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

This week we got tofu’d on the Horchata Spiced Stout, the Roggen Roggenbier, and the CBGB Florida/Berliner Weisse beers brewed by Six Ten Brewing in Tampa (along with the Boulder Beer’s Shake Chocolate Porter).

Horchata Spiced Stout – 7%

Roy: It’s a stout… it’s based on the rice drink. (Smells) Oh that’s a stout… that’s a motor oil.

Rusty: Very foamy. Very foamy.

Roy: (Drinks) …I don’t taste horchata.

Rusty: (Drinks) No, me neither.

Roy: You’ve had a horchata, right?

Rusty: I had a horchata just the other day.

Roy: If someone gave this to you, and they said “taste this”, would you say… “Is this inspired by the South American beverage??”

Rusty: I would never say… I would never… no, not at all. I’d be pissed. This is actually very good though. It’s really uh… drinkable.

Roy: “I am drinking it.” It tastes like a stout, really. I don’t get the cinnamon.

Rusty: If you let it sit around for a while, and you smack your gab… maybe there’s a bit of vanilla in there? It’s got a bit of a sourness to it? I dunno. I’m not getting horchata… I would never guess it. It’s not bad, but if you go in expecting a horchata, you’re going to be disappointed.

Roy: No, it’s good… it’s the name that throws me off.

Roggen Roggenbier – 4.5%

Rusty: It’s a Groggenbier… make sure you’ve got that “G” on there, or else you’ll look like an asshole.

Roy: It’s a silent “G”… it’s so silent they don’t even put it in there. (Sniffs) What’s that, banana? Is that Danimals?

Rusty: (Smells) Yeah, you can smell the banana a little bit. This is brownish… a little brown. It’s got a brown color; it smells like a banana. They actually serve it with a banana floating in it, which is very peculiar.

Roy: (Drinks) That’s banana!

Rusty: Son of a bitch. I hate banana. (Sips) Wow! That’s not bad, actually.

Roy: Sweetness.

Rusty: It’s fruity! I mean, you can see it’s banana, but it’s not… uh… so if you cut a banana in half, and you took the elements that make up a banana bread… what you’d have leftover goes in to make this beer. It’s like a light fruitiness.

Roy: The nectar. They do have a banana nectar.

Rusty: They milk it?

Roy: Maybe you just put it in like a cheese cloth and mush it.

Rusty: Actually, this is not bad. I feel like it has the exact opposite banana elements from what you would find in a banana bread.

Roy: That’s good! I like it.

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Rusty: They’re both very drinkable. They’re not bitter to the point where you’re like “I don’t want to drink this”, you can’t taste any of the alcohol or anything…

Roy: I think that one, the horchata, the name is throwing me off.

Rusty: If they hadn’t named it that, I think I would appreciate it a lot more. It’s a good beer.

Roy: Yeah. Did you get a spiciness from it?

Rusty: …Not really. I mean, there’s a bit of like… I guess complexity in the second half of the sip, but I wouldn’t say “spiced”. I feel like if you’re going to say spiced, it’s going to be heavily spiced… you’re gonna have flavors. This is wrapped up in a neat little package, but it doesn’t say anything…

Roy: It doesn’t say spiced, or horchata.

Rusty: It doesn’t have a nice vanilla, or a nice cinnamon… they could have gone in one direction or the other, and I would have appreciated that more, I think. If they had focused on either one or the other, I would have been more inclined to say it tastes like a horchata. But it’s not bad. They’re both good beers. But the Roggen is a solid beer. I would order that again.

Roy: “Get me the Groggen!”

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Boulder Beer Shake Chocolate Porter – 5.9%

Roy: (Sniffs it) That smells just like a little chocolate shake… maybe even a cake.

Rusty: (Smells) It does smell chocolatey.

Roy: (Drinks) You just taste chocolate. Chocolate, then bitter.

Rusty: (Sips) There’s no carbonation, it’s just like water. The aftertaste is like you just drank a milk shake.

Roy: I couldn’t have too much of it though… this is probably the perfect size (4oz).

Rusty: That’s an interesting beer. They named it right.

Roy: Nice and chocolatey. Bitterness at the end.

Rusty: I think my only qualm with it… the lack of carbonation throws it off a bit. Other than that, it’s a very good flavor.

CBGB Florida / Berliner Weisse – 5.4%

Rusty: (Smelling) It’s got a bit of a pulpy, pithy almost smell to it. It’s yellow… it looks like a grapefruit in this glass. (Sips) Ooh! That’s tart… it’s very light, sweet and fruity.

Roy: (Drinking) Good carbonation to it too.

Rusty: It’s got a good sourness, very doable sourness.

Roy: Especially after you’ve had a sip, and it kind of settles in, the next sip you kind of get more of the flavor.

Rusty: That’s good. That’s very good.

The Horchata Spiced Stout, the Roggen roggenbier, and the CBGB Florida / Berliner Weisse beers are available from Six Ten Brewing.

Listen to the full discussion here:

 

Six Ten Brewing is located at 7052 Benjamin Road in Tampa.
Open Wednesday and Thursday 3pm-9pm, Friday 3pm-11pm, Saturday 12pm-11pm, and Sunday 12pm-7pm. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.