Knockin’ ‘em Back… the Entertainment Tonight edition. Movies, explosions, premium cable shows, celebrity encounters, plus a little bit ‘o beer news.

We’re still at Billy’s on Burnet, making up for the less than stellar recording a few months back. Same charismatic crew as last time, even more useless chatter that will in no way impact your life.

We stick with another near-20 minute episode to keep this short and sweet. There is a lot of Hollywood-related news here. Summer blockbuster (or lack there of), HBO shows, why some of us can’t (or just don’t) go to movie theaters and one contributors real-life experience saving a damsel in distress with a pretty well known actor.

In between all this excitement we get in a little beer news (that’s why we’re here, right?) about recent trips to Thirsty Planet (you can find all three beers around town now) and Ranger Creek (they’re brewing!).

Time to stop reading and start listening.

Audio

Direct link to the mp3 HERE

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Yeah. You can tell we’re desperate for content cause we’re doing these again.

Big thanks to Billy’s on Burnet for having us out again. We actually recorded there a few months ago, but we were all out of sorts and it ended up being extremely bad.

And if you’ve heard any of these before, you know it had to have been a complete pile of audio shit. Our standards are pretty low.

We’re trying a new shorter more “focused” approach. Give er a listen and let us know how we did.

So we’ve got a great show in store for you. Comedian/ex-roomate Bryan Gutmann, Aaron of Craft Austin, Josh Little Beard (just recently on the lame page), and myself are bringing the noise in this episode.
Billy hollers “hey”. I don’t blame him for keeping his distant. Look at what a bunch of stupid laptop nerds we are.

In this 21:33 min show we talk about how much our last recording sucked, summer beers, drinking at work (is that an Austin tech thing or are we taking it too far?), “spill drinks”, “comedy” themed defensive driving, and other tangents not worth the pixels to type them out.

Huge thanks to Aaron, Bryan, and Josh for drinking and talking and huger thanks to Billy’s for hosting us.

Check out part 3.2 soon… ish.

Enjoy!

Audio

Direct link to the mp3 HERE

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A long time ago in a galaxy far far away we recorded a podcast at Billy’s on Burnet…

This has been a rough month for updating content. We can’t even keep up with the bullshit podcast.

This edition of Knockin’ em Back is brought to you by the fine fine folks at Billy’s on Burnet, where you don’t go for the burgers, the burgers go for you.

Myself, Shawn, JIB, our comedy friend (old roommate) Bryan Gutmann, and Billy himself sit down over several beers and a few glasses of wine (Bryan’s not much for beer) and talk Austin beer history, Billy’s on Burnet history, New Years Eve 2006 party history, some beer news, and then some other shit I can’t remember but is TOTALLY worth listening to.

Listen to it just to hear Billy Forrester talk about Austin’s beer history. You would be surprised at what all he has had his hands in beer wise around town (unless you already know, then you will just be glad to hear it again).

We try a little different format with less organized beer talk and just more talk over beers. Hope you like. Or really, whatever, we don’t really care.

It’s a good one. I’ve already listened to it twice. I’m its biggest fan.

We cuss a lot, and Bryan cusses more, so don’t even dare listen to this unless you’re ready hear a lot of cussing. Like, when you’re in grade school and you and your friends first learn to cuss and do it too much and all wrong.

Big thanks to Billy and Billy’s for sponsoring the show. Also thanks to Alex, their amazing manager for helping to organize it and keeping the beers coming.

We’ll get part TWO up sooner than later, promise.

Enjoy!

Audio

Direct link to the mp3 HERE

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Aaron Jones and his friends started getting very frustrated by the fact the it was difficult to find out where the best drink specials were in town. When he decided that he wanted to make an iPhone app, one that helped solve this problem only made sense. So he created Bar Buzz ATX.

