Jax Beer Week is almost upon us

Last year the inaugural Jax Beer Week proved that Jacksonville is a town ready for a premier beer event. This year marks the event’s second year and finds a line-up of Tap takeovers, dinners, tastings and beer specials that is sure to please even the pickiest of beer aficionados.

While the list presented below is by no means comprehensive, you can get an idea for what is going on. Friend the Springfield Brew Crew or Jax Beer Guy on Facebook for details on new events as they become available. You can also follow Sprbrewcrew or JaxBeerGuy on Twitter.

Monday, April 1

Pele’s Wood Fire

The ever creative Chef Micah at Pele’s Wood Fire is throwing down a with a sumptuous meal paired with Bell’s Brewery beers. The Dinner features seven courses paired with seven delicious Bell’s beers.

Cost for this spectacular meal is $75 per person including tax and gratuity. Non-refundable deposit of $25 per person is required. For reservations call (904)232-8545. Only 40 seats are available, so reserve early.

Brewer’s Pizza 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Brewer’s will host a night with Grassroots Natural Market. The guys from Grassroots of Riverside will come out and drink some brews, rub elbows and pour some beers for sampling.

Tuesday, April 2

Brewer’s Pizza 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Florida Beer night with special guest Carolyn Graham from Brown Distribution. Brewer’s will be featuring taps from all of their favorite local breweries and others from all over Florida.

Beer Specials

Solids & Stripes, Mellow Mushroom – Fleming Island, and Taps – Fleming Island

Wednesday, April 3

Beer Specials

Aardwolf Brewing Co., Grape & Grain Exchange, The Grotto, Hurricanes, European Street – San Marco, Northstar Substation, Underbelly, Burro Bar, 1904, Burrito Gallery, Fionn MacCools – Landing, Olio

Thursday, April 4

Dahlia’s Pour House

The gang at Dahlia’s will be offering thirsty Jax Beer Week revelers $4 IPAs.

Bold City Brewing Co. 7:00 p.m to 11:00 p.m.

The crew at Bold City are treating their guests to a Florida Tap Takeover featuring spectacular brews from across the great state of Florida. The tap list includes:

Cask & Larder                         Black Ale (Winter Park, FL)

Big Storm Brewery                  Wavemaker Amber Ale (Odessa, FL)

Due South Brewing                  Roasted Cocoa Stout (Boynton Beach, FL)

7venth Sun Brewing                Graffiti Orange (Dunedin, FL)

Tequesta Brewing Company    Terminally Ale and Irish Red Ale (Tequesta, FL)

Cigar City Brewing                  Humidor Series IPA (Tampa, FL)

Pensacola Bay Brewing           Lil’ Napoleon IPA (Pensacola, FL)

Florida Beer Company             Gaspar’s Porter (Melbourne, FL)

Grassroots Natural Market 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Grassroots will host a Jacksonville Beer Tasting featuring Ben Davis owner and brewer at Intuition Ale Works who will bring a special cask brew. Also at the tasting will be a cask brew from Green Room Brewing in Jacksonville Beach.

Beer Specials

Intuition Ale Works, Kickbacks Gastropub, Pele’s Wood Fire, Broudy’s, Beer:30, European Street Riverside, Black Sheep Restaurant, O’Brother’s

Friday, April 5

Green Room Brewing Co. 4:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight

Florida Mega Tap Takeover with over 50 Florida beers. Breweries that will be represented at the event include:

Cigar City Brewing 7venth Sun Due South Brewing Swamp Head Brewing Saint Somewhere Pensacola Bay Brewery Tequesta Brewing Intuition Ale Works Pinglehead Brewing Co. Mile Marker Brewing Engine 15 Brewing Co. Cocoa Beach Brewing Three Palms Brewing Florida Beer Company And more…..

Also 17 Green Room Brewing beers on tap including:

Quetzalcoatl Many versions of the Count And much more

Engine 15 Brewing Co. 12:00 noon to 12:00 midnight

The Engine 15, Engine 15 Tap Takeover. The guys at the Engine have been working hard to make this year’s Jax Beer Week event special. What better way to do that than to take over all their taps with all their own beers – 51 of them to be precise, plus one in a firkin.

