Christmas in July with an Effinheimer (or two)

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One of the pleasures of beer living is finding new beers to enjoy. And if the new beer is from a local brewer it is even better.

This past Saturday The Beer Goddess and I headed out to Minneola, FL  (about 25 miles west of  Orlando) to visit a relatively new brewery, Lagniappe Brewery.
Lagniappe Brewing Company is the home for the  Effinheimer line of beers. I had been wanting to pay them a visit for awhile but things seemed to keep coming up.  Then I saw on their website that they were having a Christmas in July celebration in honor of a special batch of their Effinheimer Winter Ale they had just brewed. That was all that was needed.

We arrived to a crowded tasting room decorated with Christmas lights, garland, and holiday wreaths. Everyone was  definitely in the holiday spirits. As we wandered through the crowd we were waved over to the bar/counter. It turns out the man who waved us over was one of the owners, Dane Richardson. He then proceeded to bring us samples of each of their beers they had on tap.  We sampled the Effinheimer Hefeweizen, Effinheimer Lager, Effinheimer ALE, Effinheimer Porter, Effinheimer IPA , Effinheimer Summer Ale and finally the guest of honor for the day, the Effinheimer Winter Ale.  (I may have just set a personal record for the number of times I wrote Effinheimer in a single sentence!). All of the beers were damn tasty with he Ale, Porter, and the Winter Ale being my personal favorites.  I think I heard that the Winter Ale came in  around 9% abv but it may have been the large number of samples I had was interfering with my beer comprehension.

We enjoyed talking  with Dane who then waved over the brewer,  Brad Banker. Brad graciously spent a few minutes with us answering some of our questions.  All of the staff were very friendly and helpful. If you get a chance to drop by the brewery’s tasting room, I’m sure you will be glad you did. Beers were priced at $3.50 in the tasting room and you could buy a six pack of the Effinheimer beers to go for $8.00.

The Effinheimer beers are getting wider and wider distribution in the Central Florida area so definitely keep an eye out for them.  And when you find them, drink them!

Thanks to Dane and Brad for making us feel welcome. We will be back.