A Lone Star but A Lot of Beer

During a recent weekend trip to Austin, Texas, I had a chance to sample a few local and non-local craft beers that were pretty good. When my wife and I arrived on Friday night to the house of our friends, Dianna and Johan, I was greeted with a cold bottle of Fireman's 4 Blond Ale from Real Ale Brewing there in Austin. A nice beer overall with good flavor and finish.

Saturday afternoon Johan took us out to Central Market which had an incredible beer section. Austinites are very lucky to be on the cutting edge of large supermarkets (they are the original home of Whole Foods which is now nationwide) that specialize in organic, fresh and unique products at reasonable prices... including beer. I selected two individual pint bottles to purchase with plans on having one later that afternoon and one on Sunday afternoon. The first one I picked up was Hop Stoopid from Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma, California. I cracked it when we got back to the house and shared it with Johan. Incredible hoppy flavor as the name might imply and smooth finish and no bitter taste at all. A very, very good beer. After some research I found that this wonderful beer is considered a Double IPA - make that an "award-winning Double IPA" - which is by far my favorite sytle of beer.

We all attended a concert later that evening and dined at a local chain eatery beforehand called Opal Divine's. I was delighted to see that they carried a great beer selection including several products from Austin's own, Live Oak Brewing. I chose their IPA, of course, and it wasn't bad. I may have liked it more if I didn't still have the smooth taste of the Hop Stoopid Ale still in mind. The folks at Live Oak do a tour of their small microbrewery as well which I would like to check out next time I am down this way. The beer selection at the music venue was typical and boring, but I did get a kick out of having one my favorite "mass-produced" beers, Shiner Bock, for the first time in a can. All four of us actually toured the Shiner Brewery (in nearby Shiner, Texas) the last time we visited Austin and it was a great tour. Shiner is a great success story in terms a small brewery producing great products and gaining some amazing national success.

Sunday afternoon before our flight home I popped the cap on the second pint bottle I had bought at Central Market. This was was called Small Batch 471 Double IPA from Breckenridge Brewing in Colorado. Double IPAs as I mentioned above are my favorite style of beer and this was the first one I had gotten in a bottle and I have to say I was fairly disappointed. It wasn't a bad brew overall, but it really lacked the pure hoppiness of double IPAs I had tried in the past, and still had the coarse bitterness of an English-style IPA - totally different from American IPAs.


Thanks to Johan and Dianna for showing us such a great time and thanks to Austin for providing great opportunities to try really good beer in a great American city.