PoNy’s Miches + Tap Savvy: The Perfect Beer & Ceviche Day
PoNy’s Miches and Tap Savvy made for a simple West Valley afternoon that quickly turned into ceviche, a massive mahi-mahi Baja burrito, Mexican lager pairings and beers reaching all the way to 14.2% ABV. We finished it off with Pulp from RAR Brewing and discovered one important rule: if the take-home carrier holds four beers, leaving with three is simply unacceptable.
Adam & Dedra
9/4/20267 min read
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Tap Savvy & PoNy’s Miches: Ceviche, Big Beers and a Four-Pack Problem
Sometimes a weekend beer adventure needs multiple breweries, several food stops, questionable navigation decisions, and enough mileage to make us wonder whether we should have packed luggage.
This was not one of those weekends.
This time, the plan was simple: pick up some seafood from PoNy’s Miches, drive it over to Tap Savvy in Litchfield Park, grab a couple beers, eat, relax, and head home.
You already know how well “a couple beers” usually works for us.
We ended up with ceviche, a massive Baja burrito, some excellent beer pairings, several tasters ranging from a Mexican lager to a 14.2% barrel-aged stout, and four cans to take home because apparently leaving with three would have made us weird.
All while recording this episode with Pulp from RAR Brewing, a 6.2% pale ale from Maryland that immediately hit us with a big, juicy orange character.
Pretty solid afternoon.
Before the Beer, Dedra Had a Flannel Story
Before getting into the weekend, Dedra had to give some attention to her Dixxon flannel.
This one actually had a little more meaning behind it than simply matching the beer-drinking wardrobe. It was part of Dixxon’s collaboration with comedian AJ Wilkerson, aka Captain Autism, with a portion of proceeds supporting the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. It was also one of Dedra’s first Dixxon flannels, and years later it is still going strong.
Then we returned to the real reason everyone was here.
Beer and food.
PoNy’s Miches Was the Food Mission
Our first stop was PoNy’s Miches, a West Valley seafood spot specializing in things like ceviche, aguachiles and other Mexican seafood dishes. They have since expanded into downtown Phoenix with PoNy’s Miches Michelada Bar & Grill, but for this trip we were picking up food before heading to Tap Savvy.
PoNy’s has also gotten some well-deserved attention for its shrimp fries, which PHOENIX magazine recently named its Best Shrimp Fries. Naturally, Dedra saw “shrimp” and “fries” combined into one dish and immediately added another visit to our future plans.
We somehow did not order them this time.
Adam went in another direction with the Cali-style Baja burrito, choosing fried mahi-mahi instead of shrimp.
This thing was not small.
Inside were the fish, sauce, other toppings and, as Adam eventually discovered somewhere around halfway through eating it, French fries.
Yes, it took several bites before he realized there were potatoes inside the burrito.
Apparently food inspection is not part of the process. The official system is more along the lines of:
Open container. See food. Eat food. Ask questions later.
The mahi-mahi was cooked well without becoming tough or rubbery, and the whole thing worked together especially well once Dedra started pouring hot sauce over it. That also resulted in a slow-motion video involving hot sauce, fingers and a brief moment when Adam may have almost eaten part of his own hand.
Normal lunch behavior.
Dedra Kept It Light… Sort Of
Dedra wanted something lighter because we still planned on eating dinner later, so she went with ceviche and Salsa Verde Tostitos.
It was exactly what she wanted: fresh, bright and refreshing without feeling as heavy as Adam’s burrito.
Of course, “light” becomes relative when you eat most of a container of ceviche, chips and two bites of somebody else's giant burrito.
But we will allow it.
The ceviche was also even better the following day. We finished it at home with regular tortilla chips, and Dedra discovered that Tostitos Scoops may actually have a legitimate purpose beyond attacking the roof of your mouth.
They create tiny edible ceviche bowls.
You get seafood, vegetables and all that citrusy liquid in one bite.
We may have solved ceviche.
Four Miles Later, We Were at Tap Savvy
Food secured, we headed a few miles down the road to Tap Savvy in Litchfield Park.
We have been going to Tap Savvy for years, and it remains one of our favorite West Valley taprooms because of the selection. They rotate craft beer from Arizona and around the country, both on draft and through a packaged beer cooler that becomes increasingly dangerous the longer you stand in front of it.
The taproom itself is narrow and cozy. The bar runs along one side, smaller high-top tables line the other, and there is basically a lane through the middle connecting everything.
There are TVs for games, but the sound stays down while music plays in the room.
