Welcome welcome to our 28th episode of Over a Pint. This is a special one as it marks the one person, outside of myself, to be in the most Over a Pints ever- Mr. Rob Landerman! You can check out more hot Rob OAP action here and here.

This old Over a Pint pro made himself comfortable in front of the camera (enough to lick spilt beer off my arm) and along wt distiller TJ Miller, spilled the Ranger Creek brewing/distilling beans wt us. Rob, TJ, Denis Rylander, and Mark McDavid had us out to the brewery/distillery to have a look around and taste some yummy beers.

Remember, we’re a beer blog, so don’t hate if I get any whisky info wrong or sound dumb (that whole wt an ‘e’ or wt out an ‘e’ always fools me)…

Here’re the meat and potatoes:

• Rob, TJ, Denis, and Mark all met via their homebrew club
• Total investment just under a million
• Double distillation
• TX corn used for the whisky
• Experimenting wt TX climate for barrel aging- maybe only 2-3 yrs for aging
• Start wt small barrels then get bigger
• Experimenting wt front end spirit recipes; distilling beer recipes
• Looking to be as crafty in spirits as they are in beers
• End of July the Hungarian builders installed the equipment
• Three beer fermenters; one whiskey. Two lagering tanks
• August 1 launch wt early mid September in glasses (as of our June visit…)
• Keg and bottle out of the gate. All four beers. San Antonio only for now
• Hope to be in ATX in Jan/feb
• Been shopping around test batches to bars to great success
• Looking to put bottles in small mom pop shops first
• First seasonal spring 2011 TX wildflower wit, tentatively
• All brand new equipment by Bavarian Holstien. Out of CA
• Looking to use lots of local ingredients with out sacrificing style quality
• All beer unfiltered
• Eight months before beer barrel aging on premise
• Will be one of the few brewery/distilleries to age their own beer in own barrels
• Planning on a bourbon aged lager
• Souring barrels, too
• Turn some beer recipes into whisky to age beer in it’s own barrel
• Plan on making oak spirals out of TX oak if they can’t get TX oak made barrels

The beers:

• South TX lager
  Traditional dirtmunder lager
  All German ingredients to brew to style. 5.2 abv
  Very balanced. Great mouth feel. Shooting for a gateway beer. First introductory beer in portfolio.
• Oatmeal Pale Ale OPA
  Less traditional more unique.
  Shooting for Sierra Nevada pale bench mark. 17% oats fir body and mouth feel. Only 3 malts 2 hops. Amarillo centenial hops.
  Smooth drinkable 5%abv sessionsble.
• Misquite smoked porter. “The Smoking Gun”
  In house smoked malt.
  45% smoked malt.
  Great smoke front good roasty chocolate malt then subtle smoke flavor. Very nice.
  “like chocolate covered bacon”
• “La bestia Emabala” strong Belgian
  Used wt local honey.
  No rock candy only sugar. 7% abv then 8.5% on second wt rock candy.
  Still in test phase.
  Has potential. First batch dry but not Belgian depth.
  

We had a great time out there wt the Ranger Creek gents. This

guy tagged along and posted some stuff too.

The Smoking Gun misquite smoked porter was my favorite (Rob described it as chocolate covered bacon and I can’t disagree), but none of the beers were anything to scoff at. I look forward to trying the whisky when they begin distilling. Thy mentioned they may produce a “top shelf” moonshine too. Nice.

We’re drinking various Ranger Creek beers in the video. I think I’m finishing off a combination of mine and someone else’s strong Belgian then move onto the smoked porter. Or maybe the smoked porter is what Rob spills/licks off my arm. Either way they were all tasty. I’m really looking forward to these beers and hope they get in ATX sooner than later.

So if you can, crack open a beer and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

Wow. Lots of beer stuff going in the next few weeks.

Lots of “With our powers combined”s being duo-shouted.

It’s a good time to be in this area and like beer. And it’s looking like lots and lots more people are doing their bestest to make it even better.

Here’s what’s on the beer docket for the next few weeks (also known as this weekend and then the Thursday in two weeks from now):

Freetail/Real Ale Barrel Aged Beer Festival!

Saturday, July 17

11:30 am- you can’t stand up on your own

From the horse’s mouth:

Barrel Aged Beer Festival!  Real Ale Brewing Co. and Freetail are teaming up to offer a handful of rare barrel aged beers.  Event is free,  you only need to pay for what you drink.  On tap: Barrel Aged La Muerta, Barrel Aged OBR, Solera IV, Solera V.  From Real Ale: Empire, Highlander, Devil’s Share.  A handful of other goodies as well.  Fun starts when the doors open at 11:30am.

