Western CaribBEERean

The wife and I took a week-long cruise to the Western Caribbean recently with stops in Grand Cayman; Cozumel, Mexico; Belize; and Isla Roatan, Honduras. There were a few glitches along with way, but overall we had a good trip. I was able to try new beer in three of the four stops and enjoyed an old favorite in the other.

Caybrew - Grand Cayman Island - This was a local draught lager that I had with lunch served up in a plastic cup. It was kind of soapy tasting and obviously not real good. Good thing the island is beautiful because their beer is pretty ugly.

Our next stop was Cozumel, Mexico, and we spent the day at a beach club with unlimited drinks. Nothing new to me was offered, so I got reacquainted with an old friend, Corona. I haven't had Corona in many years and used to drink nothing but it in my younger days. It was just a good as I remembered and sipping them on a tropical beach straight out of their commercials made it all the better.

Belize was our third stop and our biggest bust of a day tour due to an incompetent tour company and the disappointment of the country we saw being dirty and depressing. The bright spot of Belize actually was their beer, Belikan. We were able to try both varieties, a stout and a premium lager, served up in ice-cold bottles (that's my friend, Amy, goofing around in the photo below "two-fisting" both varieties). The stout was my favorite beer of the trip up to this point.

Our last stop was the island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras. We spent the day at Maya Key, a private island beach club and wildlife rehab and interpretive center. They had a full bar on site and offered three Honduran bottle beers to try. The first was Salva Vida, a pale lager cerveza. Next was Barena, yet another pale lager cerveza that reminded me a lot of Carib Beer which I had on an Eastern Caribbean cruise last year (previous blog). It was a little lighter in body and texture than Salva Vida. Last was Port Royal Export, you guessed it, a pale lager cerveza, also light in body and texture. Salva Vida was my favorite of the three, but Belikan Stout was still the winner of the 2010 Western Caribbean Taste Test.

Addendum: I had a couple of other new-to-me bottled microbrews when we got back to Tampa worth noting as well. I had them both at the fabulous Z Grille which had a beer list almost as good as their food.

This first was actually from the Tampa area called Evander. This is a special commissioned product of The Florida Beer Company to celebrate an eccentric local artist/legend by the name of Evander Preston. The beer wasn't too bad, but not as great as the locals seem to think it is. Not nearly as memorable as the character it is honoring...i.e. he recently got in trouble with local authorities for handing out 100 bottles of bourbon to the homeless.

My second beer and my favorite of the two that night came from Boonville, California. It was Boont Amber Ale from Anderson Valley Brewing - not available in TN, by the way which is too bad because it looks like they are producing some great products including an award-winning IPA that I would like to try. Their website (avbc.com) shows a very cool brewery location in Northern California complete with its own disc golf course (my most loyal reader and sometimes contributor of this blog would appreciate this fact I think.) The amber was smooth and tasty with an excellent finish for a bottled beer.