State #26: Florida

Beer: Jai Alai IPA

Brewery: Cigar City Brewing Company, Tampa, Florida

ABV: 7.5%

A Florida beer on a real, Florida kitchen table. How authentic!

Let’s play a game of word association. If I say the words “Florida” and “beer” to you, what image pops into your head? Give it a minute. Ready? Here’s mine: a fat white guy wearing a wife beater in a trailer park throwing an empty bottle of Miller Lite at a cameraman for Cops. 

And this is his Twitter feed

Surely this image gives an unfair portrayal of Florida and its beer scene. There are old people there too, and many Floridians prefer Busch over Miller Lite. But the guy on Cops is still what I think of first. And I’ve been to Florida, like, 15 times! 

The skyline of Ocala, probably.

Okay, joking aside, Florida isn’t all that bad once you get past the humidity and complete lack of topographic relief. It’s not cold, which is nice. Miami is interesting enough, from what I’ve heard from friends and seen on Burn Notice (I haven’t been since I was ten). There are, um, theme parks? And armadillos. Sorry guys, I’m struggling here. 

There are breweries! Yes! But instead of being located in Tampa's party central neighborhood, Cigar City is located here, in a warehouse by the aiport. Which is fine by me, actually.

At least good beer has come to Florida. There are several breweries making tasty suds in the Sunshine State, but none of them distribute as far away as California, so I had to go visit my in-laws to try some. They live outside Tampa, so my wife and I checked out Cigar City Brewing Company during our last trip back east. We would have stayed longer, but there were literally zero seats available inside the brewery, forcing us to sit outside, where it was Florida. I was able to try four of their beers, however, two of which were interesting, to say the least: the Cucumber Saison, which I imagine is fantastic if you like cucumbers, and the Humidor Imperial Stout, which tasted slightly like dirt and patchouli, but in a pleasant, earthy way. (I also had something called Florida Cracker White Ale, which that guy on Cops would probably like if he’d only try it). 

Tasty drinks from Cigar City.

The samplers were enjoyable in small quantities, but I had heard many good things about the Jai Alai IPA, so I brought a six pack of it back to my in-laws' house. It was a real-deal, ultra-hoppy west coast IPA, using citrusy hops instead of piney hops, which is fitting given its Florida origin. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I’m not alone: it scores a 99 on RateBeer, which compares very favorably with my last entry from Puerto Rico, which scores a 1. 

1) Good call on the cans, Cigar City, which enables me to bring your beer back to the west coast without worrying about it breaking in my luggage. 2) 7.5% packs quite a punch, like 200 mph pelota to the cabeza.

I also have to applaud Cigar City on their geographic awareness. The brewery’s name is a reference to its original location in Ybor City, Tampa’s traditional Cuban neighborhood, which has lately transformed into Bourbon Street minus the jazz and boobs. While Cigar City has proudly been located “Not in Ybor Since 2009,” many of their beers pay homage to the region, like the Florida Cracker (a nickname for an early white Florida settler), the Tocobaga Red Ale (named after the local indigenous tribe that the Florida Crackers probably wiped out), and WAIT A SECOND, DID THEY JUST NAME THEIR WHITE BEER AFTER A DEROGATORY WORD FOR WHITE PEOPLE, AND THEIR RED BEER AFTER A NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBE???

Where was I? Oh, and the Jai Alai IPA, named after “the most dangerous game,” once popular as a spectator sport throughout Florida because you could gamble on it and because it involves a 200 mile-per-hour ball hurtling at your face, with only a wicker basket tied to your hand to defend yourself from concussion or major dental work. Seriously, check it out. The beer, not the sport. For that, we have Youtube.

Country #35: Puerto Rico

Beer: Medalla Light

Brewery: Compañía Cerverca de Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

ABV: 4.2%

Don't let the robust head fool you: there's not a lot going on here.