This sounds pretty incredible.

And who can complain about knocking them back at 11:30 am… not me.

I’m already mentally preparing my case to the wife for a day trip to SA. (“It’s unpatriotic how long it’s been since you’ve visited the Alamo… REMEMBER THE ALAMO!”)

A Bite of Black Star BEER SOCIAL featuring Thirsty Planet

Saturday, July 17

7-10pm

Most likely you’ve been to a Black Star beer social. Lots of beer and… cooperation. This will be the last beer social before the brewpub opens and will have sample food from the brewpub menu for sale.

ALSO they will be slinging the beers of Brian Smittle of Thirsty Planet (whom had a grand opening this past weekend; video and write-up to come).

This sounds like a great event. I heard it’s one of the last times to become a member/owner before the planets collide and Austin becomes home of the first cooperatively owned brewpub.

Parkside ‘summer nights’ with Independence Brewing

Sunday, July 18

7pm

Five courses featuring such summer ready delights as popcorn soup, chicken lollipops, rabbit terrine, steamed clams, octopus, and cinnamon sugar yeast doughnut pretzel ice cream  paired with Indy Freestyle Wheat, Austin Amber, Indy Pale Ale, Bootlegger Brown, and (one of our favorites) Convict Hill Oatmeal Stout.

Teaming up never tasted so good.

Tickets $40.

I’ll for sure be there.

24 Diner/Avery Brewery Dinner

Thursday, July 29

7pm

If you follow us on Twitter, you may notice that I end up at 24 Diner a good amount. My wife and I started frequenting while we were painting/moving and finished too tired to cook and too late to eat out at most places.

It’s got incredible waffles and a small, but excellently strategic beer selection (North Coast Bro. Thelonious on tap!?!?!)

I’ll describe their beer selection this way; outside of Draught House, they are (to my knowledge… and I know a lot) the only other tap in Austin pouring the craved for Dogfish Head Festina Peche.

To the point. They are pairing up wt Avery to offer an interest peaking beer dinner in late July.

They are serving the Depuceleuse wt duck confit, butter lettuce, and dried cherry chutney.

Shit. Yes.

Also among the five courses there will be rosemarry and honey ribs paired wt Maharaja and pecan sticky buns paired with the Meph Addict. Never had it, but it scores a 100 on Ratebeer and is 15%abv, so yeah, I’m looking forward to this one.

Also mentally preparing a case for a ride home from the wife.

Waffles?

$55 per person.

I’ll be at this one for sure.

June 26th, besides the Real Ale Anniversary party (which I truly regret missing this), witnessed the Great Austin Beer Festival.

We were there loud and proud. See us in the pic above sporting our new rasterized banner (no, it’s not a pixilated image. It’s on purpose… IDIOT!)

As a disclaimer, I should mention that we were an event sponsor and appreciate the GATXBF guys including us.

GATXBF had a lot going on. 1,600 drinkers last I heard, ~40 breweries, tons of beer (we roughly counted 80 cases left over after!), and a good(ish) time for all. Plus nice local representation from Independence, (512), Real Ale, Saint Arnold, and Live Oak (who’s table was manned by the original party animal himself, Mr. Chip McElroy.)

The good- lots of lots of beer.

The bad- lots of lots of people/lines.

The ugly- some hipster man-boy called me an asshole because he didn’t win the raffle (learn to read the rules you stupid, illiterate, scenester fuck.)

The incredible- (512) blew off some socks with a cellared keg of the 2009 ONE and a rare appearance of the Whisky Barrel 2X Pecan Porter (don’t think I didn’t “sample” a few 6 or 7 of these.)

The from-left-feild- we debuted our BeerTownAustin Mustache glasses. If you got one, yr lucky. If not, we plan to have more available soon. Look left (<–) to see it.

Laser etching and wooden sign by our favorite laser artist in austin at Austin Laser Art.

The unsung heroes- big thanks to the Jester King gents for sharing their wooden banner frame. Sans their generosity, we’d have been left holding our rasturbated sign above our heads and out arms would have gotten so tired.

The rest of the story- Promoter Blake Richards did a quick video and e-mail interview wt us post GATXBF.

