Let's Get Jax on the Ballot for Beer City USA 2013!

[Gonzo]

Gonzo, do you know anything about the current locations of the breweries listed above and if you have the time can you share what you know with us, including locations?  Thanks.

Diane,

I would be please to this evening.

[Gonzo]

Gonzo, do you know anything about the current locations of the breweries listed above and if you have the time can you share what you know with us, including locations?  Thanks.

Here is an article I wrote for Jacksonville Magazine a while back... It covers some of the local breweries...

September 2011, pages 76 â€" 78

Drink Up & Enjoy

Local craft breweries bring innovative beer to the thirsty masses

By Marc Wisdom

As the craft-brewing phenomenon continues to sweep the nation, Jacksonville’s beer-loving community continues to grow rapidly. And with more in the works, the First Coast is poised to see its own craft beer renaissance. Let’s take a quick tour.

Green Room Brewing (228 3rd St. N, 201-9823) is a bit of a misnomer, since the tap room is not green at all. Rather, it is cheery blue with clear Caribbean influences and several surf boards hanging on the walls. The vibe is laid back, and the beer selectionâ€"all from Florida breweries, along with four of their own brewsâ€"is very good. Green Room’s first four brews hold up well with the rest of the breweries in town. Helles Yeah, a German-style Helles (or light) beer, is sparkling golden in color with mild, smooth sweetness and slightly hopped bitterness. Clean Ocean Brown Ale pours deep amber and sports sweet malts and mild hops bitterness. Shaka Oatmeal Stout is an approachable black beer with a thin creamy head, medium mouth-feel and mild roasted malts that produce a slight coffee flavor. The fourth house-brewed beer is Head High IPA, which has the amped up hops one expects in an IPA, but not so heavy as to send someone new to IPAs running scared.

Breathtaking views of the St. Johns River and Jacksonville skyline greet visitors to River City Brewing Company (835 Museum Cir., 398-2299). RCBC serves five house-brewed beers. Jag Light is the brewery’s lightest offering, featuring a lemony scent with sweet grains and absent hop flavors. Jackson Pale Ale (named for the guy astride the horse on the Laura Street statue) is a mild pale ale with malty, nutty flavors and very mild hops. Riptide Porter offers a chocolate and caramel nose, drinks very thin and tastes smoky and slightly chocolaty.

Rustic country and distressed urban influences fill the tap room at Intuition Ale Works (720 King St., 683-7720). Intuition offers an ever-changing variety of brews ranging from the mild Jon Boat Koelsch-style, to the challenging grapefruit and pine notes of I-10 IPA. In between lie gems such as Shapeshifter Saison, a spicy, lemony interpretation of a Belgian farmhouse beer, and Knothead Alt-style Ale, a smooth, malty German style ale that is relatively rare in the United States. In all, Intuition has twelve taps of their own brews. The flagship hoppy and refreshing People’s Pale Ale is always available along with several other standards like the spicy, fruity Belgian-style Golden Spiral and the dark, potent King Street Stout, with notes of coffee and dark chocolate.

Situated in a warehouse next to a large industrial-looking roll-up door, Bold City Brewery (2670 Rosselle St., #7, 379-6551) makes its home alongside the railroad tracks in Riverside. Dark, cool concrete floors and brick walls welcome thirsty patrons to a tap room decked out with beer cans and bottles high on shelves and windows looking into the brewery. Standards like Duke’s Cold Nose Brown Ale, a smooth and nutty brew with just the right amount of roasted malts, and bright yellow Killer Whale Cream Ale, an approachable and well-balanced light ale, are highlighted. For the IPA fans, there is Mad Manatee IPA, a nicely hopped brew with an agreeable malt backbone and Chinook IPA, which has a nice floral character and slightly sweet, malty finish.