Writing this blog has been fun for me not so much because I’m a beer nerd, but because I’m a geography nerd. Getting to experience different beers from all over the planet has been great, but many of them don’t taste very interesting, and beer from Asia often tastes exactly like beer from Africa, which tastes exactly like beer from Europe.

Um, North America, and... is Puerto Rico a continent? And I guess one more too.

Every now and then, though, I have a beer that tastes truly unique. Most recently, I had a bottle of Medalla Light from Puerto Rico. Medalla isn’t available in most places. Despite Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. dependency, and the lack of any importation taxes or tariffs to ship it to the mainland, I’ve only heard of it being available in places with large Puerto Rican communities, like New York and Florida, which is where I found mine. If you live somewhere without many Puerto Ricans, but still want to try Medalla Light, you’re in luck, for I have devised a recipe! Just follow these simple steps:

1)   Get a Budweiser

2)   Pour out 1/3 of it

3)   Fill the vacated space with water

4)   Voila! Enjoy your approximated Medalla Light!

For those of you who prefer your recipes in visual form.

Of all the crappy light beer I’ve had in my life, I have never tasted anything as flavorless and punchless as Medalla Light. It wasn’t really bad. I’ve had many beers that made my taste buds recoil in horror, and this one didn’t elicit such a reaction. It literally tasted like nothing. It wasn’t even very fizzy, which would have at least leant it a refreshing character to pair well with Puerto Rico’s warm weather and spicy cuisine. It was just… barely there.

This is an island that is very exuberantly proud. Just not of their beer.

Puerto Rico deserves better. In constant political limbo, teetering between the dependent status quo, possible independence, and even more possible statehood, it has developed a vibrant culture all its own, full of mofongo, salsa music, and crazy parades. Not quite country, not quite state, it is certainly a place all its own, and it’s made many interesting cultural contributions to the world.

But it also contributed Medalla Light to the world: the bottle claims that it is “premium,” “recognized on 3 continents,” and that it is an “award winning beer.” It even depicts a bunch of medals that it apparently won. Indeed, the beer is even named for a medal, which begs an interesting question: did they name the beer Medalla, and then hope that it won some medals, or did they re-name it after it won, like Pabst did after earning their glorious blue ribbon in 1893? Either way, it’s typical of the false braggadocio given to beer branding in the Caribbean basin, as seen in Famosa, Presidente, Prestige, and others. Regal name, no substance. 

If a beer tries to tell you that it's "premium," you can probably take it to mean that it's terrible. Premium is an empty adjective, devoid of any real meaning in the context of beer, and is often used as a marketing distraction for bad product.

After trying Medalla Light, I wondered to myself if regular Medalla might be a little bit more interesting. There are plenty of “light” versions of already-light beers from tropical countries, like Red Stripe Light and San Miguel Light, so I figured this was one of those. It turns out there is no such thing as regular Medalla. My theory is, after concocting what would become Medalla Light, the brewery HAD to label it as a light beer right off the bat, because sooner or later the marketing gurus would tell them they had to make a “light” version, and they couldn’t legally sell a bottle of air as beer.

Country #34: Hong Kong

Beer: Hong Kong Beer

Brewery: Hong Kong Beer Company Limited, Hong Kong

ABV: 4.7%

A tasty beer, made all the tastier after a day of walking approximately 47 miles around Hong Kong.

I just got back from my second trip to Asia, where I ate entirely too much food and drank entirely too much beer. The food was to die for, and I nearly did, twice: a man’s stomach lining can only take so many dumplings in one day. The beer was far less interesting, however. If you’ve had one Asian beer you’ve had ‘em all, the saying goes. People in Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Korea all like pale, fizzy yellow beers made with rice. At least the rice gives Asian beers terroir, since it is literally the lifeblood of the region and included in almost every meal, and in the best cases it gives Asian beers a very dry, crisp finish that goes well with spicy cuisine. But really, most of them are pretty boring. 

A typical Hong Kong meal: a bad beer (Harbin Beer, the Coors Light of mainland China) and REALLY good food (deep fried oyster pancake).

