Name – Sea Bass
Country – United States
Type – Saison

Here we are on Friday.  The end of a work week for many.  For me it is the end of a week of reviewing beers from Florida’s own Cigar City Brewing.  It was a fun week to say the least.  And to end things I brought out something pretty special.

Sea Bass is in Cigar City’s words a dark farmhouse ale.  I’m told by a number of people that this beer is what became of the infected Bolita Brown bottles that were returned to the brewery.  After having my bottle of the infected Bolita earlier this year I can only think of how great Sea Bass is going to be.

And contrary to many beliefs this is not a collaboration between Cigar City and St. Somewhere.  In fact Cigar City just simply uses St. Somewhere’s yeast strain.  The official collaboration between the two breweries will be out later in 2011.

So let’s see if Sea Bass kicks some ass.

I pour the 750 ml bottle into my trusty Cigar City snifter.  It comes out a murky reddish brown color.  There is a nice tan head sitting on top of the brew.

To be honest I started getting the smell as soon as I popped the top on it.  Lots of funky farmhouse smells to it with some sour cherry scents to go with it.

The first sip is a rush of funkiness.  You are hit with the tart cherry taste along with your just general funk (not to be confused with General Funk of course).  There is a slightly metallic taste I get in it as well but with a funk beer you are expecting off flavors.  It was no big deal.  It has a slightly dry finish as well that is similar to many farmhouse style brews.

Sea Bass is an incredible beer.  I can only hope that they make it again despite it supposedly coming from a mistake.

While bottles might be hard to find there are probably still some bars in central Florida that still have kegs of this.  A matter of fact the Cock n Bull in Sarasota had this on tap there.  So there you go.

Well I had a blast doing beers from a great brewery here in Florida for the week.  I know their name is catching on like wild fire around the craft beer community.  I just wanted to share with you all some of their masterful brews.

For those in Florida Cigar City is pretty much distributed throughout the entire state.  So check your local craft beer store for them and if they don’t have them ask them to order stuff from them.

CCB is also in the Philadelphia and New York City areas.  They are not in the entire states of Pennsylvania and New York but just those metropolitan areas.  My trips to Philly have found Cigar City beers in a number of locations.

I hear they are also very slowly getting into Georgia and the Carolinas so this young brewery is really starting to get out there to people.

And if you find yourself drinking a CCB beer just know that Florida is not a big beer wasteland any longer.

Grade – A