Never had a communist beer - Cigar City Cubano Espresso

Dave and Sara are in town to visit for the weekend, and more of a reason do I need to write a couple of updates! Dave and Sara toured the Cigar City Brewery in Tampa after Dave's completion of the Bar exam. They decided it would be fun to grab a growler and have a group review...today we are going to try the Cigar City Cubano Espresso.





The first thing that we noticed about this beer is the rich coffee aroma...Sara and I agreed that the beer smells more like an iced coffee that a stout beer. The pour was soft and resulted in little head (although, Dave was pouring the beer in a manner that preserved every drop of beer from the growler). The beer is dark in color, although not so much that you cannot see the slight changes in the color when shown in light. The flavor, much like the aroma, is very coffee heavy...which is not a negative attribute, but certainly something that might surprise those that were not anticipating it. The only probably with some much coffee flavor is that you can not really admire the other elements of the beer...it tends to overpower the hops and malts.

All in all, this is a very tasty beer, but it could use some tweaking to improve upon the overall flavor varieties. This is something I would have again, but something that I think I would actively seek out to purchase for stocking at my house.


Flavor: Coffee...enough said
Color: Dark and reddish brown
Alcohol Content: 5.5% (by volume)
Average Price: $7.00 (per 32 oz. growler)

James and Jessie: Awesome Review! - Sweet Water 420

Today is a first for the blog as both Jess (http://kamikazegourmet.blogspot.com/)and I are doing our first duo review together...As it is her first time to the site, she gets to pick the beer. Today we are reviewing Sweet Water 420 IPA.





This beer has a very clear and crisp amber color, Jess describes as a deep amber (perhaps a nice caramel complextion?) Little to no noticeable head, although a few bubbles are lingering along the top. For the rest of the review, I will simply dictate Jess' thoughts on the beer: "First taste is hoppy and made my tongue tickle...I had it in Atlanta for the first time while attending a museum event. It is a beer that will always remind me of Atlanta, and it makes me nostalgic for those times. My friend Mac brought this for me on a visit to Orlando...to my knowledge you cannot buy this beer anywhere but where it is locally brewed."

James back: This is a very good IPA (I promise some more variety is coming to the review soon!) and has a slight hint of baked flavor, as odd as that sounds. Jess came up with the idea of the beer review as a nice little break from my current P90X diet. I am certainly glad that I decided to give up my carb portion for the day to enjoy this refreshing IPA!


Flavor: Crisp and earthen...slight hoppiness with a nice baked finish
Color: Caramel Amber
Alcohol Content: 5.4% (by volume)
Average Price: $7.99 (6 pack) Only available in the Metro-Atlanta area

And, since I am trying to maintain my diet I think ill include this in all future updates:

Calories: 185
Total Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 0g
Carbs: 15g
Protein: 0g