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.

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.

The results are in. There were a total of 78 respondents (not bad for our first try at something like this) over five days.

So I took a Research Methods class… I just forgot to test the survey before publishing it. Dr. Peirce would be disappointed. Based on the results I realize that the term “regional” wasn’t clear enough. Originally it was within the context of local, regional, national, international. But for a free membership on Survey Monkey you are only allowed 10 question surveys so when I eliminated the national and international categories, it made “regional” a relative term.

So I’m sorry if it was confusing.

Blah blah blah. Here are the results. Top two of each category are listed.

1. Best ATX Bar

Draught House

Flying Saucer

2. Best ATX Brewpub

Uncle Billy’s Brew & Que

Draught House

3. Best ATX Beer Store/Market

Spec’s

Whip in

4. Best ATX Beer Event

Draught House 41st Anniversary Party

Flying Saucer’s 2nd Fall Beer Festival

5. Best ATX Happy Hour/Beer Special

Draught House Tuesday Night Pint Special

Flying Saucer Monday Night Pint Special

6. Best New Local Beer

(512) Whiskey Barrel Aged Double Pecan Porter

(512) Bruin Double Brown

7. Best New Regional Beer

Real Ale Shade Grown Coffee Porter

Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout/Saint Arnold Divine Reserve #9

8. Best Local Brewery

(512) Brewing Co

Live Oak Brewing Co

9. Best Regional Brewery

Real Ale Brewing Co

Saint Arnold Brewing Co

10. Best Local Beer Personality/Advocate

BeerTownAustin [uh... hmm... er... didn't really think about this being a result. *blushing* I promise we weren't out for an ego boost...]

Patrick Beach/Liquid Austin

Thanks to everyone who participated and spread the word about the poll.

Here’s to the ATX beer scene having an even better year in 2010!

Cheers!

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

Welcome to Over a Pint episode 13, the baker’s dozenth.

Recently we went out to Opal Divine’s Marina with homebrew extraordinaire, John “JB” Brack for the Wednesday TX Pint special. John works at Austin Homebrew Supply and is very active with the Austin homebrew club, the Austin Zealots.

If you’re a homebrewer, you’ve mostly likely been blessed by JB’s expertise in recipe selection/tweaking, or in retrospectively assisting you with identifying what went wrong with your brew. If you’re a regular of the better Austin beer bar scene, you’ve prolly shared a pint or a laugh with him.

JB’s been part of Austin beer culture since the 90′s, and even though that’s not that long ago, the ATX beer landscape has undergone quiet a few changes. JB talks about the big brew pub boom of the 90′s, the microbrews of yesteryear, the current resurgence of Texas microbrews, and how homebrewers have played such an intrinsic role in shaping the current scene.

He drops major kudos to Live Oak (of which we are both drinking in the video), Real Ale, (512), Independence, and future brewstars, Jester King.

Thanks to Opal Divine’s, JB, and Austin Homebrew Supply !

Crack open a cold one, watch the video, and next time you see JB, buy him a beer.

Enjoy!

This episode had a surprising amount of out takes. Maybe JIB will have some spare time and compile and post them. It took me a few times to actually nail the cheers and sip wt/out spilling my beer down my face…

So we had a Bike Pub Crawl raincheck ride a few weeks ago… and it rained again.

At least it wasn’t cold this time. Just wet. Really wet.

We cheated too. Shawn and I drove our bikes to Dog & Duck just in case anyone showed up to ride in the rain… and people did. And it was fun. Just wet.

We drank at Dog & Duck till about 4:15 (heard we just barely missed the Independence crew), then had a nice leisurely ride through campus to Crown & Anchor. Here our pack of five turned into a pack of SEVEN plus a car!

We stepped up our game and decided from that point on it was worth documenting.

The ride to Draught House was rough and we lost a few riders who later joined back up after they swapped their wet clothes for dry ones and bikes for another car. Yeah! TWO CARS on the BIKE Pub Crawl!

On the ride to Flying Saucer we lost that second car and a third rider (all of the original riders). Two of the three rejoined later.

On the whole, it was fun, wet, automotive, and beery. But mainly, WE DIDN’T CANCEL THIS ONE!
Thanks to everyone who came out and got wet and drank beers with us, it was fun. And thanks to the bars who tolerated a soaked group of cyclists on a Sunday afternoon.

