Mojo Grill, Fish Tacos, and Mojo IPA

The tunes of Steve Vai on the television, a painting of Stevie Ray Vaughn on the wall, fish tacos, and Boulder  Beer.  Doesn't sound like Ocala, Florida?  I didn't think so either.  At least, not until I found Mojo Grill and found many of my favorite things at a place other than my house.

Mojo Grill seems unassuming enough on the outside.  Part of a strip mall that does not scream "HEY YOU, YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BLAST IN HERE!!!," you could easily drive by Mojo Grill and never know you missed such a great place.  Do yourself a favor and do not miss this place.

Back to the tunes of Steve Vai.  Figuring that a place called Mojo Grill may do well with Boulder Brewing's Mojo IPA, I stopped on in around lunchtime and figured I could find something at a place with this type of name.  When I walked in, my first thought was "Man, I wish this was Friday night!"  On the televisions was the concert video of the Crossroads Guitar Festival featuring Eric Clapton, Joe Walsh, Mr. Steve Vai, and much more.  Add to that, the festive atmosphere brought on by the staff and customers and I felt like I was at a bar on a weekend, not lunch on Monday.    

To the menu.  Just knowing they had to have fish tacos on the menu, I searched them out and yep, there they were.  Also, I looked towards the kitchen and saw a sign saying "Try Our New Mojo IPA."

LUVIN' IT!

The fish tacos were great.  Described as "Mojo Fish Tacos - 2 blackened fish tacos topped with cilantro and chipolte slaw, served with rice and beans."  Nice tacos.  Served on a soft shell with grilled fish and very fresh slaw, I found this duo to be very refreshing.  I'm quickly finding that I can create a 2X2 Matrix (Thank you Cornell University) that can describe fish tacos on an axis of refreshing/savory and food truck/gourmet.  By this matrix, you can easily show someone what the spirit of the tacos is all about.  I think I will create this matrix and see where it goes.

I spoke to Rondo and Angel, the folks in charge and discussed some great hings we can do to help get these two great brands together (and give me an excuse to be here more often).  As it turns out, we are gonna set up some events on Friday and Saturday, August 17 and 18 to support these guys.  They have Live Music on the weekends and i can just imagine how great Mojo Grill is with live music going on.

Mojo Grill has immediately become one of my favorite places to go and i am looking forward to spending a lot of time here.  Cheers!!

  http://www.mojogrillandcatering.com/

Rip and Mellow Mushroom

So my boy Rip has been getting out and about a lot more than I have lately.  He's been all over Florida tasting out beer and getting to know folks who I'll never get a chance too.  Lucky man selling great beer to lucky people.  I was very excited when he set this little shindig up, as I have been wanting to do more business with the legendary Mellow Mushroom and I am dedicated to getting some Hazed & Infused going throughout this can of delicious pizza purveyors.

As it turns out, the night Rip set up this event was perfect, as we had some Hazed flowing and a great crowd to slurp up its dry-hopped deliciousness.  As we all know by now, I have an uncommon affinity for Hazed & Infused and just love it when we get an opportunity to educate new folks on how deceptively complex this brew is and how much flavor you can pack into a 4.85% abv beer.  Uncommon indeed.


So on this Thursday night of nights, we had organized a great pint night with some raffle items that are really exciting.  One of the great things that I love about working with Boulder Brewing is that they have some of the best wearables in the business.  Two things that really get folks going are the great "Get Hazed" license plates that work as decor, but look unbelievable on the front of a beautiful vehicle (such as a red 1970 Ford Galaxie Convertible, pictured below :-))

The other little piece of foresight that the brewery had is making wearables for the girlies.  As it turns out, the beer industry tends to look after the male consumers a little more than the ladies and very few make clothing for the ladies.  The girls go crazy over the girly tees that Boulder offers and it always gets them charged up when they win one in a raffle.  Not only that, but I have yet to see a lady who does not look absolutely HOT in a Boulder short - or hat for that matter.

The Renegade Mobile

This night was no different as you can see.  We poured a ton of Boulder Beer and got those not initiated into the Boulder world.  We love our beer, we love our fans, and we love making people happy.  Here's to the folks at Mellow Mushroom for allowing us to make that happen on this night.  Cheers!

