Just a few of the highlights of the festival were;
5. I tamed a Swamp Ape: Yep, finally had the opportunity to try the highly talked about Swamp Ape from Florida Brewing Company. This 10% ABV IPA was pretty tasty. Lots of Pine and Hop bitterness in it. Hands down the best beer by Florida Brewing Company!
4. Meet my friend Randall: Well actually thats my good beer bud Cezar with a Dogfish Randall. Fresh Beer hooked this bad boy up with some hops and ran 60min through it! Pretty good, but later in the show they put some dry roasted peanuts in it and ran Raison D'extra
through it! Wow it was like a PB&J Sandwich!
3. Hunahpu's 2011! What! Yep that's right I was able to try the new version of Hunahpu, the once a year release from Cigar City. Needless to say it was amazing. Very different from last years version, and the differences were very positive. Can't wait for the release on March 12th! More details and a proper review of this beer to come!
2. Deja Vu?: Nope it is actually Vu Jade'......WTF?!?....this is the collaboration beer from St. Somewhere and Cigar City. Holy CRAP! This was fantastic for a young sour. Tons of vinegar notes and a nice sweet malt build. This was my favorite beer of the entire festival. Just fantastic!
1. The Funky Buddha Craft Brewers Festival: Best of show for a booth goes to these guys. Kevin, Ryan, Jim, and the crew had a consistent line from open to close of the festival. This was the scene early on:
This was the scene as soon as people found out that Maple Bacon
Coffee Porter was being tapped:
It was crazy! While Maple Bacon was the big beer that everyone wanted to try the Chocolate Beer which I will call "Chocolate Face" until they give it an official name was fantastic! I promise I will get a review of Chocolate Face up on the blog as soon as the guys finish up with the next batch. It is, in my humble (or not so humble) opinion the best beer they do, and possibly one of the best beers from the state! This was The Funky Buddha's Festival, we were all just lucky to attend!
There were also a lot of other great scenes at the fest. I was able to speak with a lot of brewers and friends. Great new breweries were on hand like Liberty Steakhouse and Tequesta Brewing Company. Ohh yeah and there is a video of the days events which will be released on United We Drink. Stay Tuned!
If you did not make it to the festival this year....well that sucks for you. Put it on the calendar for next year...NOW!
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It's awesome to see that The Funky Buddha killed it at the festival. Next year I'll be there for sure. It's a pretty cool thing to watch a brewpub go from nothing to something huge pretty much over night. It's like watching our own Kate The Great in action.
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