Beer Specials

Mellow Mushroom – Southside, Seven Bridges, Total Wine + More, Broudy’s – Ponte Vedra, Monkey’s Uncle, European Street – Jax Beach, Mellow Mushroom – Jax Beach, Lynch’ Irish Pub, The Brick, Royal Palm Village, Island Girl, ABC Liquor, Wine Warehouse, Poe’s

Saturday, April 6

Grand Tasting 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m.

The culmination of Jax Beer Week is the Grand Tasting that will take place downtown in conjunction with Community First Saturday in front of the Times-Union Center on the Northbank Riverwalk. The tasting will feature over 30 beers including many from Florida. Also enjoy the Food Truck Skyway Crawl and live music.

Bands and performance times are:

12:30 p.m.       Canary in the Coalmine

1:30 p.m.         RickoLus

2:45 p.m.         Four Families

DJ E. Lee 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., between sets, and 3:30 p.m to 4:30 p.m.

Related articles

• Nominations open soon for Beer City USA; Let’s get Jacksonville on the ballot (sprbrewcrew.wordpress.com)
• Florida Breweries (elleswim.net)

 

Gas Full Service resturant in St. Augustine to host Green Room for dinner

Known for featuring locally grown food, Gas Full Service restuarant is becoming a frequent host for high-end beer dinners and this month is no different.  Later this month — February 20, to be exact — the restaurant will host Green Room Brewing Company for its latest beer and food pairing dinner.

Gas is, in the words of one Yelp! reviewer, well, a gas. The reviewer describes the restaurant as having an “eclectic interior, creative menus, friendly servers, and over-all vibe.” The food can be described as comfort food: items on the menu include Momma’s Meatloaf, Beer Can Chicken, and stuffed burgers. Gas also boasts made daily dessert that make saving room a priority.

For the beer dinner, there will be six beers and five courses, attendees are sure to experience the culinary wizardry that diners at Gas have come to expect. The menu was still being finalized at the time of this writing but, the beer list looks impressive. Expect to taste a number of Green Room favorites along with some new brew paired with gastonomic masterpieces. included are:

• Mini Session IPA
• Undertow Barleywine
• Mary Lee Great Wheat
• Count Shaka-la
• India Brown Ale — a collaboration with the soon-to-open Aardwolf Brewing Company
• Coffee and Cream Ale

The event begins at 6:00 p.m. on February 20. Tickets are $65 and include tax, tip, and a souvenier pint glass for you to keep. Purchase tickets at the restaurant, but hurry, they are sure to go fast.

What can you say about a restaurant named “Gas”? (I even included it in the Top Ten Interesting Florida Restaurant Names chapter in my latest book). But don’t let a name that could be inferred as flatulence turn you away. This restaurant is a labor of love by the young owners and it shows from the eclectic interior, creative menu, friendly servers, and over-all vibe. Featuring locally grown food when possible, Gas serves up interesting twists on your typical diner fare: Momma’s Meatloaf is unlike anything my momma used to make, the Beer Can Chicken brings rural cuisine uptown, and the Stuffed Burger of the Day will surprise your taste buds. In addition to diner fare, Gas also serves more upscale food for those with a more, ahem, discriminating palate. The Local Catch of the Day is cooked in a variety of ways (and each to perfection) and the various steaks will give even the higher-end joints a run for their money. Be sure to save room for dessert, because they’re made daily and seem to be the product of whatever catches the fancy of the dessert chef. The only drawback? When the place is hopping, the acoustics make it very difficult to carry on a conversation, so if you are looking for an intimate dining experience this may not be the place for you. But if you are looking for creative dishes served up with a great selection of beer and a lot of laughter, this place is a gas…

 

Pele’s Wood Fire to host Cigar City beer dinner

Pele’s Wood Fire has established itself as a restaurant that takes craft beer seriously. Not only do they have an excellent selection of 50 brews on tap, but they also have had a tradition of pairing those brews with Chef Micah’s brilliant culinary creations. Coming up on January 22 Pele’s will present a beer pairing dinner featuring Chef Micah’s creations paired with Cigar City brews.

