Sun-Soaked Tasting Notes from Isla Mujeres Brewery Amber DeGrace - Lancaster Online
go to original September 14, 2017

Isla Brewing Co. operates its three-barrel system on the tiny island of Isla Mujeres, Mexico (Foursquare/Ian R)

A noncommercial airport with a single landing strip remains on Isla Mujeres, Mexico, with the husk of a control tower and doorless portals leading to the forgotten terminal.

Arrival by boat is the only way to get here, a skinny 5-mile-long slip of an island about 8 miles offshore from Cancun. As the Ultramar ferry surges from the dock located in the Puerto Juarez area of Cancun, clear emerald water dotted with dark patches of sea grasses and coral rockheads are suddenly replaced by water so shockingly blue that Mother Nature must have slid the saturation bar the whole way to the end in her paint toolkit.

Once disembarked, there is the cheerful chaos that is downtown Isla Mujeres: red taxis at your service; golf cart rental salesmen ready to give the best deal they can make today; lovers darting hand in hand across the palm tree-lined boulevard between a steady stream of work and tourist traffic; hawkers selling neon tank tops, bottles of suntan lotion and brightly painted ceramic calaveras skulls.

This island, the first place in Mexico to see the sunrise, was the Mayan site dedicated to jaguar goddess Ixchel, who was a healer, midwife and associated with the moon and fertility. Her temple ruins can still be visited at Punta Sur at the southern end of Isla Mujeres, along crumbling cliffs inhabited by iguanas. A statue of her likeness kneels before visitors, bare-breasted and with a serpent coiled on her head, hands held before herself with palms facing up as if in offering.

It’s the Island of Women — so named by early Spanish explorers because of the many female figures on the island.

Today, visitors can dine on a patio overlooking this ancient sacred place and afterward can grab an ice cream cone, haggle over the cost of souvenirs and spend 50 pesos to use the restroom.

You’ll also find craft beer in Isla Mujeres, thanks to the work of Jeff and Rhett McGahee, formerly of craft beer boomtown, Asheville, North Carolina. “There were already so many brewers starting things in Asheville who had a lot of money backing them. It’s hard to get a start in that,” Jeff McGahee says.

Currently working on a three-barrel electric brewing system, McGahee is keeping himself busy.

Visit the taproom to sample the currently available beers; you can purchase merchandise (“My Mom and Dad Went the Whole Way to Isla Mujeres and All I Got Was This Awesome T-Shirt”) and bottled beer to go.

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