Brewer’s Pizza (14B Blanding Blvd., 276-5159) boasts brown wainscoting on the walls, a shuffle board table and a well-stocked juke box, with the added attraction of a brewery behind a window on the back wall. Brewer’s keeps four of their own beers on tap at any one time. Ambitious Monk is a pale gold, high alcohol Belgian-style Tripel with sweet malt and slight banana aromas that tastes of more sweet malts, a hint of bubblegum, and a pleasant bitter aftertaste. Mystic, a Belgianstyle pale ale, has a darker golden color, a pleasant sweet and grassy flavor and a moderate alcohol content of 5.9 percent. Pinglehead, an imperial red, boasts an orange-tinged hoppy flavor that is balanced nicely with sweet caramel malts. Finally, Moondance is an approachable, pitch black stout with chocolate and slight coffee notes.

Finding a seat in the rather small, but extremely popular tap room of A1A Ale Works (1 King St., #101, 829-2977) can be quite a feat, as tourists and locals alike congregate in the small, comfortable bar area. There are five locally-brewed beers to choose from, ranging from a light lager to a chewy, black stout. On the lighter end of the spectrum, King Street Light Lager is a refreshing thirst-quencher that tastes of wet grass, sweet malts and mild hop spice. On the other end is A. Strange Stout, a creamy, chocolaty beer that has just the right amount of bitter coffee flavor to even it out. In between the two extremes A1A offers pale, brown and red ales.

[Tacachale]

To add to those, Aardwolf Brewery is located on Hendricks Ave in San Marco. They haven't started brewing their own beer yet but they have easily the most impressive taproom of any NE Florida brewery.

Mile Marker Brewing is located off 95 near St. Augustine. Like Aardwolf they're a fairly recent entry to the local scene and have some very tasty brews.

Engine 15 is located in Jax Beach in a stripmall on Beach Blvd. Their tap room has a very sizable selection of outside beers and is a lot of fun, one can usually find the Tacachale clan there on Tuesday nights. I didn't realize it, but evidently they've started selling their beer off premises according to Steve.

There are several more brewpubs that sell their beer on premises in town as well. Ragtime is located in Atlantic Beach in the Beaches Town Center. Seven Bridges is on the Southside by Tinseltown. There is also a place in Fernandina called Karibrew, which I haven't been to personally.

[Captain Zissou]

Michael Payne established the beer program at Brewer's Pizza (which has now split from the pizzeria to form Pinglehead Brewery) and is now the rad brewer at Aardwolf. He is very skilled and will quickly create some great new additions to the Jacksonville beer culture. I spoke with Preben Olsen, aardwolf's business manager, last week and he said that things are going smoothly in their permitting process. It won't be long until the tanks are full on Hendrick's Ave.

Also, intuition installed their first 60 barrel tank today. For the uninformed, that's 120 kegs. That's A TON of beer. To my knowledge, that's the largest system in the area. Maybe only sweetwater and cigar city have bigger tanks than them in the southeast.

[Gonzo]

Let's keep the ball rolling, we only have until tomorrow to come together and get Jacksonville on the Beer City USA ballot. If you have not already done so go nominate Jacksonville now. There is a link to the nominations page on my webstie www.JaxBeerGuy.com.

We can do this!

[FSBA]

As far as Engine 15, I know Daliah's has had several of Engine 15's brews on tap for awhile now. Not sure where else in Jax has it.

[Gonzo]

Just over 24 hours left! We have had a great response, but we have to be sure! If you have not already done so, nominate Jax for BEER City USA 2013. Just go to www.JaxBeerGuy.com and click the link in the upper left corner.

[Cheshire Cat]

Just over 24 hours left! We have had a great response, but we have to be sure! If you have not already done so, nominate Jax for BEER City USA 2013. Just go to www.JaxBeerGuy.com and click the link in the upper left corner.

Thanks for sharing your piece above.  Very informative and enjoyable.  I can't drink much beer these days but I have always loved the taste and am now fascinated by the offerings of the smaller breweries. 

In other beer news, there is this interesting piece in the TU.

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/428360/ed-stansel/2013-04-24/craft-vs-crafty-beers-tasters-put-big-brewers-craft-style

[Captain Zissou]

Gonezo- way to troll for hits on your website. Very subtle.