Here it is:

BTA: Was Saturday’s event what you initially set out to do?

GATXBF: We set out to give Austin another beer festival (the other being Flying Saucer’s in October) and we wanted the event to be something that could grow in the future.

BTA: Did you expect such a large turnout?

GATXBF: We expected a good turnout because Austin is an event driven town and there is a lot of interest in good craft and import beers.

BTA: Are there plans for a second GAtxBF, and if so, how would you like it be different than this year, if at all?

GATXBF: There are no plans for second event; but I would like to do it.  It would be different, we would go outside and we would work with the TABC to figure out how we can do draught beer.

BTA: Not even hours after the event Twitter, Facebook, forums and blogs were already pouring in reviews of the event, mostly positive, but some negative, how do you respond to those?

GATXBF: They have been about 90% positive, I have responded to as many as I can especially the negative feedback.  We are open to constructive negative feedback, we realize that the venue was way too crowded and the beer was in bottles not draught.  With that being said, there were a ton of beers to sample and there is a good chance that most of the guests could find at least twenty to thirty beers that they have never tried.

BTA: Lots of people are wondering why the beer was mainly served out of bottles, can you comment on that? 

GATXBF: There are a few reasons for the bottles, we are going to work on draught next year.

BTA: What type of post-festival feedback did you receive from the brewers?

GATXBF: The feedback from the breweries so far has been very good.  I strongly believe a good majority would want to come back.

BTA: Why did you choose Austin for your festival?

GATXBF: I have been coming to Austin for years, I have family in Austin, it is simply one of the best cities in the country.  Why not Austin!!

BTA: Assuming there will be a second festival, what are you most looking forward to next year?

GATXBF: If we do it next year, it will be outside.  I am looking forward to that, it will be a completely different event.

Here’s the video:

Here’re more pics: (also by the talented Mr. Haley)

Our friends from Austin Homebrew Supply.

Celeb sighting.

More glasses and some of the raffle stuff.

Eric at the Independence table.

Jeff of Jester King shaking hands wt @madhouselarry (thanks for all the beer runs, Larry!)

The rear of the Saint Arnold booth. Our friend Kevin pouring beers next to Mr. Frank Mancuso.

Welcome welcome to another episode of Over a Pint. This one wt Allagash founder, Rob Tod while he was in town for the Flying Saucer’s East Coast Big Beer Week back in April (yes, we are still playing catch up…)

Rob was in town slinging the Curieux, the Black, the Four and the Odyssey, a dark wheat beer aged a year in stainless steal/oak.

Very nice.

We were drinking the Curieux, a barrel aged trippel. Rob explains the creation of the Curieux was a happy accident as some of their strong cork bottles got held up in customs coming over seas and they didn’t have anywhere to put their latest batch of trippel but some Jim Beam bourbon barrels they recently acquired.

Rob explained how Allagash came about being an American brewery focused on Belgian style beers. He said when he was working at Otter Creek he and the other employees would bring in beers to share and he became inspired by the belgian style. He said he decided to open Allagash and focus on belgian style beers in the mid 1990s because very few American breweries were making those styles. He was impressed by the various styles and also the experimentation and ingenuity of the belgian brewers and wanted to capture that same spirit at Allagash.

Much thanks to Sam at Flying Saucer for opening up the cooler for us to shoot in as it was super packed and loud for the East Coast Big Beer Week (Allagash and Dogfish Head rarities tapped every night for a week).

We’re drinking the Curieux in the video, so if you can, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

This one has been aging for a while. Last holiday I was able to make the short trip from my parent’s house out to the Covey in Fort Worth to try some beers and meet with brewmaster Jamie Fulton.

It was pretty impromptu. I showed up just looking to try some beers, and ended up meeting Jamie, and then recording a video on HIS MacBook Pro using the built in iSite camera and iMovie.

BLOGGING!

Jamie was a great sport and a very gracious host.

Of course I tried the multi-award winning Vienna Lager. I had hoped to try the smoked porter, but it wasn’t on tap at the time. It sounds incredible. Jamie talks about how he smokes his own malt in the video.

In the 2009 GABF the Covey won silver for the 100 (a 100th brew commemorative Belgian style strong beer) and the Weizenbock and also a silver in the 2010 World Beer Cup. Very nice.

I took some great notes, but alas, lost my notebook during our last move. That little guy was filled with beer blogging gold. You will be missed.

