Not too long ago we spent an evening out at the Twisted X brewery with founders/brewers Shane Bordeau and Jim Sampson.

The guys were more than hospitable, giving us the grand tour and opening up their taps for some gratuitous “sampling”.

Jim and Shane are currently brewing on a 3 barrel brewhouse in Cedar Park. They are producing up six styles at any given point and can be found at about five locations. When we were there they had the Twisted X Mexican Style Lager, Fuego Jalapeno Lager, Senor Viejo Black Imperial Lager Aged in Tequila Barrels, and the Siesta Prickly Pear Lager.

All the brews were excellent, but the Fuego and Senor Viejo probably saw more time in our glasses than the others. The Fuego has an unmistakable pepper character but is dialed in so you get the flavor and heat, but not so much you have to stop at one. The Senor Viejo is a nice take on the barrel aging phenomenon that no brewery can do without these days. It’s big, rich, and has a nice sweet roasty flavor complimented by the tequila barrel.

Twisted X are still technically in the “pilot” phase, and are still raising funds to build out a larger 30 barrel brewhouse as soon as late 2011. They hope to make enough beer to supply all of Texas. They are currently walking the fine line of marketing, but not so much they can’t keep up with demand.

Enough from me, watch the video.

We’re drinking the Fuego and Senor Viejo in the video. So if you can, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

I remember back when we used to number these. Like we thought someone might create a catalogue or reference guide for them.
Wow. Pie in the sky.

So we recently spent some time out at the Austin Beerworks brewery with the ABW boys, Will, Mike, Michael, and Adam (whom you may or may not recall, was the guest on Over a Pint Ep1). They gave us the tour, let us sample some unfiltered, uncarbonated beers, and then participated in an Over a Pint taping.

Since our visit, ABW has released all four of their staple beers on tap, Screaming Eagle IPA (cans pictured above), Peacemaker Extra Pale Ale, Pearl-Snap Pils, and Black Thunder Schwarz beer (black lager), with the Extra Pale Ale and IPA releasing in cans over the past 7 days around town.

Between the four of them, they bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table and it shows from their brewery build-out ingenuity, fund raising, marketing and branding, and obviously, the quality of their initial beers. Both Adam and Will have prior brewing experience (at Flying Dog and Real Ale, respectively), and it shows.

Although none of the beers are ground breaking or “extreme” (I’d argue that the Black Thunder is something of an anomaly in these parts… no, Shiner Black doesn’t count), they are not setting out to make those beers right now. From their own words, they are aiming to make solid, drinkable, delicious, dry, Texas summer appropriate beers (just heard today the whole state is declared a natural disaster due to the draught and wildfires…)

So without further ado, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, yeah?

Well, Over a Pint has been on a hiatus, but now it’s back. Huge thanks to JIB for coming back from Hawaii, surviving having a kid, and now making time to do some videos.

Welcome to another episode of Over a Pint, our 29th.

Wow. It’s been over a month since we posted one of these. Huge thanks to Sean for stepping in and helping out wt the video editing. Things have been slow going over in Camp BTA since Shawn and JIB have both left to work in Hawaii.

This time we sit down with Silas Parker, the man behind Darkside Fermentation out of San Marcos. Silas brews and ferments his craft belgian style ales out of the Root Cellar right off the square in downtown San Marcos where the beer is available to drink on premise or to go.

Silas shared some beers with us while he described his operation. Currently he has five beers in the Darkside lineup with another few he’s tinkering around with. He has a blonde, a dubel, a strong golden, a tripel, a quad and a European styled pale- all bottle conditioned for three months in 24 oz belgian bottles with corks and cages.

He described his beer as such: “I’m interested in rich raw beer that reminds you of something you would drink while sitting in a castle somewhere by candlelight… with a few people in cloaks sacrificing something.”

Darkside attempts to brew with as much local ingredients as possible. All Darkside water is drawn from a local well tapping Aquarena Springs where Silas trades spent grains for water from the well owner. When we arrived he had just finished collecting elder berries by kayak from the San Marcos river. These berries are destined for the next few months’ worth batches of his quad, Mark of the Yeast 78666. In addition to the elder berries, he uses locally grown wormwood, yaro, and sage in this big quad.

He brews two barrels a week and said Root Cellar sells out every Sunday. He jokes saying they are San Marcos’ oldest brewery. According to Silas, the business doesn’t rely on students, one of the few in San Marcos, and is very supported by the town.