A description from the Bar Buzz ATX website:

Bar Buzz ATX is an app dedicated to helping you find the best drink specials in Austin! Once you have installed Bar Buzz you’ll be able to see all the bars and their current specials in areas surrounding Austin, Texas.With Bar Buzz you can:

• Save loads of money when you go out partying.
• See the current specials at every bar.
• See each bars weekly specials.
• View by individual bar or by all current specials.
• Choose from a wide variety of themes.
• One touch Google map directions to any bar.
• Call an Austin Cab right from the app
• Share your favorite Bars and Drink Specials with your friends over Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and Email.

Visit the Bar Buzz Website: http://getbarbuzz.com

Welcome welcome to another episode of Over a Pint. For number 19 we met up with Jason Armstrong, the Southern Central US Stone Brewing Rep.

We drank some beers with Jason up at Billy’s on Burnet on Fat Tuesday. It was cold, but not as noisy outside. Also sort of dark.

Jason had a lot to say. I’ll just put it in bullet points:

• We should soon see Stone’s Sublimely Self Righteous bottles in TX
• Texas is the number two consumer of Stone in the nation second to California
• Stone has recently expanded their brewery to accommodate more collaboration and one off brews
• He was in town on his way up to the Houston Flying Saucer/Petrol Station Stone Vertical tapping
• He said that things are in the works for an Austin collaborative Stone vault tapping event
• 2010 Stone Old Guardian barley wine was recently released and TX got three kegs
• Stone plans to expand their firkin program (with Draught House possibly getting Stone Imperial Russian Stout)

Wow. Lots of exciting stuff for TX Stone drinkers. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the local collaboration tapping, and god’s speed to the Sublimely Self Righteous hitting shelves soon.

Big thanks to Jason for hanging out with us and sharing beers and burgers (I went wt the Cobra!) Hopefully we’ll see him again soon for an ATX Stone tapping event (bring some Cali-Belgique!)

Jason and I are drinking Stone IPA in the video, so if you can, crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

Audio

Direct link to the mp3 HERE
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Last month we went on our second bike pub crawl. We rode, we drank, and then we repeated. Several times.

Here’s some photos from the night.

If you think this might be some action you wanna get in on, keep checkin the site and we’ll post info about another one soon (hopefully at a time when just the thought of biking won’t make us cold…)

Muchos Gracias to Crown&Anchor, Draught House, Flying Saucer, and Billy’s on Burnet for fueling us with a wide variety of great brews all evening. And also a big thanks to ATXBS.com for getting the word out (and thus supplying a good percentage of the riders)

Thanks to everyone who came out, we’ve got another one up our sleeve soon.

Come one, come all.

Bring ID, $$$, etc,.

Fingers crossed for some good weather.

*MEET AT CROWN & ANCHOR AT 4 PM. WE WILL DEPART FROM THERE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF 4:45 PM*

And the winners are…

Ian Marks 1st Place- A Billy’s on Burnet $15 Gift Card Good for Beer/Food

Matthew J Reid 2nd Place- A super plush Billy’s on Burnet T-shirt

Josh McGonigle 3rd Place- A deluxe Billy’s on Burnet Koozie

Congrats, guys!

Much thanks to Billy’s on Burnet for donating the stuff and thanks to everyone who participated.

If you can’t tell from the image, the ingredients on the COBRA are grilled jalapenos, bacon, cheddar, chipotle mayo, lettuce, tomato, and onion.

We’ll do another one soon.

Cheers!

(Disclaimer, I am not a trained beer critic, these are my opinions. Also, some of the beer was given to me free, but that did not influence the list)

(Counting down)

5. Draught House Double IPA

Yeah, it’s good. Josh does a lot of things good, but one of the main things he does good is hops. Josh does hops good. And his hoppy beers do you good, too.

This one hasn’t been on draught for a while (maybe a year?), but it’s just as good as I remember it.

Josh does another thing real well, describing beer. Here’s his description of the double IPA:

Four pounds per barrel of American hops. Big and floral with aromas of pine, citrus, mango, pineapple. Huge resinous flavor of hops.

It’s 8.25% ABV, $2.75 for 10 oz and will put you under if you’re not careful. With five hop varieties, this 2X IPA is well rounded and dangerously drinkable. Get some while it’s still on tap.