Cigar City Brewing has made a name for themselves as producers of excellent craft beer. This was never more evident than at last year’s Great American Beer Festival where the CCB booth had line scores deep. Attending the dinner at Pele’s will be Travis Kruger, who runs the CCB tasting room at the brewery in Tampa.

The beer and food pairings are:

Reception beer: Hotter Than Helles German-style Helles lager.

Dinner 1st Course
Lambs lettuce, Radishes and Carrots Wheat Beer Bagna Cauda
Beer pairing: Florida Cracker Belgian-style Witbier

2nd Course
Mozzarella Arancini Sicilian fried risotto stuffed with hand-made mozzarella and orange basil mayonaise
Beer pairing: Roarin’ Lion Calypso IPA

3rd Course
Beer Cheese “Cappuccino” Soup Malt milk crackers, tomato, sweet onion, and cream
Beer pairing: Minaret ESB English-style Extra Special Bitter

4th Course
Prime Rib Braciole Rosemary potatoes, Rapini, and wood fired dopplebock marinara
Beer pairing: Resonator Dopplebock German-style Dopplebock

5th Course Tobacco smoked chocolate ice cream cone, spun with liquid Nitrogen, set on an Italian pizzelle waffle cookie cone
Beer pairing: Maduro Brown Ale

Reception begins at 6:00 p.m. and the first course will be served at 6:30 p.m. The price of the dinner is $65 and includes tax and tip. You can reservations for the dinner by calling Pele’s Wood Fire at (904)232-8545.

Keep up to date on all the beer happenings and news going on in town at the ALL NEW www.JaxBeerGuy.com.

 

Three beer dinners provide opportunities to Drink Like a Local — and eat that way too

If you are looking for a good beer dinner to attend, you are in luck. Next week there are three great dinners that you can attend. As part of the Drink Like a Local movement, Royal Palms Wine & Tapas at the Beaches, Gas Full Service Restaurant in St. Augustine, and Pele’s Wood Fire in Riverside will each host a dinner at their restaurants paired with local, in-state brews. Chefs at each of the restaurants have prepared special, one-of-a-kind menus to celebrate all that is local in craft beer.

The Drink Like a Local movement has been gaining momentum as beer drinkers look for fresher, local and regional brews. Along with the Jacksonville GoLo (Go Local) and the farm to table movements, the Drink Like a Local movement is a return to the roots of local consumerism. It is a sort of opposition to the corporatization of modern society.

“By supporting local businesses, you are keeping jobs and money in your community,” said Carolyn Graham of Brown Distributing Company, sponsor of the Drink Like a Local movement. “Local businesses link together building stronger communities; local breweries share their spent grain with local farmers who in turn sell the grain-fed stock to local restaurants.”

“It’s a web of economic social environments providing the freshest products to the marketplace,” Graham concluded.

Tickets for each dinner are $60 per person, including tax and gratuity. See each restaurant’s information below for reservation information.

Royal Palms Wine & Tapas Menu & Pairings

Date: Monday, Nov. 12           Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: 296 Royal Palm Dr., Atlantic Beach
Reservations: (904) 372-0052

First Course
Local Mayport Shrimp & Chorizo Brochette
Beer Pairing – Tsunami Szechuan Saison, Green Room Brewing

Second Course
Winter Squash Soup w/ Spent Grain Magdalene
Beer Pairing – Seasonal Pumpkin Ale, Bold City Brewery

Third Course
Scallop & Flounder Roulade w/ Plantain & Serrano Hash
Beer Pairing – Duuuvaaal Belgian Golden Ale, Intuition Ale Works

Fourth Course
Maple Smoked Pork Loin w/ Beer BBQ & Rosemary Potatoes
Beer Pairing – Black IPA, Engine 15 Brewing Co.

Fifth Course
Green Chile Dark Chocolate Truffle
Beer Pairing – Mind Drive Imperial Porter, Pinglehead Brewing Company

Gas Full Service Restaurant Menu & Pairings

Date: Wednesday, Nov. 14   Two Seatings: 5:30 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Location: 9 Anastasia Blvd. #C, Saint Augustine
Reservations: (904) 217-0326

First Course
Deviled eggs
Beer Pairing – Wildnight Honey Cream Ale, Swamp Head Brewing Co.

