Independent craft breweries in Florida are being threatened by retail and distributor groups, which could result in the end of beers like the ones you’re about to read about.

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Drink Tampa Bay is an ongoing series chronicling locally made beer and wine.

This week we got to’ up on the Girthquake Indian Pale Braggot and The Awakening Coffee Milk Stout beers brewed by Angry Chair Brewing in Seminole Heights.

Girthquake Indian Pale Braggot (A Collaboration with B. Nektar) – 10.2%

Roy: It’s an Indian Pale Braggot.

Rusty: I don’t know what that is. What is that thing from Harry Potter?

Margeaux: It’s a boggart. Don’t question my knowledge of Harry Potter.

Rusty: It’s a nice amber, nice, dark. It had a nice, thick head.

Roy: You can smell – it’s very floral. That’s the orange blossom honey.

Rusty: There is a bit of orange blossom in there… maybe there is a bit of honey in there.

Roy: (Drinks) …Very sweet. That’s a lot of honey.

Rusty: (Drinks) Holy shit! Whoa. So it’s thick. It tastes like – after they brewed – they put honey in it.

Roy: That’s honey.

Margeaux: It’s like a mead. It’s syrupy. But it still has that carbonation.

Rusty: There’s a bit of hoppiness at the end.

Roy: They do put 420 pounds of honey in it.

Rusty: And the lingering taste afterwards is like honey. Like you had a honey candy.

Margeaux: I think that’s a good beer for people who like ciders.

Rusty: It’s intense on both ends – the bitterness isn’t super intense, but it’s not a subtle introduction… it’s like they’re both duking it out (the sweetness and the bitterness). But obviously the sweetness is the one that is overpowering. But, now that we discuss it, it does look like honey too. I think that is the color. It’s unique. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like that before.

Roy: It’s very sweet. And I do like honey… big bear likes the honey. It’s sticky too.

Rusty: It’s a little much, I think. A little intense.

Roy: Let’s cut it down to 300 pounds of honey, and see what happens then.

Margeaux: It’s delicious. If it was really cold, and you were outside-

Rusty: If it was ice cold. If you were drinking it out of the vaginal opening of a glacier… you could probably drink it a little more casually.

Roy: If you drank this warm… if you drank it like room temperature… you couldn’t do that.

Rusty: That would be a good bee sting though.

The Awakening Coffee Milk Stout – 6.6%

Roy: It uses coffee from Buddy Brew, which is a coffee place in the Tampa Bay area.

Rusty: Coffee huttery, if you will. (Smells) Ohhhh myyy godddd it smells so good. It smells like a nice, rich, kind of sweet coffee. It smells like a miracle.

Margeax: It smells like Vietnamese iced coffee.

Roy: It smells like straight coffee. You don’t get any of the alcohol smell to it.

Rusty: This had a bit of a head, but it was gone. It’s extremely dark, you can’t see through it. A toffee colored head. (Drinks) Ohhhhhh shiiiit. It doesn’t taste like beer. It tastes like a lightly carbonated coffee.

Margeaux: That is dangerous.

Rusty: That is dangerous. …….I’d drink it hot. Anybody could drink this. It doesn’t require a tolerance for beer at all. That is incredible. And this is the first time that it has been 100% it tastes like it smells. You smell it: it’s coffee. You drink it: it’s coffee.

Margeaux: It’s really good.

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Rusty: So… if you gotta pick one. Any day of the week, you come in here, you have to order one or the other.

Roy: I’d order the coffee milk stout.

Margeaux: As someone who doesn’t like beer as much,  I think either of these are really good choices for non-beer drinkers. They’re super accessible, they’re not bitter like beer normally is.

Rusty: The coffee is just amazing. That would be my choice. It’s shockingly good. It’s a remarkable drink.

Roy: It’s just coffee.

Margeaux: You could make a nice beer float with this.

The Girthquake Indian Pale Braggot and The Awakening Coffee Milk Stout are available from Angry Chair Brewing.

Listen to the full discussion here:

 

Angry Chair Brewing is located at 6401 N Florida Ave in Seminole Heights.
Open Tuesday through Thursday 4pm-Close, Friday and Saturday 4pm-12am, and Sunday 12pm-9pm. Closed Mondays.