We think we may make this a reoccurring thing. I don’t think any other bike groups have called Sunday afternoons. Maybe every second Sunday? We’ll let you know.

Enjoy the video.

As I already said, there were a plethora of great beer folks at the Draught House 41st party, and between awesome cask tappings we were able to spend a few minutes with Travis Poling, author of Beer Across Texas.

In Beer Across Texas, Travis, along with Paul Hightower, put together a comprehensive body of work detailing the history of brewing in Texas with an exhaustive lexicon of breweries and brew pubs. It’s a great book. Honestly, I’m very jealous he get’s to tour breweries, taste beers, and interview brewers for his day job. With several years experience in beer journalism, Travis has the chops for it, and does an excellent job.

Travis is a great guy, has good beer taste, has been a journalist for several years, and is living the dream of writing about beer. I’ve been excited about meeting Travis for a while and had a great time talking shop and beers with him. He’s got a second book in the works, and is currently doing book signings all across the state in support of the book.

Look for him at Book People in January for a special signing paired with local beer tastings. You can also pick it up at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

We we’re both sipping on Draught House’s housebrew Double IPA… yup. Get some while they still got it.

Enjoy!

(we got a new mic for this one… it’s not my favorite as I have to Kermit THE Frog News Flash style hold it up the whole time… still holding our breath for a new fancy mic sponsor/donor…)

November 7, 2009 Draught House celebrated 41 years of slinging cold ones.

We made a time lapse video to capture most of the party.

We started shooting at 1 pm and stopped a little after 9 pm.

If you missed it, you missed out. Josh wrangled up some great beers and a ton of great people showed up.

Happy 41, guys.

Cheers!

The guys at Jester King formally announce their, location, warehouse acquisition, and the future game plan.

Good for them, and better for us. Looks like the ATX area will be adding two more breweries to the list 2010.

And this announcement just a day after the Black Star Co-op location reveal and tour (of which we’ll have some video up shortly).

It’s a great time to drink beer in Austin.

We got to sit down and share some beers

Rob gives us an oral history of Independence, the story of how their business plan was “fueled by pale ale“, the story on original three brews, their history with the Alamo Drafthouse and the Austin Amber, and hints at some future plans involving thier new brewer Justin.

Justin spells out the specs (see below the video for these) and talks up some of some of the newer beers he’s had his hands in.
Of the one’s I’ve tried, I’m a pretty big fan of the Stash IPA; Amarillo hops stole my heart long ago.
We’re also into that Convict Hill Imperial Oatmeal Stout… just a little.

We got to try a vertical tasting of the Jasperilla with oak additions that they are tooling around with and were pretty impressed.

If you made it out to the Anniversary party, they were offering the same tasting. What I understood is that the most popular of the oak variations would go into production (go dark oak!) As I remember, the light oaked version was rich, mellow and finished a little like mead. The dark oak, my favorite, was rich and full and grabbed you like a Cabernet.

Justin also debuted their 5th Anniversary ale. It’s a Belgian inspired strong ale with a custom yeast strain.
It’s flavored with mandarin, star sanus, and coriander but still very drinkable. It’s been spotted on tap at Draught House.

Craft Austin posted a pretty good write up of the beers too.

I’ve never tried it, but Rob finishes the video talking about the Southside Special ale. From how he describes it, I’m looking forward to tasting it next time
it’s out.

Rob, Amy, Justin, and all the rest of the Independence team, thanks for 5 years of good beers and here’s looking forward to the next five, cheers!

Stash
Interpretation of Rob’s IPA
Northwest style IPA, bittered to a higher degree than most Indy beers
Amarillo, Tanum, Cascade in the kettle, very florally
Dry hopped Amarillo

Convict Hill Imperial Oatmeal Stout

9% ABV

“huge chocolaty roasty coffee”

5th Anniversary Ale

Belgian inspired stong golden ale
7.5% ABV
Mandarin, star sanus, coriander, flaked barley, flaked rye, and Justin’s special blend of yeast
Very limited time

South Side Special Ale

Based off the bootlegger brown
Chocolate malt
Roasted cacoa beans, ground Indonesia Sumatran coffee, cardimum
Inspired by Turkish coffee