Cigar City Brew News

New Tulip Glasses/New Barrel Fills... The last seven days have been draining. Last Wednesday I pulled off a 19 hour round trip excursion to Atlanta to drop off beer for GABF, including beer from several Florida breweries which will be pouring at the Florida Brewer's Guild booth at GABF. The day after the trip I was delirious and incoherent. More so than usual anyway.

Then Monday Wayne and I left Tampa at 2PM for a beer dinner at Kickback's in Jacksonville (great beer bar by the way) which saw us getting back home to Tampa at 4 AM the next day. The beer dinner went great though. Big thanks to Steve and the staff at Kickback's for putting on a fun beer dinner and for everyone that showed up (even the Seminole Fans) to support craft and local beer. Kickback's is definitely one of those bars you wish you had in your neighborhood. So after getting to bed around 5:30 am I had to wake up early on Tuesday as I had an early deadline for my beer column, which I hadn't worked on as usual. Tonight I am shooting for 16 hours of sleep.

Today Doug and Wayne filled several barrels and we bottled about 30 cases of Marshal Zhukov's. We still have a full 15 bbl tank to bottle, which will yield another 200-220 cases, but means Zhukov's release will be delayed until early October. So today in addition the bottles filled we prepped about 100 gallons of Hunahpus for fests, new territory kickoffs and special events. And we have barrel aged versions of Brandy Barrel Zhukov's, Bourbon Barrel Zhukov's and Bourbon Barrel Hunahpus in the cellar.

We also got our new tulip flasses in, finally.

That's all for now. As always, thanks to everyone that supports our brewing efforts by drinking our beer.

Cheers,
Joey

p.s. I prepped up a 5 gallon test bacth of Guava Grove aged on green and white peppercorns and Scuppernongs that I bought at a roadside gas station/produce stand in North Florida on my way back from Atlanta. The Scuppernong aroma has picked up quickly and it always amazes me how it gives a somewhat funky brett angle to things. It should be ready in a week or so. If I like where it is going we'll make it available for samples and growlers at that tasting room.