From my tweets circa November 2009 I recall liking the Christmas ale and Vienna lager. I also sampled the newest version of the 100 from the fermentor (blogging doesn’t pay but it has it’s perks). It was very nice.

As Jamie mentions in the video, he likes to switch up the hop profile in the IPA to keep it interesting. I had the simcoe and really enjoyed it.

The Covey, a reason besides my family living there for me to make the 3hr drive north. Thanks, Jamie!

We drank the Simcoe IPA during the video. It was mighty tasty. So if you can, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

April 29 Uncle Billy’s celebrated their third anniversary of slinging beers in Austin [we realize this is nearly two months tardy; we're still playing catch-up...]

Yup. And they had a party and a special beer to celebrate.

Specifically, the “Dave Tripel”; a Belgian style tripel that truly hit the celebratory spot. It’s been said before, but since I put it in my notes I’ll say it too, similar to the Real Ale Devil’s Backbone, but not in a hacky way.

I was told by Ryan Fulmer (UB manager) that the Dave Tripel was brewed close to the Tres Diablos from the Bitter  End. Sadly, I never tried any of their beers, so I have to take his word for it.

Also on deck were the second anniversary ale, the “Boozer Chavez” (a belgian style quad), the GABF/World Beer Cup medal winner Hell in Keller, a cask of the Axe Handle pale, and a round up of the usual suspects.

The 2nd Anniversary quad aged well. It was very smooth wt a good mouthfeel and a raisin finish.

I also imbibed in the Hell in Keller; my first time since the medal winnings. It was a bit awash after having both anniversary ales back to back.

All the beers were $3, the new parking lot was packed out, we ran into Jordan Weeks of South Austin Brewing Co (you ate our fried Okra and therefore owe us a video…), Josh Hare of Hops & Grain, JB of Austin Homebrew, Stuart West of the Church of Zmurology, and a few other Zealots and BeerAdvocates.

Also, congrats to Otis (formerly the assistant brewer to Brian Peters) on his promotion to full time brewer.

<unfounded blogger speculation>Perhaps this means Uncle Billy’s is prepping up to brew beer in a second location???</hopes and dreams>

All in all, it was a great event with some great beers.

Thanks for all you do in Austin, Uncle Billy’s and here’s to three more years!

Lots going on in the next few weekends. We’re a  blog, so we’re blogging about it. You know, taking what other people are doing and commenting on it so it looks like we’re doing something too. It makes us feel important and such. It’s 2010, just go along with it.

(512) Summer Open House

6-19-10

2-5pm

OPEN HOUSE
Saturday, June 19th, 2-5 pm
Taste your favorite (512) Ales plus
the RE-RELEASE of our Belgian Style Strong Ale
(512) ONE.2

Hell. Yes. Please.

Kevin, Nate, and co throw some nice open house parties, and they’re always nicer when they include the release (or re-release) of something new. No word on if the (512) boys tweaked the Belgian Strong ale that made us all a little buzzier than we were expecting last summer. Either way, I’m ok. I loved the last one and can’t imagine any upgrades would be bad.

Bottle it maybe, eh?

Check out our coverage of the (512) ONE release party last year (they got that whole long line thing nipped in the butt via multiple pouring stations). More info from (512) here.

Saint Arnold 2nd Austin Pub Crawl

6-19-10

6-9pm

We will be pub crawling in Austin on Saturday, June 19. We are utilizing our “open house” schedule for the first 3 stops. This means that we will be signing tickets at all three of the first three stops for three hours so people can split up between the establishments. You will get your ticket at whichever stop you decide to visit first. But, VERY IMPORTANT, we will only be handing out the tickets between 6 PM and 7 PM. Thus, you still need to start between 6 and 7. Then, at 9 PM, everybody will gather at one final stop and that is where we will award the glasses.

This was good last time, I fully expect it to be great this time.

Where the first one had problems wt overcrowding and pubs hitting capacity, this time it’s less of a mass pub crawl and more of a pub sprawl. Sounds like a great time.

Hit it up, drink lots of  Saint Arnold (responsibly…), and say ‘hi’ to Frank, Lennie, and company. Last time I even ran into Brock himself stamping punch cards. More info here and also this jerk has pretty good coverage too.

Also, When In Austin did a short podcast wt FrankTex about the pub crawl. Check it out.

Read our coverage of the last crawl here.