4. Stone Cali-Belgique

I love this beer and I love the “Belgian” IPA style (when it was not so easy to find I was blending Stone IPA with Real Ale Devil’s Backbone up at Billy’s on Burnet when they were only $2 during Happiest Hour… now you know my dirty secret).

A little over a year ago I went on a “Belgian” IPA journey. I had the Urthel Hop-It, the Piraat Ale, the Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel, the Green Flash Le Freak, the Victory Wild Devil… and they were all good. Mostly all of them. But the Cali-Belgique was the cussing holy grail for me. And I couldn’t find it. Then the Flying Saucer announced they’d have it at their Fall Beer Fest! Then it was on at the Draught House 41st party, then Shawn brought me back a bottle of it from Cali!

Gah! What a great month for a great beer!

It’s exactly what I like in a “Belgian” IPA; malty sweet, light fruity esters and then a nice balanced hop finish to whet the palate for more. Wish I had one right now.

3. Live Oak Old Tree Hugger (three years old)

Retired, reschmired.

This great local barely wine dissapeared three years ago and then crashed the Draught House 41st party as a f@$#ing toddler!

Last time I tried the Old Tree Hugger it was very hot with alcohol, had a prominent citrus hop character (think a pineapple liquor), and was pretty smooth going down (did I really just write that?).

This time around, it’s a typical toddler; bigger, hard headed, throwing a temper tantrum, and gives you a head ache if you have too much, in a good way.

The hop character has mellowed and passed the torch on to a prominent caramel malt profile, IMO. So, so, good. This barely wine has grown up just fine and was the bell of the ball that night.

[I'm not actually sure that's a picture of the Old Tree Hugger. It was about that color and I had it in that glass... but I'm pretty sure it was dark outside when it was served.]

2. Saint Arnold Divine Reserve # 9 Imperial Pumpkin Stout

This beer made it to the lower part of the list the day it was announced. I love most everything from Saint Arnold and I especially love pumpkin beers.

A lot of people might hold a grudge against this beer or Saint Arnold because of all the hype surrounding it, or the difficulty in acquiring it.

But if you can look past all of that, and taste it just as the beer, not the hype or headache, it’s pretty, pretty, pretty good.

I tried a Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout at the Sunset Grill & Tap in Boston in anticipation/comparison for this, and the DR9 blew it out of the water. The only thing the Fisherman’s may have had on it was the cinnamon sugar rimmed glass it was served in.

The DR9 is a big pumpkin spicy, chocolatey stout. Enough pumpkin in the nose, not too much in the mouth. Nice spices, but they yield in the end to the chocolate from the malt. A little warm on alcohol, but it was made to cellar. I’ve only had it on tap so far, I may update this after I crack open a bottle. Maybe I’ll recreate the cinnamon sugar rimmed glass experience at home.

1. New Belgium Tart Lychee

Had this at the Draught House 41st party. I don’t think it’s available anywhere else on tap.

Like the last content dredge of a top 10/11 list, the number one spot is occupied by a beer that was not only excellent, but it possessed the quality to seduce me.

With all the rare, cask, exceptional, augmented beers available at the DH 41st event, this one won my heart. I can’t even come up with a number of how many I had that night [BeerTownAustin does not endorse or encourage not being able to remember how many beers you drink]. IT WAS GREAT!

I love sours, and New Belgium has been knocking them out of the park.  This one had a hint of cinnamon and spice in addition to the wild yeast souriness.

And “tart” is right. This beer was getting all kinds of action that night. I think I ran into more people sipping on one of these more often than any other offering available.

Wish we had this beer more often.

So, thanks for reading this lame list. Feel free to use the comments section to berate me and my opinion and inform me of how I missed YOUR favorite beer… oh, wait… this isn’t your website so why would your favorite beers be on the top 11 list?

Just kidding. Feel free to post your top 11 and we can be nerdy and compare.

Also, I recognize that I did not include any of the fine fine beers made by Uncle Billy’s, Love Joys, or NXNW. Please excuse my omission, I turned in a thesis last month and simply didn’t get out to any of those.

Cheers!