Welcome to 2013! I hope everyone had a Happy New Year. As we recover from our hangovers due to the holiday season, we are already in the final planning stages for South Florida Beer Week; January 19 to January 26 , 2013. It is hard to imagine the festivities that will be occurring in just a few short weeks are almost upon us.  

This year we have some really great new events in the works. Unfortunately if you didn't already buy your tickets, the first ever brew bus is already sold out. You can still join in the fun by meeting up at one of the brew bus locations on the day of the tour but unfortunately there are no more seats available. Don't fret though there are a lot of other great events going on that week focusing on all of our Florida brewing partners such as the Hollywood Craft Beer Pub Crawl, Caja China Pig Roast at The Sybarite Pig, Cigar City Brewing's Classy Beer Can Dinner, to name a few.   

Many of these events will be featuring great beers from breweries in Florida that you cannot get in South Florida as of yet due to their limited production capacity. We will also have a handful of limited releases and newly released brands from these breweries so pay close attention to the website. Each event on the website will have a complete list of Florida beers that will be available during the events. You can pick and choose which ones you want to attend based on which beers you haven't had or want to try or you can just go for broke and try and make all of them.

So kick back this week, spend some time recuperating, drink lots of water, give you liver a rest, and check out the list of events on the website so you can figure out your game plan and organize your friends. South Florida Beer Week is almost here...Game ON!

Brewed with traditional French ale yeast, eight malts, French Strisselspalt hops, and aged on white oak and hard maple wooden staves. A traditional Biere De Garde style, this malty French-style farmhouse ale is brewed to be aged. The name honors Hougomont farmstead at the pivotal center of the Waterloo battlefield. 7.3% ABV (bottle and draft)

Stop and smell the petals. Pistil is a summer beer unlike any other, brewed with a combination of dandelion petals, pale and acidulated malts, flaked oats, and Apollo and Northern Brewer hops that results in a one-of-a-kind beer with a slightly sour acidity and a smooth malty body. Perfect for taking down deep thirst. 4.5% ABV (bottle and draft) 

Brewed with select malts, oats and hops, they relied on the yeast to provide the spicy note and the rich character of the beer. It has warm notes of toffee, coffee and a little chocolate. This porter is a beautiful beer, sure to spark a lively discussion on the finer points of Southern living. 6% ABV (draft only)

This NW style sour ale blends wheat and blond ales that were oak aged in barrels for 6 months, then additionally aged for 4 months on fresh blueberries. Huge herbal notes of dense blueberries in the nose give way to hints of oak and a dusty floral note. Rich earthy notes of dark fruit on the palate lead to a tart finish that dries out to a base note of blueberry skins. 7.33% ABV (bottle only)

A single hop IPA, using calypso hops exclusively. Roaring Lion is copper in color with a white head. The aroma is reminiscent of golden and red delicious apples. Green Bartlett pears with hints of caramel and pie crust. The flavor, having similarities to the aroma, displays the same apple and pear notes with some caramel sweetness. It is balanced by calypso hop bitterness and finishes with hints of pie crust. 6.8% ABV (draft only) 

Terrapin really loves a good experimental brew, but the salty-sweet combo of peanuts and chocolate will have you salivating a little more than usual. This brew, while smooth and mellow, still manages to challenge your taste buds. The porter base is dark and smooth, with enough backbone to support the richer chocolate and peanut butter additions. It's even dry "peanuted" with brewery-boiled green peanuts. Here's to the candy-loving kid in all of us! 6.7% ABV (bottle and draft)  

The 5th verse in the "12 Days of Christmas" winter seasonal ale series is the only golden ale and it definitely packs a holiday punch. They spiced up this ode to Winter with cinnamon, allspice, and ginger along with some delicious sweet and tangy pineapple. 11.5% ABV (bottle and draft) 

 

Leave it to the Chicago area to somehow find a way to combine pizza and beer and make the end result not simply drinkable, but increasingly in-demand.

 

Tom and Athena Seefurth's Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer has already landed the Campton Township, Ill. brewers mentions on Jay Leno, "The Today Show" and much more and -- in the new year -- it's about to hit the shelves at Jewel-Osco stores in two Chicago suburbs, South Elgin and St. Charles, in the new year, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

    

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By: Hannah Sentenac

 

As we transition into 2013, "experts" in every field are making their annual predictions about what's bound to happen in the new year. But does anyone really care about who's planning to get preggers (like the world needs another Kardashian) or which social network's gonna go bust? Not so much.

 

Screw the unnecessary prognostications. There are only a few things worth guessing about ahead of time, and one of 'em is booze. So Short Order spoke to Arwen Lehman, AKA the Craft Brewja, on the popularity of barrel-aged brews, numeric triples and why cans are where it's at in 2013.

      

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By: CBS News

 

A cattle ranch in Texas swears by a secret ingredient that makes its beef juicer: Beer.

 

Texas T Kobe ranch in Wallis pours beer into the hay its cows eat, CBS affiliate KHOU-TV reports. The ranch says the yeast in the double IPA helps promote digestion and improves the flavor and texture of the herd's meat.

 

The beer comes from a partnership with a local award-winning brewer, Saint Arnold Brewing Co.

 

Texas T follows the tradition of Kobe-style beef, a method of herding developed in Japan that raises hormone-free, Wagyu breed cattle. It's one of the most expensive types of beef and is often considered a delicacy -- it can cost up to $100 a pound. Japanese ranchers would often massage their cows or feed them beer to reach the ideal flavor.

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