Great Austin Beer Festival

6-26-10

4-8pm

The Great Austin Beer Festival is our opportunity to celebrate everything we love about beer.  With so many great breweries in Austin and beyond, you will get your chance to sample some the finest local beers and explore beers from our best breweries from all over the world.  The event offers multiple opportunities to learn everything you want to know about beer.  Join us in downtown at the Austin Music Hall on June 26th.
Admission is $30 online and $40 day of event.  It includes 4oz samples throughout the event.  Food will be sold separately.

As a disclaimer I should mention we are a sponsor of the festival. That being said, I’m pretty sure this will be great and totally think you should go.

Really though, it’s very exciting. Being in the business of drinking beer in Austin and talking about beer in Austin with people we meet while drinking it, we have been in more than seven or eight conversations with people about why Austin needs a festival… again (remember that Rob and Amy of Independence put on a TX brewers fest a few years back).

We’ve met the guys putting this on and they are pretty solid. We look forward to this event.

Also, we’ll have a booth there. So if you go, come by and say ‘hi’. We’ll have some cool shit for free and some other shit too.

More info here and here.

[If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, be sure to follow us on Twitter as we're giving out a $25 coupon code]

So recently-ish I traveled to the cloudy city on the coast that once played host to the Tanners.

As this was a work trip I didn’t get out to explore as much as I would have liked, but I did get in some good stops. Much thanks to the BA community and various other people I affronted at bars asking about places to go for the recommendations. They were all great.

My job put me up in the Argonaut hotel on the pier. It was like the Nautica display at Dillard’s but with easy to find bathrooms. Luckily, it was neighbors with Jack’s Cannery Bar, a gimmicky multi-tap you might expect to find in a mall or an airport. What Jack’s lacked in credibility it made up for in beer selection. Boasting 110 taps to taste from, there were more than I expected of quality beers. Being in SF, they had a solid row of Anchor Brewing Co taps including the anniversary Humming Ale. I hit this place up my first night and the site of all those Anchor taps was pretty nice. They also had some Alaskan Brewing on and Moylan’s that I’d never tried before.

On my second night in the city I traversed way beyond the

neighborhood of the Argonaut. Being on a per diem budget (WTF!?) I took the Muni to City Beer Store on Folsom per recommendation of Certified Cicerone, Rob at Ranger Creek, formerly of Flying Saucer. Unfortunately, they are closed on Mondays… It was pretty sad as I could see those glistening bottles of beautiful beers I could never get in Texas sitting there just on the other side of a pane of glass. I stopped being the creepy-staring-into-the-window guy and hoofed it down to Whole Foods where I dropped more money than I care to mention on bottles. I got a few Pliny’s, a Russian River Damnation, Alaskan Smoked Porter, Alaskan Barelywine, Nest Espresso Stout, a Black Wheat from the Bruery, and a few other tasty souvenirs.

From there I walked the few block to 21st Amendment. I’ve had their Brew Free or Die Hard IPA before (via this jerk) but that’s it. In the brewpub it was super crowded (especially for a Monday night!) I had the sampler,

but the double IPA and the Hell or High Water Melon were the only ones that stood out. I had always thought of the water melon wheat as a gimmicky “girl beer” concoction, but I really really enjoyed it and regretted not bringing any back. The food was decent. I can’t even recall what I had, but don’t remember it being terrible. On the whole, I felt like 21st Amendment might have been a bit over hyped in my mind. But it was still nothing to scoff at.

I took a cab back to the hotel.

The pinnacle of the work portion of my trip was this next day, so to say the least I was ready to drink some beer this night. I met up with my cousin who lived in SF at the time and took the Muni to Haight-Ashbury. We stopped first at Magnolia Gastropub and Brewery for some beers and food. They had some great beers, and we landed there on $2 house brew night! Knowing I had other plans for the evening I only partook in one full pint of Sara’s Ruby Brown (an award winning session Bitter). They sold me half pints of the other beers I wanted to try. I especially enjoyed the Saison. The food here is better than average without the place coming off as too nice to throw back one too many on a school night. I liked it. Also, they serve their beers in those awesome wide-mouth imperial pints.

From here we took the short ride to the Tornado. I started with a Russian River Blind Pig IPA. Good, OK. Then I had the Supplication by Russian River. Yeah, better. Hmm. Then my cousin left me and I met a guy who grew up in Round Rock and he and his buddy suggested a slew of local stuff for me to try. The bartenders were very cool with me trying stuff and served me in half pints. I really can’t recall all I had that night, but I remember coming back to the Supplication a few times. I know the Stone Sublimely Self Righteous sat in front of me at some point. I think I had an Imperial Pilsner from either Boulevard or Whidmer (I don’t think they even make one) and then something special from Sierra Nevada, but can’t for the life of me recall. Maybe I posted about it on Twitter.