Hong Kong, which I visited along with Taiwan in January, was under British control for over 150 years. While the Brits suck at making food, they figured out how to make good beer a long time ago. While the population of the Fragrant Harbor has always been overwhelmingly Cantonese, a whole bunch of drunken limeys and gweilos have been living there since the mid-1800s, and most of them have stuck around even though the People’s Republic regained political control in 1997. 

There sure is a lot of junk on this label, and also a junk. This is confusing: up top it says "Established," and then it doesn't tell you when it was established. It says 1997 farther down, but that's the year that HK went back to China. Somebody fire the graphic designer! (Though I do like the Mets-ish color scheme)

Given its large population of expats from a beer-loving part of the world, and the go-go capitalism still present in Hong Kong despite Chinese rule, you’d think that somebody there would have started making something thick, dark, and tasty a long time ago. Alas, you’d be wrong. Until just ten years ago, the only locally made beer was San Miguel, a Filipino brand contract brewed in Hong Kong, and it dominated the market along with something called Blue Girl, which is made in Korea exclusively for Hong Kongers with bad taste. 

I tried not to be too foreign and awkward, but asking the tiny Cantonese bartender for the bottle cap got me a strange look.

But finally, in 2003 the Hong Kong Beer Company was opened. Their flagship offering is the cleverly named Hong Kong Beer, a darker, malty lager that’s not too heavy for the tropical heat, but still plenty flavorful and interesting, especially compared with its local competition. Think Samuel Adams, but without the advertising. I had Hong Kong Beer on several occasions, mostly because I was looking out for it, but the average person might not even know it exists. San Miguel and Blue Girl are still utterly ubiquitous, and only a handful of bars and stores carry Hong Kong Beer. 

Hong Kong Beer is not heavily advertised (if at all), but it's not like Hong Kong doesn't like ads. Pretty much every street in Kowloon flows under a canopy of iron and neon, and Blue Girl signs were as plentiful as the beer itself.

Furthermore, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region also recently passed a law that eliminated tariffs on beer, so the few craft beer bars and specialty stores in the city now stock a bewildering variety of imported beers that Hong Kong Beer will have to compete with, along with another newly opened local craft brewery. For a diverse country* with good taste in food, I don’t see this being a problem, and it appears that craft beer might be ready to take off in Hong Kong. When and if it does, Hong Kong Beer can claim to have started it all.

*Yes, I'm calling it a country, even though it's Chinese territory. Hong Kong is the first place I've written about with an ambiguous status as a country, but it has its own passport, its own money, its own flag, and it sends its own teams to the Olympics and to World Cup qualifying. Sounds like a country to me.

State #25: Kentucky

Beer: Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale

Brewery: Alltech’s Lexington Brewing Company, Lexington, Kentucky

ABV: 8.2%

Chefs and foodies get very excited when a dish’s flavors vibrantly represent a particular geographic region. Different kinds of tomatoes with different kinds of flavors—say, sweet or tangy—may grow in different regions of Italy, and the sauces of that region’s cuisine may be reflect the region’s tomatoes. Oenophiles take this idea a bit further, as those with well developed palates can sometimes pinpoint the precise valley in which a wine’s grapes were grown, based on the characteristics of the soil, and how the slope and aspect of the valley might have influenced the sunlight that struck the vines. Collectively this concept is known as terroir. 

Where champagne comes from. There are people out there who can taste a glass and tell which of these colored map splotches the stuff came from. THAT'S terroir.

It’s rare for beer to have instantly noticeable terroir. German beer is made with distinctive Bavarian hops, but they can be dried and compressed into pellets and shipped just about anywhere.  Belgian beers are made with particular strains of yeast, which impart a precise, tangy flavor to the beer, but these strains of yeast are also portable, and can be cultivated in labs anywhere. Aside from the obvious German and Belgian examples, the idea of terroir in beer might be better expressed by the inclusion of added flavorings that speak of a region. A Hawaiian beer with coconut is a good example, but precious few ingredients compliment beer’s natural flavor, so these examples are few and far between.

