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!

This, our eighth episode of Over a Pint, we filmed LIVE. As in there was less than a 2 second delay from when the awesomeness that spewed from our mouths penetrated your ears.

Yup.

We went to Opal Divine’s for their Go Texas Beer Week.

It was a hella good time.
Our buddy Aaron from CraftAustin came out and helped us keep this live boat a float for the first 15-30 minutes. He was a consistent advocate for the audience as I would stray into self depreciative commentary. Thanks for keeping it pro, Aaron. He was drinking a Southern Star Buried Hatchet. I wish I had tried one of these. I’ll go back later this week for one… cause they’re $2.50 till the 2nd.

As if he weren’t gracious enough, Opal Divine’s owner Michael Parker came on to give us the low down on the event. He revealed that they are serving $3 (THREE DOLLAR!$@#) samplers and also spilled the beans on some special casks (yup, they are taping a cask at each location every night this week at 7 pm).
I am especially excited about the Real Ale Coffee Porter “dry hopped” wt coffee. To my knowledge, this will be tapped at the Freehouse location on Friday. Gah, I could go for one of those right now.

We were especially excited to finally meet Larry, of Twitter fame, @madhouselarry. Larry went to the Great American Beer Festival last weekend and shared some of his experiences with us. It was great to finally meet Larry and we hope to hang out more in the future.

To cap off our live event circus o’beer, we were graced by GABF gold medal winning brewery, Saint Arnold. Frank was on premises to tap a cask of Elissa IPA (YUM!). Frank has been a part of the craft brewing scene in Texas since the 90s (Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, Bill Clinton, Nirvana, Seinfeld, Michael Jordan, the good Home Alone movies, etc.,) and he talked about Opal Divine’s and Austin’s part in creating a craft beer culture in Texas. He also talked up the Divine Reserve series, the “Newery” (new+brewery=newery), and the greatness that is Opal Divine’s Go Texas Beer Week.

So, if you were one of the 10 folks who watched us live, we salute you.

This episode was full of cheers and jeers and all Texas beers. If you can stomach the chopiness of the recorded video from USTREAM, crack open a a TX beer and join us.
And mainly, go out to Opal Divine’s this week and support local beer, or you suck and you should probably have no business on this site.

Love,
Chris

Enjoy!

Part One

Part Two