Silas and Root Cellar’s partnership over Darkside Fermentation began in late 2009 after Silas had approached owner Kyle Mylius with the idea and left him a few bottles to sample. Kyle liked the beers and the idea of brewing and serving beers on premise. They built a beer cellar in the Root Cellar (double cellar?) and Silas began brewing and conditioning his belgian style ales. He started with a half barrel (15 gallons) system and quickly grew into a full one barrel brewhouse.

With a one barrel brewery producing eight barrels a month, Darkside can safely be called a nanobrewery. But it’s no surprise that all this is a pilot project to test out small batch recipes. Darkside Fermentation is Silas along with Root Cellar owner Kyle Mylius. They have plans to expand to full brewery within the next year, possibly out on Ranch Rd 12. He said they would like to amp up production and switch over the license in a year to a brewery with intentions to distribute within a 75 mile radius of San Marcos. He said they plan to do kegs with a bottle emphasis.

For the immediate future, Silas is looking to barrel age. He said he has plans for a 17% abv barrel aged barley wine named the Barley Legal.

In the video we are drinking the Mark of the Yeast 787666, which recently got a label redesign. I have not had one of Silas’ beers I haven’t immensely enjoyed. They are worth the 45 minute trek down I-35 to retrieve them.

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

Enjoy!

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!

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!

Welcome welcome to another episode of Over a Pint, our 26th (#25 is in the vaults, for cellaring…)

“Recently” we went out for the Dogfish Head/Alamo Drafthouse Lakecreek Off-Centered Film Fest and had the great pleasure of grabbing Sam for a quick Over a Pint.

Sam had a lot to say. Mainly about the new version of the Dogfish Head Aprihop. It’s hoppier and less apricotier than in the past. I like. Not sure on the hop profile, Sam said he’d have to kill me if he told me. Whatever, it’s good.

He briefly mentioned the Chica experiment and also talked up his new roof top restaurant endeavor in NYC with Russian River’s Vinnie Cilurzo and Italian brewers Teo Musso, Brewmaster of Birrificio Le Baladin and Leonardo Di Vincenzo of Birra del Borgo. It sounds pretty great.

He also talked up the Dogfish Head, Victory and Stone Simon and Garfunkel tribute collaboration; a Saison du Buff brewed with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Yeah. Stone released their version in April, Victory will in July, and Dogfish Head should be brewing theirs in June for an August release. Fingers crossed we see it in Texas.

The event was great. Alamo did a bang up job.

And unlike many beer type events, the Alamo/Dogfish Head group used these great labeled place mats for the beer with proper paired food designations for ease of having the correct beers and foods tastes.

Lots of local food paired very well by Alamo Chef Paul Michie.

My favorite pairings…

• Burton Baton/ Proscuitto, melon, and lime
• Black & Blue / Crab wonton with blueberry sauce
• Raison D’Etre / Medjool Date stuffed with gorgonzola, Marcona almond and wrapped in bacon
• Palo Santo Marron/ Chorizo, jack, and cojita quesadilla with roasted tomato salsa
• Chateau Jiahu/ Pulled pork slider, with house pickled red onions, and spicy mustard

Runners up included the…

• Pangaea/ BBQ Bison slider with cheddar
• Punkin Ale/ Chorizo/ beef slider with avocado mayo, lettuce, and tomato
• Indian Brown Ale/ House made smoked duck sausage

I heard from some that the 2007 120 Minute IPA was off, but I liked it. Possibly because I had done some pre-game tailgating in the parking lot wt Jeff and Joe of Jester King.

I missed the film portion of the festival due to the Live Oak Anniversary party on Saturday (coverage to come…) but heard it was pretty good.

Will Oldham (aka Bonnie Prince Billy aka Billy Prince JR….) and a sweet ass robot was the star of a pretty awesome short about industrialized beer. Check it out AFTER you watch our video.

Between courses Sam would take the stage and talk up the food/beer and as the night went on his stage time turned into a haphazard Q/A time .

During one of these sessions Sam spilt the beans that Dogfish Head would be brewing a one off special release beer for the  40th anniversary of the release of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. Video of that announcement here.

To finish the evening off Sam performed a bit of the The Pain Relievas’ catalog… see the footage after the interview. More here.

Huge thanks to Bret over at Alamo Lake Creek for the tickets and cheers on a great event!

Sam and I are drinking the Aprihop, so if you can, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

[Good photos by Andrew Pogue]

Looky looky. It’s time for another Over a Pint.

Number 24, that’s about 20 more than I ever thought we’d do.