Less likely Kentucky terroir possibilities. You can't make a beer taste like an open-faced, cheese-smothered turkey sandwich (photo credit here), but if a product like this exists, I could see chicken flavored beer.

If a brewer in Kentucky wanted to jazz up a beer with a bit of local terroir, s/he wouldn’t have many options. It’d be pretty difficult to make a beer taste like fried chicken, and even harder to make it taste like a hot brown sandwich (see above). So that leaves us with bourbon, the sweet, fiery water of the Appalachians, named after the French House of Bourbon, which bestowed its name to a county in Kentucky, among other drunken places. The brown stuff has been distilling and then aging in oaken barrels in factories, sheds, and under porches in The Bluegrass State for over 300 years straight, prohibition be damned.

I know that they were trying to evoke imagery of Kentucky's thoroughbred racing history, but when I see this I think of chess first. And then Khartoum from The Godfather.

So, some enterprising Kentuckians, knowing that beer needs to spend some time sitting in barrels too, decided to take barrels that don’ had some bourbon innit, an’ put that there beers in them barrels. Result: beer that tastes like bourbon! I’m not a huge fan of bourbon, but these folks nailed it. The smell and the taste of the ale instantly evokes bourbon, and in a good way for those who really do like the stuff. It’s basically an amber ale that spent a few weeks soaking in the residue of booze left behind on the inside of old wood, picking up the sweet vanilla and smoky woodiness of the whisky. The brewery also operates a distillery that makes bourbon, but their website advertises that the beer spends time in barrels from "some of Kentucky's finest distilleries." This, to me, means "other distilleries." So, maybe stick to Maker's Mark for the real stuff, whether they start diluting it or not. But for beer that tastes like bourbon, look no further than these guys.

From the brewery's website. Looks pretty bucolic, but nothing says charred, oaken barrels and centuries of tradition less well than a name like "Alltech."

Its alcohol content, north of 8 percent, might indicate that it has literally picked up quite a bit of actual bourbon. Just like bourbon, you wouldn’t want to plow through a six pack of this stuff in one night, but it makes for a delightful sipping beer, and I imagine it tastes even better in a rocking chair on a rickety old porch.

Country #33: Taiwan

Beer: Taiwan Beer Draft

Brewery: Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation, Taipei, Taiwan

ABV: 5.0%

Taiwan Beer Draft with actual Taiwan in the background. P.S., that is a regular pint glass. The bottle was about two feet tall.*

I recently returned from a trip to Taiwan. In addition to getting to see and experience a new country and culture for the first time, I also went to visit my insanely gregarious Taiwanese friend Ray, who showed me around his country, made sure I ate all the best food, and gave me a place to stay. In addition to good food, Ray is also a connoisseur of "lame jokes." One of his favorites:

Q: What kind of bee produces milk? A: A boobie.

So, when he told me several years ago that for a long time there was exactly one beer available in his country, called Taiwan Beer, I thought he was pulling my leg. Taiwan has a population similar to Australia (both about 23 million people). Imagine if Foster’s was the only beer in Australia and it was called Australia Beer. The commercials would have been surreal: “Australia Beer: Australian for Beer.” 

And no, "Taiwan Beer" is not some bastardized English translation. The characters on the label, and on this bottle cap, literally translate to "Taiwan" (the two characters on the left) "Beer" (or pijiu, the two characters on the right). Don't believe me: lookie here.

But he wasn't joking. Going into the 21^st century, Taiwan Beer was the only beer available in Taiwan. It was, and still is, brewed by something called the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation (TTL), which was about as socialist as the name sounds. If you thought that the mainland Chinese were just a bunch of commies, you’d be surprised to learn that Taiwan, with its relative freedom, still leaned way to the left for many decades.

