A Weekend in Antigua: Sampling the Local Goods

As I mentioned earlier this week, Shaun and I took a little vacation over the weekend. It snowed uncontrollably in the New York/New Jersey area and we barely made it out on Thursday morning. I have to tell you...after a long, seemingly never ending, bitterly cold winter (which is still going on, by the by), there's really nothing quite like swimming and sailing in aqua blue water, sipping mixed drinks all day and laying on the beach reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential (see? even when I'm not writing, I still have food on the brain and I just can't seem to get enough of that guy).

Though a gorgeous island in the Caribbean with lots to offer scenery-wise, as evidenced above, Antigua did not have many local eats. One of the stand out foods of the trip was a delicately fried conch fritter. White conch meat mixed with stuffing and fried, the fritter was served up with a light tartar sauce. Bellisimo.
Despite the abundance (or lack there of for that matter) of local fare, one of our must-do activities when traveling anywhere, inside or outside the US is to test out the local brew. Since Shaun and I have traveled to quite a few places in Europe and in the Caribbean, and sampling  (and subsequently smuggling for souvenir purposes) a bottle o'beer in each destination has become something of a tradition. After all, just as street food says so much about one's culture, so does the beer. Whether a cold Kolsch at an outdoor cafe in Cologne, Germany, circa 2006...
a mug of Staropramen to warm up on a rainy day in Prague in the Czech Republic...
or 40 oz bottle of Saku to pass the time on the overnight cruise between Sweden and Estonia...
I think local brews are a point of pride for many locales. In Antigua, the local beer is Wadadli. Hardly able to be kept cold in the extreme island temps, Wadadli follows in the Dutch tradition of Heineken and Amstel. A fine and somewhat tasty brew for a hot day, but not sure that it would be my go-to on a regular night in the Jerz.
Local fare aside, it was a fantastic vacation, filled with relaxation, rum slushies, and ok...maybe more than a little Wadadli. But when you end your day with this, it doesn't really get much better.So what about you? Are you a beer drinker? Do you sample local brews from place to place? And more importantly, did you take any vacations this winter to get out of the extremely frigid temps we've been having over the last months? And while you were there, sample anything worth noting?