Fish Tacos - Sea Dog Cantina

I'm waiting for the guys to get in at the Pour House so that I can discuss some new brews that we have available and I am hungry for lunch.  Within the plaza that contains the Pour House, I find Sea Dog Cantina, and I find Fish Tacos on their menu.  Perfect time, perfect place, perfect menu item.  I'm gonna come in and have some.  

To tell you a little about this cool little restaurant, it is located in an area that I am quickly falling in love with, Channelside in Tampa.  As Wikipedia would describe it - Channelside is a residential and entertainment district just east of Downtown Tampa, Florida, USA. It is bordered by Ybor Channel on the east and Garrison Channel on the south.  


The great thing about this area is that it is sitting next to the port where you can watch the bustle of oil tankers and cruise ships come and go on one side while staring the Tampa Bay Times Forum on the other.  This area is really great and I envy those who live in the many condominiums and lofts surrounding this area.  


The tacos themselves are described on the menu as:  Two soft flour tortillas filled with blackened tilapia, cabbage, avocado, cilantro, aioli, side of black bean mango salsa.  All this for $10 - not bad for fish tacos, especially with fish that is this generous and fresh.  


Full disclosure - I HATE avocado and have not had it or any of its' derivatives since I was 15 years old.  I'm taking a big chance eating these tacos, but you can;t fairly judge anyone's dish if you ask them to alter it in any way.  You do that and you mess with the soul of the food, and I ain't doin' that.  


I find the key to any good fish taco is always one ingredient that makes or breaks it.  It is the one thing that the dish simply wouldn't be the same without.  Sometimes it is the sauce, sometimes the shell, sometimes the slaw, and of course, sometimes the fish.  In the case of this dish, it is the mango salsa that makes it shine.  The salsa adds not only excellent flavor, but also a refreshing chill on top of the warm fish that creates a nice confluence of temperatures in your mouth - kinda like pouring hot sweet tea over fresh ice.  I love that.


I cannot tell a lie - my first foray back into avocado was a successful one.  The fish tacos were great, my friendly bartender was awesome, kept my Diet Coke filled, and answered  my stupid questions.  Definitely a successful stop and one I would recommend.  Cheers!


NOTE:  As a bonus - you can also order a Chimay Red while you're eating as they keep it in stock.  YESSSSSS!   

Yappy Hour at WOB - Lake Mary

Yet another great opportunity to raise some money for ARK and introduce some folks to some great beer at the same time.

WOB in Lake Mary has begun the famous and much-appreciated Yappy Hour where folks can bring out their dogs, enjoy some brews, and relax next to their loved quadrupeds.  They are also kind enough to give a $1.00 donation for every pint of dog-related beer to ARK as well, which puts them near the top of my list of "Thanks guys, I appreciate that."

One other very awesome stroke of luck was that Rip came up with a great idea of tasting out some Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan at this event.  The key here is that Lazy Magnolia is not available in this market yet and we try not to miss a single opportunity to get more buzz built around this brand.  Mark my words friends, when this brew becomes available in the Orlando market, it is gonna be a hit!

Rip took care of this event and had a great time.  A massive thanks goes out to the folks at World of Beer, especially Mr. Zach, who is helping us help ARK, and thereby saving lives of innocent animals.  Cheers!!!

Daytona Cubs Beer Fest

This is the 4th Annual Daytona Cubs Beer Festival to be held at Jackie Robinson Stadium and the Renegades have been luck enough to be at all of them (in one way or another).  Always a great time and one that we look forward to.
This time around, we had the good folks from World of Beer helping out and had the talents of some of my SR Perrott buddies on hand.  Rip manned this fest and served up some delicious Boulder and Lazy Magnolia Beers.  To make it all the better, this event also acted as a fundraiser to help raise money for ARK, so we were even more excited to be there.

As with the rest of the beer festivals at this locale, the setting is some of the most beautiful we get to attend.  Sitting just on the outside of the inter-coastal waterway and within a beautiful minor league baseball stadium, I am looking for this to continue to become one of the biggest in the area.

