The Lazy Magnolia Firkin, The Ale and the Witch

I posted on Facebook that there are "probably five beers per year that really impress me, and I had one on this night."  On this night, we were tapping a cask of Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan blended with brandy, fresh peaches, acacia bark, and corn sugar.

The day itself started out someone a pisser.  Due to some severe lack of effort by a certain beer distributor, I had to get a 7:00 am start to pick up the firkin at our local distributor, who was holding the cask.  Putting the 12 gallon beast in my car was the first adventure and driving it the distance from Ormond Beach to St. Pete was going to be the next bit of fun.  Doing it alone - even more fun.

So we load the firkin in the car, I get started down the road and drive and drive and drive.  When you're alone, it's an especially long trip; but being 45 minutes further away really really sucked.........  Funny thing about being on the road.  The distance that becomes rudimentary casts an ever-widening net.  The excitement of the travel has a inverse relationship with the distance of the travel.  This being the case, the 2 1/2 hour drive to Tampa or the 4 hour drive to Miami provide nothing new to see and noone new to talk to about beer.    

That time does however, allow me to catch up on phone calls (Bluetooth of course) and get down with some of my favorite music that may or may not be acceptable to a guest if I were travelling tandem.  On this day I had my favorite new release, Imaginareum from Nightwish in the CD player - a great one to drift away to.

The trip to St. Pete also allows some absolutely breathtaking views of the Gulf and some lengthy trips over beautiful bridges.  Add to this, St. Pete itself rocks and I love getting to visit the downtown area.  Insofar, taking a keg of beer to the gulf coast while listening to my favorite music could be worse.

Getting the keg delivered to Brett at The Ale and the Witch, I decided I needed to hit up Dunedin Brewery for some fish tacos.  CUMINAYAY-HAAAAAH!!!

I met up with some Renegade helpers who were staying in the area with a friend of theirs for some delicious Dunedin Brewery beers and skipped over to 7eventh Sun Brewery.  I don't need to continue saying how much I love the Dunedin area, so we'll leave that to the other 100 stories I've told about how great it is.  Once finished, we parted ways and agreed to meet back at The Witch at about 6:00.

Heading back to The Witch.

So there was an "opening" band starting at 4:00 with the tapping of the firkin occurring at 6:00 pm.  As it turns out, the opening band was an awesome bluegrass band called The Florida Mountain Boys.  If these guys are the opening band, you know they take their music seriously here.  I have attached a (not great quality) video of the band that I made whilst there.  Check them out, you'll dig 'em.



A little bit about The Ale and the Witch.  This is a spot that is truly a "no crap on tap place."  They have 32 taps of all American Craft Beer and some great bottles including Abita Root Beer (awesomeness).  A recent Best of the West Winner, I like to say that this place is where I go to get an Avery Kaiser on draft - diggit.

Brett and staff are awesome and can always talk intelligently about all of the brews they have.  They know what's up.

We tapped the firkin of the special pecan and Brett told me there was a ton of sediment (presumably pieces of fresh peaches) still floating around and was cloggin up the filter, so it would be a bit til we got it going.  No worries, they had Pensacola Bay Imperial Porter aged in Jack Daniels barrels.  You say Jack Daniels to me and the answer "no" will rarely escape my lips.  As it turns out, this beer was insanely awesome.  Unfortunately, it blew right after I had my pint.  Dammit.

I was meeting up with Miss Christiana, who is in charge of the Georgia / Florida Market for Lazy Magnolia.  She helped me put together getting this firkin to The Witch and was coming down for a few days to help promote the brand in the market.  I grabbed my delicious pint and met up with her outside to discuss some things about business and to enjoy this rokkin band.

As we were talking, I saw a post on Facebook from Road Trip for Beer that Mr. Gerard Walen was heading to The Witch so I asked him to meet up when he arrived so that I could introduce him to Christiana.  I've always liked Gerard and Road Trips for Beer keeps me posted on what is going on in areas that I am not in.  I get a lot of good info from them and I am glad that I found them.  The three of us sat together and had some great discussion on the local beer situation and where we can fit with it.  Damn Good Times.    

So finally the special  firkin was ready and I got my first pint of the Southern Pecan cask.  All I can say is "holy shit!"  I have honestly not had a beer like this since my last bottle of Avery 12 was killed (after several years of stretching out my last case).  This beer was so full of flavor and yet was "soft" in nature.  I don't know how to describe what that word means to me, but there are every now and then, beers that I get that sense from.  This is one.  Others include the St. Amand French Country Ale and 3 Monts.  Anyway, I'm not a beer critic.

In the midst of all this, the rest of my crew showed up (late I may add) and we got to hang for a bit.  They were meeting Christiana for the first time and they hit it off well.  In fact, I found myself hanging alone inside the bar while they were talking amongst themselves.  Certain amount of satisfaction in bringing some good folks together, so that makes me happy.  Makes me happy especially since I had to take off soon for the drive back.  Only two beers in, but I had a drive, so safety first.  Oh well.  Great day, great night, and as always, a very lucky fella who gets to do this job.

The big thanks goes to Brett and the folks at The Ale and the Witch.  They also had Indian Summer, Southern Hops'pitality IPA, and Jefferson Stout on draft.  The band was great, the atmosphere awesome, we had some friends come to join, and I really, really, wish I didn't have a 2 1/2 hour drive home or  I would have had five more pints of the special firkin.  Cheers to you guys and we hope to see you at the next Lazy Magnolia firkin tappin'.