Some of you may already know that BeerTownAustin now has an iPhone app. If this is news to you then go check it out and if you don’t have an iPhone then go buy one so you can download it. Or you can just look at it on one of our iPhones when you see us.

I have wanted to create an iPhone app for some time now and thought that BeerTownAustin would be a great reason to do so. I spent about a week learning everything I needed to and then got to work creating it. I will say that with a background in web development, Objective C (the language iPhone apps are written in) was a little harder than expected and kinda like learning a new language.

Once it was created I sent it off to Apple. When you create an iPhone app it must first be approved by Apple before it is available in the App Store for download. It is hard to know when Apple will approve your app because there is not a set time frame for approval. Luckily for us it was accepted in exactly two weeks with no issues.

So what does the app do?

The BeerTownAustin app is a fairly simple concept. It is an aggregation of everything BeerTownAustin. When you first open the app you are presented with the latest articles from the website. So now if you aren’t near a computer you don’t have an excuse for not checking out the recent happenings in beer world. Well maybe just the happenings in our beer world.

Also included in the app are all our videos that are easily viewable on your iPhone, the Knockin’ ‘Em Back podcast episodes that you could play while driving in your car, our Twitter feed, and all our photos that we have taken in an easy to view layout.

I hope you will check it out and let us know what you think. Also if you like what you see leave a review in the App Store.

I am a music fan. I’m lucky enough to live in Austin where we are so proud of our music scene that we declared ourselves the Live Music Capital of the WORLD! Aside from all of the bands that come through town or live here and play here, we are lucky enough to host a number of big music festivals every year. But the biggest of them all is South by Southwest. During SXSW over 1000 bands invade our town and play their music at every bar, alley, makeshift stage, and front-yard they can get a permit for.

If there is one thing that sxsw is about besides the music, it’s about going out and having a responsible good time. Well that’s what the beverage companies want me to say anyway. The fact of the matter is, there is a lot of drinking during SXSW. It may be a party put on by a new startup during the Interactive festival, a film premiere party, or just kids out drinking and dancing to their favorite band.

With all of the partying there is a great dilemma when it comes to the question of what to drink during the festival. Odds are your choices are limited to whatever the bar (or alley) is selling during the show. As a result you may be drinking a lot more of the National Beer of Texas than you would prefer. There’s nothing wrong with some Lone Star, especially in the right environment, but I noticed something new this year. Craft breweries are getting in on sponsorships this year. Also, more local bars are stocking gasp local beers. A movement is afoot and it looks like this year there will bring more “good” beer options than ever before.

Without further ado, here is my quick and dirty SXSW good beer survival guide.

Craft Brew Events

• Flying Dog is all over the place – You already know this if you read BTA, but it’s good beer and a lot of it!
• Dogfish Head/Gingerman SXSW Event Day 1 – Nice way to start out your Friday afternoon with a pint of Dogfish Head at the G-man.
• DC Does Texas – Good bands and free Dogfish Head at Lovejoys!
• 15th Annual Yarddog Throwdown At SXSW – Not free Dogfish Head, but only $3.  What better way to start off the Saturday of SXSW than with a bit of hair of the dog (pun intended)
• The Bay Area Takeover – All bands from the Bay area and free beer from Trumer Pils.  I haven’t had Trumer, but it gets a B+ from Beer Advocate

Bars with Good Beer

• Mohawk – Mohawk always has good bands and they usually have at least one Live Oak tap inside.
• Club DeVille – Club DeVille is next door to Mohawk on Red River and also has at least one Live Oak tap for your enjoyment. They also have 20 oz pint glasses.
• LoveJoys – Right in the middle of it all off 6th Street, you can get some microbrew.
• Ginger Man – When you need a break from the insanity of the music and 6th street, take a load off and enjoy some beer from the giant tap wall at Gingerman.
• Side Bar – Right off of Red River on 7th street you can find Real Ale on tap and a comfy couch. This is a great spot to catch some music and relax while in between bigger shows on Red River.
• Casino El Camino – Okay, I’m really including this one because they have a good Ms Pacman machine and I’m a dork. They also have some decent beers on tap and a fun atmosphere.

There are many more spots around downtown Austin to get good beer. Let us know your favorites in the comments. Also, please share any shows sponsored by Craft Brewers that I might have missed.

If you are skipping SXSW you can escape the influx of out-of-towners, hipsters, drunken idiots, and record label reps and head over to 512 to enjoy their Spring open house.

If you didn’t already know from this or this, Beer Connoisseur magazine held a party at the home of Independence Brewing Company on Saturday, February 27 for the launch of the second issue of their publication.  Some bloggers may have beaten us to the punch with a recap first, but how many had VIDEO?!?! (Scroll down now if you hate reading).