As I stated before, the Renegades and the stadium go back a long way, even before the Renegades existed as a corporate entity.  Not that we weren't who we are, we just weren't official yet.

As another funny aside, the first year that we worked this event, we volunteered to pour Dogfish at this event and introduced Vinnie's boss to a bottle of 120.  Keeping in mind this was four years ago, 120 was less known and much rarer.  Needless to say, he dug it and I try to share one with him every time we work this event.  Nostalgia kinda works that way, ya know.

Well, another weekend down, 4 beer events over the weekend, and the Renegades are back to working out the details for the upcoming events.  Stay posted to see where we will be next.  Cheers!

As an addendum, we'd like to give a HUGE thanks to Clint Cure and the Daytona Cubs as they donated a very generous sum of money to the Animal Rescue Konsortium to help out the dogs that they care so much for.  THANK YOU VERY MUCH Clint, you guys are awesome.  Cheers to you!

Dunedin IPA Fest 2012

My drooling usually stops once I reach Dunedin Brewery.  Not only do I love their beer but (as well documented), I crave their fish tacos like a rat craves cheese.  This being the case, when the opportunity came to represent Boulder Beer's Mojo IPA and Mojo Risin' Double IPA at their IPA Festival, I jumped at the chance.

A shipping snafu kept us from having a brew that I was very excited to have at this festival:  a one-off Cranberry Apricot Mojo IPA that Mr. Jeff Brown had offered as a special brew specifically for this event.  As it turns out, as a consumer, this may not have been a bad thing because Dunedin Brewery had set up a list of IPAs the likes of which I had never seen.  Additionally, the mess-up will allow them to place the one-off at a later date when I can enjoy a pint without having to chose between 50 other IPAs that I will probably never see again.  Life is tough.


So as I have bragged and bragged about the amazing and irresistible fish tacos at Dunedin Brewery, the crew was getting hungrier and hungrier as the seconds ticked down.  Add to this, I had not eaten because I knew we would eventually sitting on four legs and a pad with corn, cabbage, and swimmers in front of us.

Orlando and Tampa traffic took care of that and knocked us an hour off of our anticipated arrival.  Kitchen closed.  NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!  Heartbreak.

However, we DID get early entrance into the event.  This was a good thing, as the event ended up being packed and the lines were unwavering.  And why not?  In addition to several variations of IPAs that Dunedin Brewery themselves whipped up, many other breweries offered up special one-offs for the event and the homebrewers association attended with many of their own.  

A basic list included the following:

Dunedin Brewery - IPA Chronicle 5: American Classic
Dunedin Brewery - The Rock Double IPA
Dunedin Brewery / Fort George Brewery - Vortex on the Bay
Dunedin Brewery - Black Cherry Double IPA
Dunedin Brewery - The Rock Down Under
Dunedin Brewery - HopNOM
Dunedin Brewery - Cask: The Rock
Dunedin Brewery - Cask: Nelson Sauvin IPA
Fort George Brewery - Vortex IPA
Stone - India Pale Ale
Stone -Ruination IPA
Stone - Double Dry-Hopped Sublimely Self-Rightous Ale (Simcoe)
Terrapin - Hopsecutioner IPA
Terrapin - Easy Rider
Terrapin - Side Project 16: Phlux Capacitor
Cigar City - Jai Alai IPA
Cigar City - Humidor IPA
Cigar City - Peach IPA
Swamphead - Big Nose IPA
Swamphead - Darkwater
Swamphead - 10-10-10 Imperial IPA
Seventh Sun - Oak-Aged Spring Overhead
Seventh Sun - Tangled up in Galaxy
Boulder Beer Company - Mojo IPA
Boulder Beer Company - Cranberry-Apricot Mojo IPA
Boulder Beer Company - Mojo Risin' DIPA
Bells - Two-Hearted
Green Room - Head High IPA
Tampa Bay Brewing Company - Old Elephant Foot IPA

A major winner here was the addition of the Vortex IPA, which was a collaboration between Fort George Brewery and the guys as Dunedin Brewery.  To make the idea even more spectacular, they not only had the beer from Fort George Brewing themselves, but they had the guys from Fort George come to brewery and brew the same recipe on site.  This way, you get to experience the subtle differences between the two.  Great idea and the brew was pretty awesome.  This was just the tip of the iceberg of the IPAs offered and I am extremely grateful that they allowed me to take part in it.