No longer in possession of a national monopoly on beer, Taiwan Beer is forced to compete with Busch, which goes remarkably well with whole grilled squid on a stick. It's not called Busch in Taiwan though, it's called Snowy Mountain Beer. Really.

Since 2002, when Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization, its beer selection has gotten a bit better, and in the last year or so highly regarded American craft beers from breweries like Rogue and Sierra Nevada have started to show up on Taiwanese shelves. But the Taiwanese keep drinking Taiwan Beer, which (in its various styles) enjoys about an 80% market share in the Republic of China. It’s not like they have to advertise the stuff—I didn’t see a single ad for it anywhere in the country. Hell, it’s named after the country! There is a professional basketball team named after the beer though, and they engage in titanic matchups like this one:

From the Taipei Times. Liquor before beer, in the clear! Also: yes, that is former Duke and Villanova jerk Taylor King, ball-hogging it for the last place team in Taiwan, where he is four feet taller than everyone.

Taiwan Beer is supposedly brewed with a special, local variety of rice, which gives it its “distinctive flavor,” but I think the Taiwanese are really just exercising local pride here, as the stuff is not bad, but also not particularly interesting. Besides, the Taiwanese get their fill of interesting flavors from a variety of things that aren’t beer, so I guess it’s not a big deal if the beer is kind of boring. 

From top left: 1) Home cooked meal courtesy of Ray's lovely mom, consisting of tender stewed beef, marinated boiled eggs, broad rice noodles, fried rice, and finger sandwiches with crispy fried tofu and crispy pork belly, followed by sweet rice cake for desert. Not pictured are the dumplings that got snuck onto the table after I took the picture. 2) Century egg, reeking pleasantly of ammonia, plus more beer. 3) Grilled and fried squid balls on a stick. 4) Duck noodle soup with all kinds of duck meat and duck organs. The stinky tofu (not pictured) was also, um, interesting.

In addition to the regular Taiwan Beer, there is also Taiwan Gold Medal Beer, which is a bit sweeter and somehow won an award that one time; Taiwan Beer Pineapple and Taiwan Beer Mango, which are even sweeter, obviously, and every bit as gross as you think they are; and Taiwan Beer Draft, which I recall being the best of the lot. I won’t lie to you: I don’t really remember exactly how it was different from the others, and I don’t understand what the “draft” implies, unless it means they’re actually pouring the stuff from a keg right into the bottle.  I just remember liking it more. 

*Not actually true.

Country #32: Dominican Republic

Beer: Presidente

Brewery: Cervecería Nacional Dominicana, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

ABV: 5.0%

When a beer isn't very good, it is best served cold to mask its rank flavor. See: the marketing strategy of these guys.

Hispaniola is one of the few islands in the world that are divided between two or more countries. Ireland, Borneo, Tierra del Fuego, New Guinea, and Timor are the only other major examples, but there are a few more. Anyway, Hispaniola is divided almost evenly between two very, very different countries, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Dominicans speak Spanish (spicy!), while Haitians speak French Creole (sacre bleu?). Dominicans excel at baseball, while Haitians excel at… well, not soccer, which is their favorite sport, but has seen them in only one World Cup, almost 40 years ago. The Dominican, while still a developing country, has long been stable politically and economically and is a booming tourist destination, while visitors to Haiti are typically sequestered in a cruise-ship-owned enclave, never to see the squalor of the rest of the country caused by the idiocy of the Duvaliers. The Dominican is still largely forested, while there are approximately three trees left in Haiti. 

While Haiti's natural resources have been terribly mismanaged for years (cutting down all their trees being the most visible problem), the Dominican government has been espousing good environmental policy for a long time. Next step for the DR: make a better beer.

And yet, despite its sad deficiencies relative to its next-door neighbor, Haiti makes the far superior beer. In addition to winning a medal at the World Beer Cop in 2000, it’s Crap National Lager, Prestige, wins the Best Beer on Hispaniola Award (presented by me) by a wide margin,because Presidente, from the Dominican Republic, tastes like complete and utter ass. There’s not really a more polite way of saying it.

