A new brewery is coming to Austin!

And as far as I'm concerned, there's always room for one more. Get ready for the (512) Brewing Company, Austin. Looking at the blog on their website, it looks like they're almost ready to start business.

Okay, I'm way late on this …

… but perhaps you'll find it useful. I was cleaning my office and came across my tasting notes for the Bob Knoxious Christmas Beer Tasting & Mirth Fest, lost and forgotten since December. We tried about 30 different beers, rating them from 1 (Bah Humbug) to 5 (Damn! That's some holiday cheer!). I'm not going to even think about recapping the entire evening four months down the line. However, perhaps you might check this post eight months from now as you seek guidance in buying holiday beers. These are the only ones that I rated a 5:

• Full Sail Wassail Ale
• North by Northwest Holiday Barleywine
• Criminally Bad Elf

I gave these a 4:

• Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome
• Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
• Very Bad Elf
• Lump of Coal
• Ed's home brew (sorry, you can't buy this commercially, but you might could ask Ed for some)
  
• Scaldis Noel
• Real Ale Sysiphus (Not really a holiday beer. In fact, you can buy the 2008 version right now.)

Um … Merry Christmas everybody!

(P.S. Oh cool. As I'm typing this, the episode of The Simpsons just came on where Homer sneaks out of work to take the Duff Brewery tour.)

American Craft Beer Fest

Oh damn I wish I could go to this. I loves me some craft beer, and I loves me some Boston. Unfortunately, I'm already using up all my vacation time and money on other trips this year.

Here's what the guys at Beer Advocate magazine sent me:

Save the date: June 20 & 21 for the American Craft Beer Fest at Boston's Seaport World Trade Center, featuring: 75 American brewers, 300 craft beers, and guest speakers at one of the East Coast's largest and most diverse celebrations of beer!  Advance tickets are on-sale now:  http://beeradvocate.com/acbf/  $40 per session; includes all beer tastings.

This ought to boost my hits

Okay guys (and my lesbian friends): There are two things in this picture that ought to get you really excited. 'Fess up: which one turns you on more?


(And in case you're wondering, no, that is not my wife in the picture. I just stumbled across this on the Internet. And no, I do not remember what phrases I was Googling to pull up such a pic.)

Texas Winners at the World Beer Cup

The Brewers Association just announced the medalists at their World Beer Cup. Lone Star State winners included:

Category: Vienna-Style Lager (25 Entries)
Gold: The Covey Restaurant & Brewery (Fort Worth), Vienna Lager

Category: Strong Scotch Ale (43 Entries)
Gold: Saint Arnold Brewing Co. (Houston), Divine Reserve No. 4

Category: American-Style Wheat Beer (14 Entries)
Silver: Spoetzl Brewery (Shiner), Shiner Dunkelweizen

Category: International Pale Ale (20 Entries)
Silver: Saint Arnold Brewing Co. (Houston), Elissa IPA

Category: German-Style Heller Bock/Maibock (31 Entries)
Bronze: Rahr & Sons Brewing LP (Fort Worth), Bucking Bock

Full list of 2008 winners here.

Commentary: Of the ones I've had, I can say they are deserving winners. I haven't tried either one of those Fort Worth beers, though. Sounds like I need to make a trip to Cowtown! Actually, Rahr gets distributed here in Austin, so maybe I can track down that bock.

Beats digging ditches

A bad combination of too much to do mixed with attention deficit disorder conspired to keep me from getting a couple of articles done during the workweek, so now I'm spending the weekend trying to finish up. I hate working on the weekends. Weekends are for my family and goofing off. And to make it worse, the weather Saturday was absolutely gorgeous. So I decided, dammit, if I do have to work, I'm at least not going to suffer. I work from my house, so I got out of my home office and set up shop on the back porch, instead, and switched from the usual caffeine to another beverage. Behold, the way work ought to be:


(Um, in case my boss is reading this: I said this the way work ought to be. I promise, I usually save the beer for after 5 o'clock.)

Texas Showdown closing!

It's a sad day in Austin. Texas Showdown Saloon, which I praised on this blog only a few weeks ago, is closing. I don't know what the property owners will be putting in its place, but I can guess. I've said it before, but I'll repeat: I really am a supporter of vertical mixed use development in this town. I realize that growth in Austin has become inevitable, and that keeping our city compact, walkable, and oriented toward mass transit is better than sprawl. But part of the VMU deal is that really cool shops and stuff are supposed to be on the ground floor of all these high-rises. So why can't that "cool stuff" be my favorite bars? I've lost Waterloo Brewery, now Showdown, and the Ginger Man will be gone in about a year. At least I can put one ugly rumor to rest: A manager at the Dog & Duck tells me that they just signed a lease and "we should be good for at least a year." At least. But I certainly won't be shocked to find out it's next up on the chopping block. Below is what I published in The Austin Chronicle today. (Note: the info about Happy Minutes pricing might be wrong; I just grabbed it off their website, and who knows when that was last updated):

Yet another bit of Austin's soul is disappearing in the name of progress. Texas Showdown Saloon, the venerable watering hole near UT campus – and home of beloved Happy Minutes, the daily 15-minute interlude when 10-ounce domestic beers cost only 40 cents – will close down, probably sometime in late April or May. "We've lost our lease; that's a fact," says Eddie Mack, general manager of the chain's Austin and San Marcos locations (Showdown also has bars in Arlington and Fort Worth). "They did not renew it. ... They're not willing to give us another lease. They've taken another offer on something; I'm not sure what." We're not sure what, either – Mack didn't want to give us contact information for the property's owners, saying, "I really don't know how that's relevant to anything." Through county property records, we learned that the site is owned by Julia J. Sawyer, who owns other Austin properties (including famed breakfast-taco joint Tamale House). We know that Sawyer has been in ill health in recent years and that her family has been managing her properties, but we were unsuccessful in contacting the family. "It's a sorrowful occasion," said Mack, manager since 1992. "I've put a lot of blood and guts into this place. It's been here since 1981. We have lots of faithful clientele that really hate to see us go, and I hate to see it go, but there's nothing I can do." Prior to the Showdown, the property previously housed the legendary punk venue Raul's. Mack says Texas Showdown will try to relocate elsewhere in Austin. – Lee Nichols