[Cheshire Cat]

Gonezo- way to troll for hits on your website. Very subtle.

Awe now CZ, this actually interests a bunch of folks.  If someone has a website on the topic and post here, does it always have to equal trolling?   I think not. 

[Gonzo]

Gonezo- way to troll for hits on your website. Very subtle.

Cap'n, its really not trolling. I get plenty of hits without any I might get from here (my blog gets in the neighborhood of 20,000 hits a month -- I'm quite pleased with that). I just made it easy for folks to nominate. On the other hand, since you are pointing it out, is there something inherently wrong with it? As Cheshire says above, there are folks that might be interested.

Over the weekend I plan to announce how readers can win two VIP tickets for the Jacksonville Craft & Import Beer Festival May 17th. I would wager there are a lot of folks interested in winning them. So, should I not mention it on here? See, being snarky can be a very double-edged sword.

My whole point with the posts this week was to bring attention to the fact that Jacksonville is not currently on the Beer City USA ballot and SHOULD BE. I think that our efforts may well have gotten us there. We will see in a few weeks when the ballot comes out. At which time I will again stump to get votes. We will need considerably more than 400 at that time.

I would appreciate your support.

[Captain Zissou]

It's not like you don't know how to encourage people to vote without being a troll. In your first post of the thread you posted the actual link to the polldaddy page, and then shamelessly plugged your blog at the bottom. while it's still fishing for hits, it's not pulling people to your site who don't necessarily want to be there. It was only later on that you removed the link to your own site. You're still better than Lem Blogiver, or whatever his name is.

[Gonzo]

It's not like you don't know how to encourage people to vote without being a troll. In your first post of the thread you posted the actual link to the polldaddy page, and then shamelessly plugged your blog at the bottom. while it's still fishing for hits, it's not pulling people to your site who don't necessarily want to be there. It was only later on that you removed the link to your own site. You're still better than Lem Blogiver, or whatever his name is.

Thanks Cap'n. I will try not to be a troll. 

[Gonzo]

This is it, the last day you are able to nominate Jacksonville for Beer City USA. Get your nomination in at:  https://polldaddy.com/poll/7015761/.

[Gonzo]

According to Charlie Papazian, the founder of the BeerCity USA contest the “…2013 “primary” poll is REOPENED due to possible poll related technical issues during the initial nomination period one week ago. Nominations for inclusion on the final BeerCity USA 2013 ballot are still being accepted through this nomination poll now through 3 p.m. Mountain Time, Saturday, May 4.”

The article, posted on Examiner.com yesterday goes on to say that several cities have already qualified. Unfortunately, Jacksonville is not among them. However, it is not too late. We can still get Jax on the ballot by voting through Saturday, May 4. The cites already nominated include:  Ann Arbor, MI; Asheville, NC; Bend, OR; Chicago, IL; Cleveland, OH; Denver, CO; Durango, CO; Fort Collins, CO; Grand Rapids, MI; Kalamazoo, MI; Madison, WI; Milwaukee, WI; Missoula, MT; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix-Tempe-Scottsdale, AZ; Portland, OR; Raleigh, NC; San Diego, CA; St. Louis, MO; Tampa, FL.

This is our chance to rally and show the country that we have a vital beer scene here in Jacksonville. The implications of winning this contest run the gamut from increased national awareness of the quality brews we have here in town to increased tourism. Beer vacations are quickly becoming a popular activity. We can ensure that Jacksonville gets on the beer travel map by winning or showing well in this contest.

To vote follow this link https://polldaddy.com/poll/7075568/, scroll down and click in the circle next to Jacksonville. Then scroll down and click submit. You may only vote once per IP address, so be sure to pass this link on to your friends on Facebook and Twitter. I will provide a running total of votes we have over the next few days on my Facebook (Springfield Brew Crew and Jax Beer Guy) and Twitter (sprbrewcrew and JaxBeerGuy) feeds.

Let’s do this!