What’s a cider, a mead? These craft beer early adopters want to school you
Matt “Kush” Kuscher knows a thing or two about burgers and craft brews. Any fan of his restaurants, Lokal in Coconut Grove and Kush in Wynwood, knows that.
But now Kuscher and his team are conquering the world of ciders and meads at their latest venture, The Spillover, their year-old restaurant in Coconut Grove that the Miami Herald gave a 2.5 star (Good) review.
That’s where on June 3 they’re hosting the In-Cider Festival (see what they did there?) from 2-7 p.m. at Spillover. Admission is free.
“This festival has been on our minds since we opened last year. When Spillover opened we knew we would have to educate Miami on ciders and meads and how great they are,” Kuscher said.
Through the festival, they’re hoping to dispel certain myths about ciders and meads because “most people think they are just alcoholic apple juice but there is so much more to them,” Kuscher said.
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“They can be funky, sour, dry and have numerous flavor profiles. This festival is just a continuation of our role in helping spread the word of ciders and meads.”
They’re doing more than spreading the word, and the line-up for that day is proof. Come ready to sample a complex variety of flavorful offerings from various meaderies and cideries from around Florida and the U.S.
“We have lots of great ciders and specialty kegs from all our artisan cider/mead makers,” said Kusher, who ran through a list of a few of them.
Accomplice Ciderworks in West Palm Beach will debut their mead and “cyser” (a mead/cider Hybrid) called Rite of Spring plus their mead Hand of Fate Blackberry.
Broski Ciderworks from Pompano Beach is bringing their award-winning pineapple cider and a limited release called Birds of Paradise, which is a strong cider aged with lemon zest, orange peel and coriander.
Garagiste is serving the Goober Blue, a blueberry peanut butter and jelly mead, and Feel the Bernello, which is a sangiovese wine mead with maple syrup.
Kuscher is especially proud to have Garagiste at the event, a meadery he and his management staff visited on their tour of various meaderies and cideries before opening Spillover.
“We wanted to learn about the process of how ciders and meads are made and were lucky enough to have Chad Wiltz of Garagiste Meadery be one of our stops,” Kuscher said.
Garagiste won the award for Best Brewery and Best Beer at Cigar City Brewin’gs Hunahpu Festival 2017 in Tampa, and it was a huge win for the cider and mead community.
“The award was for the best beer and the best breweries in the world were competing so for a mead to win was unheard of. We couldn’t be more proud for Chad and Garagiste Meadery,” said Kuscher.
They’ll have live music, raffles, fresh seafood and plenty of other specialty and limited releases at the festival.
In-Cider Festival
When: June 3, 2-7 p.m.
Where: Spillover in the Mayfair, 2911 Grand Ave., Ste. 400D.
More information: Admission is free. Check out their Facebook page for updates: https://www.facebook.com/spillovermiami/
This story was originally published May 22, 2017 at 9:05 PM.