Friday’s here, so it’s time for beer.
As a native Floridian, there’s nothing quite like taking a lazy afternoon after work and either hanging out on the patio with a cold beer in hand or heading down to the pub to talk about the weeks’ events. In the past, we’ve had to make due with imports and macrobrews. Nowadays, we have the privilege of some amazing home-grown product.
Ian Salzberg’s Drink Like A Local program is an amazing initiative to help spread the word of our state’s craft beer movement, and what better way to help than to buy, drink and tweet!
“It helps the entire microeconomy, the local economy,” Salzberg proclaimed to SouthFlorida.com. “Now that brewers are creating this product, we need to help foster them and keep things fresh.”
Every Friday, so long as the creek don’t rise, this beer enthusiast will take a look at a Florida beer that, hopefully, should be readily available in a local shop or on tap at your favorite bar.
This week, we’re taking a ride on the Tampa Bay Brew Bus with Are Wheat There Yet?, an American wheat beer.
Pouring into a Hennepin glass, the beer reveals color that is yellow-orange, with the traditional and expected cloudy haze. It’s almost a picture perfect example of the wheat style.
Taking in the aroma, I’m greeted with tinges of grapefruit and pine with fresh hop flower coming through. It’s a great scent, and I could breath it in all day.
Drinking is where it starts to change, though, and is where this beer has, what I feel is, an identity crisis. It’s very hoppy, with spruce and pine again lifting the taste. The malt base is barely there, taking the wheat with it into basically just creating a crisp mouthfeel. I could mistake this for an IPA, instead of a wheat beer.
Lacing on the glass stays for a good while, evidence that the wheat is there and doing its thing.
So, for you hop lovers, look to grab this IPA-styled wheat beer this weekend, and drink locally.
For complete article from Broward Palm Beach New Times, please visit (browardpalmbeach.com),