Second Course
Local Scallop Ceviche
Beer Pairing – Weissguy, Engine 15 Brewing Co.

Third Course
Heirloom Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad
Beer Pairing – Imperial Red, Pinglehead Brewing Co.

Fourth Course
Chef’s Surprise Course

Fifth Course
Cartwheel Ranch Pork Chop Chargrilled with Butternut Squash Risotto and Sauteed Swiss Chard
Beer Pairing – Truck Stop Stout, Intuition Ale Works

Fifth Course
Spice Cake made with Sangue Del Mar Saison, topped with an Orange and Rosemary Infused Pastry Cream and fresh local berries
Beer Pairing – Sangue Del Mar Saison, Green Room Brewing

Pele’s Menu & Pairings

Date: Thursday, Nov. 15         Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: 2665 Park St., Jacksonville
Reservations: (904) 232-8545

First Course
Artisan Greens with Blood Orange Saison Dressing
Beer Pairing – Sang de le Mar, Green Room Brewing

Second Course
Seared Scallop and lemon thyme risotto
Beer Pairing – Killer Whale Cream Ale, Bold City Brewery

 Third Course
La Rustica and Beer Cheese Soup,  Oven Dried Tomato, Basil and Swiss
Beer Pairing – Old Battle Axe, Engine 15 Brewing Co.

Fourth Course
Roast Lamb Chop, Sweet Potato Gnocchi, Parmesan Reggiano, Marinara, Organic Olive Oil
Beer Pairing – Imperial Red, Pinglehead Brewing Co.

Fifth Course
Maple Creme Brulee, Candied Bacon, Oatmeal Brittle, Candied Walnuts, Sweet Whip
Beer Pairing – Truckstop Stout, Intuition Ale Works

 

Cigar City beer dinner at Publix Aprons Cooking School

Cigar City Marshal Zhukov’s Imperial Stout (Photo credit: Bernt Rostad)

Whenever the name Cigar City Brewing comes up in beer geek conversations people take on hushed tones. They begin to wax eloquently about Hunahpu, Jai Alai, and Marshal Zukhov. They tip their glasses reverently towards Tampa, and mumble a little prayer to the fabled brewery. Not really, but Cigar City is known to be one of the state’s best breweries and they have the popularity, awards, and most of all, the talent to deserve that designation. Friday, July 27, you can taste the legendary brews of Cigar City paired with delicious dishes from the chefs of Aprons Cooking School at the Mandarin Publix.

It does not seem possible that all the fame and praise is showered upon a brewery that is only four years old, but the truth of the matter is that Cigar City was incorporated in 2008. In those four years, though it has grown under the watchful eyes of owner Joey Redner and brewer Wayne Wambles. Both Redner and Wambles are expected to be present at the dinner.

The afore mentioned Hunahpu is the much sought after Imperial Stout from the brewery. Aged on cacao nibs, Madagascar vanilla beans, ancho chilis, pasilla chilis and cinnamon, this brew is coveted by beer lovers world-wide. Jai Alai is the brewery’s flagship IPA, and Marshal Zukhov is another Imperial Stout that elicits raves from beer lovers and critics alike.

The menu Friday night will consist of dishes made and paired with different Cigar City beers and includes:

Tempura Beer Battered Conch Salad with Guava Grove Farmhouse Ale Vinaigrette served with Guava Grove Farmhouse Ale. Spicy Andouille Sausage Gumbo Pizza with Brewery Crust served with Jai Alai IPA. Coffee & Cocoa Dusted Beef Short Ribs with Parsnip Puree served with Jose Marti Porter. And to finish the evening off in style, Flourless Chocolate Cake with Espresso Ganache and Maduro Brown Ale Caramel.

The dinner begins at 6:30 and tickets are available by calling (904) 262-4187. Cost is $45 per person. Publix Aprons Cooking School is located at: 10500 San Jose Blvd.