I attend dozens and dozens of festivals every year, and this one is one of my favorite.  Dunedin Brewery does it right.  Next year cannot come soon enough.  Cheers!

Abbey's 6 Year Anniversary

Of course nearest and dearest to my heart is the first business that I ever owned, Abbey.  I opened Abbey in 2006 and sold it on January 1, 2011.  This bar has been the source of some of my life's greatest joys and greatest sorrows.  Abbey made me who I am today, for better or worse.  It will always be one of my greatest accomplishments and my greatest failures.  

Anniversary day is always one of my favorite of the year and although I don;t own Abbey anymore, the excitement is still the same.  This year, as a Renegade Rep, I get to affect the bar in a totally different way and this adds even more excitement to the event.

This year I get to represent some of my favorite breweries in the world, many of which I was serving the day we opened our doors.  Newest in this mix is the legendary Trappiste beer, Chimay.  We began working with Chimay just two days ago, so adding it to our repertoire right before Anniversary day sends chills down my spine.  On this day, I get to serve Chimay to some of my favorite people not as their bartender, but as a representative of the very company that moved many of them into beerlover-hood.


From the Renegade standpoint, our beers have a great showing this year.  On draft, we have Boulder Hazed & Infused and Kinda Blue, Chimay Cinq Cents, and Lazy Magnolia Jefferson Stout.   Very nice!

Among all of the other great things about this day, this is also always a day that allows me to see some people I don;t get to see very often.  It always brings out the old friends and it reminds me of how much I miss all of them.  In particular, I was over-joyed at hearing that my good buddy Harris English was gonna visit for a bit.  Harris was a salesman for our local Bud guys, Quality Brands, back in the day.  Those guys were awesome and I made great friends with most of them.  The irony that a place that is diametrically opposed to Anheuser Busch becomes best of friends with the very guys who sell it is testimony to how much our local guys rocked and what fans of craft beer they are.

What Harris didn't bother to tell me was that he was going to be bringing a world of vintage beer deliciousness with him that was going to get my day started with a bang and inevitably finish with an ouch.  Among the good stuff he brought was:  2 year old Old Horizontal Barleywine, a 2008 and 2011 120 Minute IPA, 2 year old Golden Monkey and V-12, 4 year old Midas Touch, Barrel Aged Brrrrrbon, and a 2008 Double Black Stout.  Additionally, I had been hanging onto some bottles of Cascade brewing Cherry and a batch 1 Ommegeddon.  Not a bad way to start a night of drinking.

Needless to say, once we were finished working on these bottles and passing around some samples, the buzz was working just right.  Just as we had finished the last sample Harris brought and were about to open the Cascade Cherry, Bobby and Ryan from Daytona Beverages walk in and we continued to work on the bottles we had opened.

In addition to the aforementioned brews, on draft were St. Bernardus ABT 12,  Merry Monks, and Golden Monkey which would allow you to put together a flight of Belgian and Belgian-Inspired beers.  As anyone who knows me well enough already knows, it is the Belgian Brews that really get my motor humming and to see a Belgian-Inspired beer flight brings tears to the old eyes.

Before I knew it, I had lost track of time and had to arrange the giveaways we had prepared from Chimay, Hobgoblin, and Monty Python Holy Ail.  We had supplied glassware to give for those who bought draft of Chimay and had some raffle prizes of Monty Python, Hobgoblin, and Xingu T-shirts.  T-Shirts for small breweries always go over well and the Monty Python line is great because they have girly tees as well as the standard men's t-shirts.  Not many breweries offer tees for girls and they always light up when they see that some are made for them.

All in all, it was a great night, we sold a lot of beer, and I got to visit with people that I don't get to see as much as I would like.  I wish you all the same good fortune that I have had with some great folks.  Cheers!