Sometimes I like to translate the non-English words on beer packaging for my dear readers. I'll let y'all figure this one out for yourself, though.

In the past, when drinking pale lagers from tropical countries, I’ve remarked at how not bad they are (there have been exceptions, of course). Presidente is just bad. It has that skunky, corny flavor to it that can found in such fine concoctions as Natural Ice and Coors Light. The green bottle and its spot on the sunny shelf at the package store probably contributed to its skunkiness, so it might taste better in different circumstances, but the stuff I had was up to no good. While its name is surely intended to lend it an air of sophistication, this president is much closer to George W. Bush than Abraham Lincoln.

Danilo Medina, the actual presidente of the Dominican Republic. I have no idea if he's any good or not.

Despite its rank flavor, Presidente is available all over the New York Metro area, including in my hometown in Connecticut, because of the massive Dominican population there. I guess if you grow up drinking the stuff, you get nostalgic for it. Also, perhaps enough people with bad taste in beer have stopped off in Punta Cana while on a cruise and picked up a taste for it Regardless, it’s pretty easy to find in the Northeast. So be warned.

Country #31: Lithuania

Beer: Baltas White Ale

Brewery: Svyturys Brewery, Klaipeda, Lithuania

ABV: 5.0%

Tall, white, Lithuanian, and good: the Arvydas Sabonis of beers.

When I read about an American craft brewery, I’m often impressed to find that it was founded in the 1980s or, even more rarely, the 1970s. For example, the Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams) was founded in 1984, and Sierra Nevada in 1980. The Svyturys Brewery, in Klaipeda, Lithuania was founded 1784, only 8 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Sure, lots of things in Europe are much older than their counterparts in America, but this is still pretty extraordinary. It’s by no means the oldest brewery in Europe—Stella Artois was first brewed in 1366 according to the bottle I had this weekend, even though drunken Brits might not give it the respect it deserves. But it’s still really, really old, and it’s been in almost continuous operation since then.

Baltas means "white" in Lithuanian, so Baltas White Ale means White White Ale, which is dumb (kvietinis alus means "wheat beer."). Also dumb: storing unfiltered, yeasty beer on its side for several months on the fridge. You can see the caked layer of yeast on the inside of the bottle, post-pour, at right.

This is particularly impressive given the history of conquests that have swept over what is now Lithuania. When the brewery was founded, its home city of Klaipeda, on the Baltic Coast, was part of the Kingdom of Prussia. Its strategic location as an ice-free port, however, meant that it was destined to change hands often. Germany unified with Prussia in the late 1800s, then lost it in World War I, after which it was controlled by the post-war Entente states (which pretty much meant Russia at the time). The Lithuanian people rose up in 1923 and created an independent Lithuanian state, but Hitler took it back less than 20 years later. Then the Nazis got kicked out, but not before the brewery was destroyed, and the USSR took over. The brewery was rebuilt in 1946, and then in 1990 Lithuania declared its independence again as the Soviet Union crumbled. Then, in 1998, somebody finally figured out how the hell to pronounce the brewery’s name*.

*I may have actually made that last one up. Svytruys just means "lighthouse" in Lithuanian. See? There it is on the fancypants bottle.

You don’t stay in business without making good beer, and Baltas White Ale is pretty tasty. It’s a white ale, similar to Hoegaarden, but a bit thicker and more flavorful than its most popular Belgian cousin. Both times I’ve had it I haven’t given it justice, however. The first time I had it I drank it out of the bottle, and it foamed up every time I tipped it to my lips. More recently, I had stored a bottle of the stuff in my fridge for quite a while, but it was too tall to store upright on my stupid fridge shelves, so a lot of the yeast caked itself to one side of the bottle. I still enjoyed it immensely, despite my idiocy.

Lithuania's other white export that's better than you'd expect it to be.