff drink, The Mighty is one place you should definitely stop by.

To get to The Mighty: 2224 Coral Way, Miami, FL 33145

Contact The Mighty:

www.themightymiami.com

info@themightymiami.com

305-570-4311

Beer! Food's Best Friend.

June 09, 2014 by Marco Leyte-Vidal

When you think about food and drink pairings, society has trained us to think that wine is what should be served at the table. Yet, the more I travel the world, the more it becomes apparent that the idea that wine is the only table drink is somewhat of an oddity confined to us here in the States. Beer is served alongside goulash and pork knee in Prague, mussels in Belgium, fresh conch salad in the Bahamas, and the list goes on. All around the world people have embraced the idea of beer with food for decades. Why? Because ultimately, it works better with food than wine! There, I said it.

The options are endless. Countless styles multiplied by countless variations of those styles gives you the ability to find a beer that will suit any meal. Plus, with the wide availability of hops and grain through homebrew stores and online outlets, if you can’t find what you’re after for a certain food item – you can always brew it yourself! This is a good thing! What wine pairs with spicy Indian food better than a hoppy IPA? None. Wine people – you know it’s true. I enjoy wine. A lot. Still, beer is king when it comes to pairing. Try Rapp Brewing’s Gose (Seminole, FL) with some fresh Blue Point oysters and tell me it doesn’t change your perception of what beer can do to food and vice-a-versa. Dessert you ask? Grab a piece of decadent chocolate cake and pair it with Cigar City’s Marshall Zhukov (Tampa, FL) and tell me a glass of wine would have paired better. Point is, beer’s ability to pair with and enhance your food are superior to wine. Period.

Rapp Brewing Co.'s - Gose.  2014  Best Beer Florida Competition Gold/Best of Show winner.  Visit www.rappbrewing.com for more information on this great Florida craft brewery. — Rapp Brewing Co.'s - Gose. 2014 Best Beer Florida Competition Gold/Best of Show winner. Visit www.rappbrewing.com for more information on this great Florida craft brewery.

Lucky for us, restaurant owners and chefs are starting to understand the importance of a varied menu of quality craft beers in their restaurants. Even here in Miami, where the still infantile craft beer scene is only now beginning to crawl, restaurants are popping up around town focusing their entire menus on the way the food will play with the beers being offered. But it’s not only these beer-centric restaurants that are taking note of the beauties of pairing beers with food. High end restaurants which traditionally only offered wine or spirits have begun to open the door to the American craft beer too. Restaurants like Route 9, OTC Miami, and Batch Gastropub are taking things one step further and hosting multi course beer dinners to show off just how good the pairings can be.

For a great read on food pairings with your favorite beer styles check out “The Brewmaster’s Table” by Garrett Oliver.

Cheers!

Craft Commander