The weather and turnout ended up being great for everyone to rub elbows with fellow beer geeks and industry type folks (and maybe even a few of those professional media types).

While we were disappointed to see that not all the local brewers we had hoped for could make it out, no one went thirsty. In addition to some of the Independence staples, Lovejoy’s brought out their Blonde (which I did not have but heard was tasty) and Pale Ale, while North by Northwest sampled their Black Ale (excellent!) and IPA.

During our time there we also caught wind that Independence would soon be bottling their Stash IPA and Convict Hill Oatmeal Stout, probably their two best offerings in my opinion.

The Beer Connoisseur staff told us they took the time to visit Uncle Billy’s, the Ginger Man (where a pre-party was held for those who just couldn’t get enough beer) and some other local watering holes while in town to get better acquainted with the ever-growing Austin beer scene/brews.

Their publication and site are dedicated to all things related to beer culture. They hail from Atlanta, GA, which is experiencing a small but strong beer transformation (the Brick Store Pub consistently ranks as one of the best bars in the U.S. from Beer Advocate), and are excited about expanding into the Austin area.

Check out the video with Nick Kaye, managing editor, Beer Connoisseur to hear more about the work they are up to and what brought them to Austin. You can look for their quarterly magazine to start popping up around town soon.

Note: We feel it’s our duty to let you know we were extended a complimentary entry. Had I personally paid the entry fee, I would have been a lot more disappointed in the lack of breweries in attendance.

Welcome to Over a Pint episode 17. We recently got a chance to sit down with Steven Yarak, Jeff Young, and Karrine Karen Thornblom of Black Star Co-op.

We talked for a while. Over 15 minutes. We posted the first ten minutes here. We’ll post the B Side of the interview later this week (they take about 2 hours do with the importing and the editing and compressing and uploading and such.)

Steve, Jeff, and Karrine were excellent hosts and shared some nice beers with us as we discussed the history of the world’s first cooperatively owned brew pub, a little bit of their mission, membership perks, their beers (and why we can’t try them yet), their food, their new location and them getting LEED certified.

Jeff elaborates on the beers and talks a bit about the Infinity series, barrel aging and made some math jokes, too (I get it, they always CONVERGE on deliciousness!)

Hmm. So because the video was so long and we had to cut it up we see Karrine in the first video, but she doesn’t really talk much until the second… so just be patient. She is the buildout manager and is heading up the LEED certification push. What she has to say is interesting, just said in odd time increments that do not fit with the other content so well.

We shot this on an early Sunday afternoon. Actually, it was the Sunday after the Flying Saucer 2nd anniversary party. It takes us a bit to get in the swing of things (at least for me.)

We’re drinking the Delirium Noël and then move onto the Allagash Interlude (did I mention we went for 15 minutes?) So if you can, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

Direct link to the mp3 HERE

Much thanks to Sean for fancy-ing up the audio!

Flying Saucer had us out for a North Coast food pairing with North Coast co-founder Tom Allen the other day.

It was pretty swanky. Sam and Rob flexed their cicerone muscles and put together a very interesting seafood pairing for the beers.

As a journalistic disclaimer, Flying Saucer was very gracious and comped our tickets. With that said, this was a great event. Allen was on hand and after a brief North Coast history, he walked us through the tasting. It was  very educational [read: my non-beer drinking wife was finishing more than half of each taster, taking notes, and walked away with a new found appreciation and affinity for belgian style ales].

Allen was kind enough to give us a few minutes for a video after the event and informed us that North Coast is working on landing their Acme Pale and Acme IPA series in Texas soon (hurrah!)

Here are the pairings:

Scrimshaw Pilsner (Pilsner Style Ale)

w/ Grilled Brined Shrimp with Tomatillo & Avocado Salsa

Pranqster (Belgian Style Golden Ale)

w/ Fire-and-Ice Melon Soup

Old Rasputin (Russian Imperial Stout)

w/ Fresh Oyster on the Half Shell w/ Shallot Vinegar Drizzle

Le Merle (Belgian Style Saison)

w/ Ahi Tuna Ceviche with Mango and Avocado

Brother Thelonious (Belgian Style Abbey Ale)

w/ Texas Pecan Pie

Personal favorite pairings included the Ahi Tuna Ceviche with the Le Merle and the Brother Thelonious with the pecan pie. The oysters with the Old Rasputin were surprisingly good, but not exactly my cup of tea (wasn’t such a fan of the shallot/vinegar drizzle).

With two of Texas’ four (this was the count last I heard) cicerones on staff, hopefully Flying Saucer will do similar pairing events in the future.

Our swanky new video intro courtesy of the gentelman Adam Gutierrez.

