Ballparks & Brews: Miami Marlins Park

For Spring Break we leveraged a trip to South Florida to watch the Nationals play the Marlins in their new stadium: Marlins Park. The stadium is quite impressive: from the retractable roof; the Clevelander swimming area; the field, itself; and the food. In fact, the food choices rock: Ceviche, lobster rolls, mahi-mahi tacos, cuban sandwiches, giant hotdogs -> just make sure you head to the Taste of Miami section. The downside, poor beer selections. They only craft brew I found was Sam Adams from Boston Beer Company. I've heard from other sources that Dogfish Head Craft Brewery 60 Minute IPA is available, but from circumventing the stadium - only massed produced beer was on the horizon.  Tough.

The 2013 World Series of Wine, Craft Beer, & Craft Distillers

Besides being two great baseball cities, St. Louis and Boston are also great craft beer, wine, and craft spritis cities.  Budweiser and Sam Adams are easily recognizable; but there are several new rising stars in these competitors. Starting with wine, St. Louis is the base camp for journeys into Missouri Wine Country - particularly west into the Hermann and Augusta AVAs and south along the Mississippi River. The Norton grape rules here and Missourians recognize its virtues along with Vignoles, Chardonnel, Chambourcin, and other hybrid grapes.  There are fewer local wineries surrounding Boston, but you just got to find them - usually south through the Coastal Wine Trail. One surprising good find is Westport Rivers Vineyard & Winery. In Massachusetts the trail also includes Coastal Vineyards, Running Brook Vineyards, Travessia Winery, and Truro Vineyards of Cape Cod.

As for spirits, both cities are deeply involved in the craft distillers market. In Cardinal country, Square One Distillery, Still 630 and a little west, Pinckney Bend Distillery are producing various whiskeys, vodka, gin, and even rum for the local market. In Red Sox territory, Bully Boy Distillery and Nashoba Valley Distillery are distilling on Boston proper while Turkey Shore Distilleries and Ryan and Wood Distilleries are operating slightly north.  Rum is a bigger player in New England, more reflective of the colonial experience; but there is also plenty of locally produced whiskey, vodka, gin, and brandy.

Finally, St. Louis and Boston are quite obviously associated with beer.  Obviously there's Anheuser-Busch; but Cardinal fans drink plenty of local craft beer with over a dozen operating in the region. My personal favorite is Schlafly Bottleworks and their canned line of Session beers.  Boston and beer are practically synonymous and as the documentary How Beer Saved the World suggests, the Revolutionary War was argued over a few pints.  And the contemporary east coast craft beer revival originated in Red Sox land with the Boston Beer Company, Harpoon Brewery, & Ipswich Ale Brewery. There's plenty more craft brewers who have followed in their footsteps Trillium Brewing, John Harvards Brew House, Cambridge Brewing Company, Somerville Brewing Company, and others.

And as always information concerning these establishments are listed at WineCompass and theCompass mobile app.

Addicted to Netflix - How Beer Saved the World & Absinthe

A year ago I finally succumbed to family pressure and subscribed to Netflix - and today utilize the on demand feature (what a horrible implementation of splitting the rental and on demand divisions). The first two videos I watched were the popular documentaries Blood Into Wine and Beer Wars.If you haven't seen either of these, I highly recommend them - learn about Arizona wines and the competition between craft brewers such as The Samuel Adams Brewery and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and basically Budweiser - now Anheuser-Busch InBev. 

But there's more. In the past week, I have watched two new documentaries which are just as informative and entertaining: How Beer Saved the World and Absinthe.

The former is a light-hearted story where "Scientists and historians line up to tell the amazing, untold story of how beer helped create math, poetry, pyramids, modern medicine, labor laws, and America." Yes, they cover all these subjects. And the latter tells the interesting life of Absinthe "from its birth in Switzerland in 1787, through its rise in the chic cafés of Belle Époque Paris, to its prohibition, and its recent worldwide revival". Now its time to plan a trip to Philadelphia Distilling to sample their Vieux Carre Absinthe - the first legal absinthe to be distilled, bottled and sold on the east coast of the United States in nearly 100 years. Or grab some Lucid.


How Beer Saved the World

ABSINTHE documentary film trailer from absinthe on Vimeo.