I also took some photos but can’t recall where they went either. I did get home with my debit card, phone, wallet and ID.

I took a cab back to the hotel wt a stop over at In-N-Out Burger.

SUCCESS!

I can’t finish this write up wt/out giving huge Internet hugs and kisses to JetBlue who have been the coolest and most accommodating airline  I’ve ever experienced in helping me get all my beer home in one piece. They gave me fragile stickers and everything. Not one broken bottle!

So hit up SF for beer, weather, good food, work trips, etc. There are a ton of great places to go that I missed, look them up, or if you have any favorites I left out, leave them in the comments.

Cheers!

Via the Real Ale Facebook.

Brewing our first ever German-style Pils

Context clues from the comments…

The Pils will be draft only.

German malt and hops.

60 barrels.

Very nice. I look forward to trying it.

I’m also pleased with their music selection via the brewing. Not sure how, but I think better music makes better beer.

Photos: Larry McIntosh Lycra and beer. Mmmmm. The starting line at Yett Memorial Park

Much thanks to our buddy Larry McIntosh over at USABeerTrends.com for sharing this excerpt about the Real Ale Ride. It should appear shortly in a full on American Craft Beer Week wrap up on their site soon.

MAY 22 — Real Ale Ride, Blanco, TX – MADHouseLarry with the Beef & Pie Cruiser Team

Photos: Larry McIntosh Beef & Pie Cruiser Team Captain Beefheart and MADHouseLarry, PieMan Yates lurking in the background.

A few weeks ago I was invited to join the Beef & Pie Productions Cruiser Team for the 2010 Real Ale Ride held in and around Blanco, Texas – the home of Real Ale Brewing. Quite an honor, as all members of the team had the same goal in mind: Finish the ride as quickly as possible so we can get to the beer drinkin’.

Problem. Of the bikes I do own, the only cruiser is a relic from large item trash pick-up day. I found it in a pile of car tires and oven doors and three-legged chairs by the curb in my neighborhood. The previous owner seemed a little confused on the issue of bike maintenance as this bike had been “maintained” by spray paint. The rims, spokes, seat springs, handlebars – basically anything that had been plain metal or chrome – had been spray painted silver. The tires and seat were spray painted black, and the frame looks like it was painted with a brush. Needless to say, I adopted the hulk hoping to make a project out of it. It has sat in my storage shed ever since. So, with a couple of weeks to remodel the cruiser, I figured, no cruiser. However, my mountain bike would be close enough for this crew. Fat , knobby tires and all. The idea, after all, was to finish quickly and get on with the beer.

So, we did the shortest route, a 15 miler that rolled out from Yett Memorial Park in Blanco, through the south end of town and out to some mild rolling hills and along the banks of the Blanco River. The few hills there were did a decent job of splitting up our bunch. Our Cruiser team were riding everything from a single speed pulling a kid in a trailer, to new, multi-gear city cruisers with smooth shifting internal hubs, to balloon tire beach bikes. While some folks hardly broke a sweat, others were beyond VO2 max. Thank goodness for the post-ride refreshments!

Photos: Larry McIntosh The B&P Cruiser Team relaxing by the Team B&P Burro. Take yer shoes off. Set a spell.

Oh well, I was committed to seeing the goal through. So I hauled ass. To get to the beer. Fun times. The rest of the crew came in sporadically, some in better shape than others. All, ready for the Real Ale.

Post-ride refreshments provided by the fine folks at Real Ale Brewing included Firemans #4 Blonde Ale, Full Moon Rye Pale Ale, Brewhouse Brown Ale and their ESB. Sadly, I didn’t see any Devil’s Backbone Trippel. There was a shuttle taking interested folks over to the brewery for a tour. I did not partake, this time.

The Real Ale Ride benefitted Ronald MacDonald House. Not sure how many riders there were, but there were plenty.

Beef & Pie is an Austin-based film and video production company. They work on everything from the U.S. Air Force to local commercials. Great, fun folks. There is a B&P racing team of serious cyclists, and then there is the Cruiser team – motto being Cruise. Booze. Snooze.

Cheers!