When I go out to a bar for drinks with friends I usually end up opening a tab with the bartender. I never feel comfortable doing this. I usually wish I could just pay cash. Leaving a credit card with a bartender, who usually puts it in an organized box, while you spend the next few hours hanging out with friends, is not very secure. It is not the bartender that I am worried about, or anyone in particular, it just invites the opportunity for something to go wrong.

Another downside to leaving your credit card with the bartender is that you may forget it when you leave. After a few drinks one could understandably become forgetful. Aside from the inconvenience of having to drive back to the bar later, some bars will add a fee to your tab if you forget your card.

So what if there was a way to avoid all these inconveniences? Well there is. TabbedOut is a very innovative new iPhone app that allows you to open and close a tab from your iPhone. How cool is that! ATX Innovation developed this app right here in Austin, TX and they already have a number of bars in Austin using their service. And that number is growing.

Let’s take a look at how it works.

• First you have to download the app from the App Store to your iPhone and set it up. One of the great features about TabbedOut is that all of your sensitive information is securely stored on your iPhone and not on a server somewhere. And you are not required to setup an account with TabbedOut.

• Once you have downloaded and set everything up you can easily find the nearest bars that use the service by selecting “NearBy.” Soon TabbedOut will include a feature to manually search for a location.

• Once you get to the bar you can open your tab right on your iPhone. TabbedOut is integrated with the bars Point Of Sale (POS) system so once you open a tab the bar is provided with your payment information. This allows you to leave quickly whenever you are ready.

• When you are ready to leave you will be able to see everything that has been charged to your tab. Once you have reviewed your tab select the tip you would like to include and then hit the button that says “Pay Tab.”

• How easy was that. And you even have the option to send yourself a reciept to your email inbox.

I had the opportunity to meet up with Rick Orr, the CEO of ATX Innovation (the creators of TabbedOut) to see it in action and get the rundown on how it works. Rick explained how this idea has been in the works for years and as mobile technology progressed, the reality of implementing a system like this became possible.

We discussed how easy it is to integrate the software with the Point Of Sale (POS) systems at restaurants and bars. They have already built a number of partnerships with producers of POS systems. For a restaurant or bar to start using TabbedOut all they need is a supported POS. From there the setup is very painless and it doesn’t cost the restaurants and bars anything to adopt this payment option.

TabbedOut makes its money by charging a small fee, currently $0.99, to the user’s iTunes account. The fee is charged for each tab that is opened. According to Orr this fee could change in the future and may be different in different locations.

After seeing TabbedOut in action, I am very impressed. My suggestion is to download TabbedOut to your iPhone, for free, and give it a try. You may start begging your favorite bars to adopt this service. And for those of you that don’t have an iPhone, it will soon be released on Android and Blackberry platforms.

I did a video interview with Rick Orr and unfortunately the sound did not turn out to be usable. But below are some images of the interview.

Follow TabbedOut on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tabbedout

Welcome to Over a Pint episode 17. We recently got a chance to sit down with Steven Yarak, Jeff Young, and Karrine Karen Thornblom of Black Star Co-op.

We talked for a while. Over 15 minutes. We posted the first ten minutes here. We’ll post the B Side of the interview later this week (they take about 2 hours do with the importing and the editing and compressing and uploading and such.)

Steve, Jeff, and Karrine were excellent hosts and shared some nice beers with us as we discussed the history of the world’s first cooperatively owned brew pub, a little bit of their mission, membership perks, their beers (and why we can’t try them yet), their food, their new location and them getting LEED certified.

Jeff elaborates on the beers and talks a bit about the Infinity series, barrel aging and made some math jokes, too (I get it, they always CONVERGE on deliciousness!)

Hmm. So because the video was so long and we had to cut it up we see Karrine in the first video, but she doesn’t really talk much until the second… so just be patient. She is the buildout manager and is heading up the LEED certification push. What she has to say is interesting, just said in odd time increments that do not fit with the other content so well.

We shot this on an early Sunday afternoon. Actually, it was the Sunday after the Flying Saucer 2nd anniversary party. It takes us a bit to get in the swing of things (at least for me.)

We’re drinking the Delirium Noël and then move onto the Allagash Interlude (did I mention we went for 15 minutes?) So if you can, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

January 9, 2010, Flying Saucer celebrated their second anniversary. With $2 Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale pints and special tappings every hour, they did it well.

2pm (512) Double Pecan Whiskey Barrel Porter
3pm Stone Double Bastard
4pm Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA 2007
5pm Allagash Victor
6pm Sierra Nevada’s Edge of Darkness (Thanks, Drew!) [I can't remember what this cask was... if you know put it in the comments and I'll update]
7pm Randal with 471 IPA and pineapples and mangos 
8pm Sierra Nevada/Dogfish Head Collaboration Life and Limb
9pm Saint Arnold’s Divine Reserve #9
10pm Dogfish Head Pangaea

I missed the 4pm to 8pm beers, I was helping a friend move, and they all floated within the hour they were tapped, but what I had was good. I regret not getting any of that 2007 120 IPA or the Breckenridge 471 IPA via pineapple/mango Randall [and I'm sure I missed out on the 6pm cask...]. It was pretty cool that the guys reached out to the local BeerAdvocate community for Randall inspiration… you guys should do that more often.