Small, comfortable and beer-focused.
Basically our kind of place.
Even better, we ran into several people we knew and had not seen in a while. At one point it felt like half the taproom was somebody we knew from the local beer community.
That is one of the things we continue to love about Arizona craft beer. Sometimes you go out looking for a beer and accidentally get a reunion too.
Ceviche and Mexican Lager Was the Pairing Winner
Dedra started with Cerveza Original De Tombstone from Tombstone Brewing Company, a 4.9% Mexican lager.
After successfully pronouncing the entire name, which may have required more concentration than drinking it, she paired it with the ceviche.
That combination worked ridiculously well.
The ceviche was bright and acidic, while the lager stayed light, crisp and refreshing. Dedra actually regretted ordering only a small pour because the two worked together so naturally.
Adam went the opposite direction.
With a fried mahi-mahi burrito full of French fries, subtlety seemed unnecessary.
He paired it with Oregon Lots II, Tombstone Brewing Company’s 8.2% hazy Double IPA.
Big hazy IPA. Fried fish. Fries inside a burrito.
That is basically beer-pairing science.
Then the Beers Got Bigger
Once the food was disappearing, the tasting pours kept coming.
Adam tried Churriosity (2026) from The Bruery, a 10.7% imperial pastry stout brewed with dulce de leche, lactose and cinnamon. The cinnamon-heavy dessert character brought the whole thing into churro territory, which made a five-ounce pour more than enough.
Then came the beer that really stood out to him: Barrel-aged Te Quiero (2026) from O.H.S.O. Brewery.
At 14.2% ABV, this was not exactly something you casually throw back between bites. It was a slow-sipping beer, and Adam was perfectly happy stretching five ounces over a long stretch of the afternoon.
Dedra went considerably more reasonable with Birthday Suit from Goldwater Brewing Co., a 7.3% American IPA.
Meanwhile, Adam apparently decided the 14.2% stout had not sufficiently tested his ability to understand percentages, so he also worked on Bitter End., an 11% Triple IPA from Lake Pleasant Brewing Company.
Fortunately, these were tasting pours.
Sometimes five ounces is the responsible answer to a beer menu that refuses to calm down.
The Cooler Created Another Problem
We originally had no intention of buying beer to take home.
We have beer at home.
Plenty of beer.
There was absolutely no reason to buy more beer.
So naturally, we bought four.
Tap Savvy's cooler had beer from breweries we do not regularly see around the Valley, including Anchorage Brewing, Drekker, Energy City and RAR.
First we were going to pick one can each.
Then another one looked good.
Suddenly we had three.
And that is where basic beer mathematics took over.
You cannot put only three cans in a four-can carrier.
That would leave an empty space.
It would be unbalanced.
Wasteful, really.
So obviously we needed a fourth beer.
As Dedra explained, don't be a weirdo.
Fill the carrier.
This philosophy could become financially dangerous if Tap Savvy ever replaces its four-pack holders with six-pack holders.
Pulp From RAR Brewing
One of those cans came home with us and became the beer for this episode: Pulp from RAR Brewing.
The first sip immediately got Adam's attention.
Orange was the big takeaway for us. It had this deep, juicy citrus character that made the beer incredibly easy to keep going back to. At 6.2%, it was also considerably more relaxed than some of the monsters we had sampled at Tap Savvy.
By the end of the episode, Adam's cup was nearly empty, which officially activated the beerometer.
Apparently that is now a recognized measuring device.
Dedra's backup plan, had Adam finished the entire beer himself, was simply to grab the smoothie sour we had brought home.
Problem solved.
Final Pour
This weekend was a good reminder that an adventure does not need six different stops.
Sometimes you grab excellent seafood from PoNy’s Miches, carry it into one of your favorite local taprooms, order a few tasting pours and spend the afternoon talking with people you have not seen in a while.
PoNy’s gave us the kind of food we were still talking about the next day. Tap Savvy gave us a beer selection that ranged from crisp Mexican lager to barrel-aged stout, plus a packaged selection good enough to destroy our original “we're not buying anything” plan.
And somewhere along the way, we learned three important lessons:
Ceviche and Mexican lager belong together.
French fries apparently belong inside burritos.
And if the beer carrier holds four cans, you buy four cans.
Otherwise, you're just being weird.
Watch or listen to the full episode of The Adam & Dedra Show for the rest of our Tap Savvy and PoNy’s Miches adventure.
Craft Beer. Food. Fun.
Cheers!