Miami homebrewers are back, and this Thursday and Friday they'll converge on LoKal Burgers and Beer in Coconut Grove to celebrate Oktoberfest with the first annual Home Brewers Bash.
The event is a leadup to this year's Grovetoberfest on October 13. Besides tasting some homebrewed suds that you will not find anywhere else in the world, the event will feature some of Miami's most prominent homebrew crews: Subvert Ales, B.R.E.W. FIU, Gravity Brewbar, CerveTech, and J. Wakefield Brewing.
See Also:
- Miami Oktoberfest Roundup: Grovetoberfest, The Federal, Fritz and Franz Bierhaus
- CerveTech Brew Institute: You Got Served
- Gravity Brewbar Coming to Wynwood: A Brewpub With a Bottling Line
And if that doesn't make you want to go, try this: From 6 to 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, the beer will be free. The first three homebrew clubs will show up Thursday; then the latter two will be there Friday.
Fresh from an internship at Cigar City Brewing in Tampa, Wakefield returns with a fresh selection of his product, including his signature dragon fruit passionfruit Berliner weiss. At 9 p.m. Friday, J. Wakefield Brewing will take over the taps. Here is the tentative lineup:
- Mate Bliss Brown Ale
- Dragon fruit passion fruit Berliner weiss
- Miami Madness Berliner
- The Symbiote Oaked black IPA
- T Money's Chocolate Rye Porter
- The Nothing Bourbon barrel Russian imperial stout
- I Can Eat a Peach For Days IPA
- Coconut Porter
Gravity Brewbar will bring three slim kegs -- five gallons -- each of the following plus a sour variety that they will unveil Thursday:
- Carlito's Marron Pumpkin Porter
- Biscayne Gold IPA
And on Thursday B.R.E.W FIU will bring five gallons each of a brown ale and an imperial rye IPA. Any and all beer geeks, or the curious, who plan on attending this event should also anticipate a few slim kegs each from the other brewing clans. This equals a lot of free beer.
Besides the flood of good brew, the LoKal kitchen will be ready for anyone who wants a good burger made with fresh, grass-fed beef. The credit goes to owner Matthew Kuscher for marrying the idea of quality meat and finely hand-crafted brew.
Last December, shortly before the King Mango Strut, Kuscher purchased several cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the hope of garnering some extra customers. But as it turned out, nobody drank the Peebers.
Walk in and you'll notice a cooler filled with cold PBR cans. He's letting 'em go for $2 apiece. The honor system is used; all you gotta do is drop the cash in a bucket and grab a beer. Be honest.
Also, the brewers will give away some of their time and hard work so that others may enjoy what craft beer is all about, so show 'em a little respect.
Craft beer in Miami is not letting up; it's just getting started. Grovetoberfest may be the motherlode of Miami homebrew, but what is featured this Thursday and Friday cannot be had anywhere else.
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