Besides all the great beers, there were a lot of great people that showed up. We shot a short live stream edition of Over a Pint with the Saucer GM, Ted, and ran into Josh and Jeff of Hops and Grain and talked with them some on the live internet channels.

It recorded real choppy but you can watch it here.

Oh, and we recorded this neat time lapse video. Let’s cross our fingers Youtube doesn’t remove it due to the music.

Flying Saucer, congrats on two great years, here’s to many more!

The amount of information can be overwhelming at first, but thanks to the sharp minds at GreatBrewers.com it has been organized into an easy to navigate platform. It all starts with the search. BeerCloud gives you the option to search by beer, brewer, or barcode. With 3 different search avenues it shouldn’t be hard to find the beer you are looking for.

Not only does it give you beer descriptions but it also shows you where you can purchase your favorites or try something new. Once you find the beer you are looking for click “Find this beer” and it will take you to a list of retailers near you. After locating a retailer you can click on “Map it” and it will show you a Google map of where the retailer is located. Did they make it too easy?

Now that you know all about your favorite beers and where to buy them, what can you eat with them? GreatBrewers.com thought about that too. They created a food pairing tab on BeerCloud to help you make the best food choices to pair with the beer you are drinking. Let’s say you are eating beef tonight, you could use BeerCloud to select the type of beef and it will give you a list of beer choices to complement your meal.

With so much information you may be wondering how to keep track of everything. BeerCloud gives you the opportunity to create tasting notes and save all of your favorite beer, brewers, and beer retailers.

Where does all of this information come from? BeerCloud is based on the idea of cloud computing which means the information comes from several sources and is aggregated into one place. GreatBrewers.com collects their information from beer wholesalers, brewers, retailers, and consumers to create the ultimate interactive beer tool.

BeerCloud is an amazing resource to a novice beer lover as well as a beer expert.

Video Demo

Start using BeerCloud

BeerCloud on the Web

Early November, the fine folks at Black Star Co-op held a brick and mortar location reveal.

Currently, the plans are to open the doors of “the world’s first co-operatively owned and worker self-managed brewpub” in Summer 2010. The brick and mortar location, a detail of the co-op that has been widely speculated on, is located in an urban development much like the Triangle or a slew of those other living/shopping areas, except that this one is connected to one of the coveted Metro stations. Let’s keep our fingers crossed it will be running sometime while drinking beer is still fashionable (aka, I don’t have dumb kids keeping me from staying out all hours of the night knocking back cold ones!)

Steve rapt our collective attention for ten minutes plus (our video cuts at 10:40~ in order to get it on YouTube) spilling numerous beans to the crowd of member owners, media, and generally curious. He spelled out the perks of being a member owner; free beer on your membership birthday, a future year end tab discount, and limited invites to food and beer pairings and tasting events.

He also explained some of the values Black Star will ascribe to, including keeping and advocating other local beer on their taps, creating a no tip atmosphere and providing their workers with livable wages (yay!) He also mentioned that the brewpub would keep an extensive bottle library. All this is in the video.

The speeches and fanfare were followed by beer (I had the Live Oak Primus- yum) and tours of the brick and mortar space. Chefs Michael Holland and Johnny Livesay explained how the brewpub will serve traditional English pubfare with a Texas emphasis (it was so hard to resist saying “with a Texas twist”. Gah I hate myself for almost going there). They also mentioned the food would compliment and be influenced by the beers. I like this. The lead architect (I’m punching myself in the neck for not taking notes on the tour…) [MATHEW NESBITT is his name. Thanks, Jeff!] explained the layout of the building. I’m most excited about the large outdoor seating area. They also made it a priority to focus the bar at the entrance and display the brewing tanks in a corner with windows to be seen from the street.

Finally, Brewer Jeff Young got to what everybody was there for, the Black Star Co-op beers. He explained that there would be a Rational and Irrational series, a clever way of separating the drinkablility beers from the nerd beers. From the descriptions on the page, Young’s beers seem nicely diverse and ambitious. Exactly what I like from a brew pub. They know the local staples will cover the basic style bases, so they are free to experiment. The Vulcan rye ale, Waterloo sour wheat, and Cul Sec spiced beer all sound pretty yummy. Bummer I have to wait till Summer 2010 to try.

All in all, it was a great event and we’re greatly anticipating having a place with such potential in that part of central/north Austin.

Cheers!