And what a good one. We really wrangled in a good guest for this one (thanks Josh!)

We sit down with Mr. James Watt, head of stuff and emperor penguin at BrewDog for a few minutes before his Draught House hosted BrewDog tasting (yeah, I know that happened over a month ago… we have day jobs.)

James jumped across the pond to promote the release of the 32%abv Tactical Nuclear Penguin (previous World’s Strongest Beer) and the 41%abv Sink the Bismarck! (current World’s Strongest Beer.) See the videos here and here. Probably you are already familiar with the back and forth for the title between BrewDog and German brewery Schorschbrau.

BrewDog achieves these high alcohol levels in their beers via freeze distilling (fractional freezing.) As alcohol freezes at a lower temperature than water, as they freeze the beers, it removes water and leaves more alcohol… can I explain a simpler idea simplier? Look here for more.

James was kind enough to open a bottle of the Penguin for our video (did you also nearly shit your pants when he used the Bismarck! as a bottle opener?!?!) It was nice. At 32%abv, it was incredibly drinkable. There was an amazing flavor presence for the amount of alcohol. I liked it. Not a your go-to six pack beer, but good for once in a while.

Later that night for the finally of the tasting James opened a few bottles of the Bismarck!. A “quadruple” IPA, at 41%abv it retained a great amount of hop flavors. James explained that it was “freeze hopped”; a method where the oils from fresh hops are extracted and infused into the beer as it is being frozen. Also, not bad.

As of now only the Penguin is available in the US (only 400 odd bottles in NY and CA) with the Bismarck! only available online. Some have criticized BrewDog as being gimmicky or extreme for extreme’s sake. In my opinion, yes, they are over the top, and I think BrewDog would be the first to admit that, but after trying them I think they came up with something that may not be for everyone, but it is good for what it is. I was pleasantly surprised at how much flavor and dynamic tastes were present in these high ABV beers. Definitely more than a gimmick. Or at least a lot of work and attention to detail for just a gimmick.

In the words of my favorite beer critic, “They were tasty.”

Besides the Penguin and Bismarck!, the Draught House tasting featured a ten beer flight. The standouts for me included the 5AM Saint (a session-able hoppy red coming soon to the US), the Tokio/Tokyo/Tokyo* (an 18%abv imperial stout with loads of spices), the Smokehead (a smoked imperial stout) and the Hardcore 2X IPA which recently won Gold at the World Beer Cup.

The tasting was great. Hopefully the Draught House will do more events like this (word has it there is a cheese and beer pairing in the works.)

For the video James and I are drinking the Paradox Isle of Arran, and imperial stout aged in oak whisky casks. Very smooth, dynamic (listen to James’ description!) and drinkable. So if you can, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint!

Enjoy!

Yup. Here we are with another episode of Over a Pint.

This one, our 23rd (JORDAN!…You know, cause of number 23. Get it?), we spend with JT Smith of Flying Dog Brewery.

JT was in town to debut their 20th Anniversary Ale, the Raging Bitch, and also to support a slew of SXSW shows.

We met up with him at the Flying Saucer for the official TX launch of the Raging Bitch.

First is first. The Raging Bitch, their Belgian Style IPA. It’s good. It’s got the grain and hopping of an American IPA, is fermented with their house Belgian yeast strain, Diablo, and then nicely dry hopped with Amarillo hops.

It’s yummy. It’s delicate and dynamic then huge and hoppy. And it gets hoppier as you drink it.

JT talks about how they came upon the idea, and it’s birth as a pilot brew.

Informative stuff.

And if you were lucky enough to find yourself at one of the Flying Dog sponsored shows during SXSW, it was flowing free.

Yikes. At 8.3% ABV, it’s just a little change of pace from the other free beers you may have been slinging that week.

Makes for some intense day time drinking.

They also launched the Woody Creek White, a Belgian style wit. It’s sounds great, but after drinking the Raging Bitch, it was a bit hard to taste.

We also talk about Flying Dog wiping the floor at the Great American Beer Festival this past year being named the Midsize Brewing Company of the Year, with head brewer, Bob Malone, being named Midsize Brewer of the year and winning three golds and one silver. Horn Dog Barely Wine 2007, Gonzo Imperial Porter, Dogtoberfest all took gold with the Barrel Aged Gonzo taking a silver (and he mentioned we may be seeing some of that in TX… fingers crossed!)

JT and I are drinking the Raging Bitch and then (unwisely) move on to the Woody Creek White. So if you can, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!