Month: March 2015

Can you believe next month is our one year anniversary already?? This year has been absolutely fantastic and it has been incredible getting to know so many of you, our loyal customers. We’re celebrating by throwing a birthday blowout party and YOU’RE invited! We’ve partnered with Hops & Grain to throw an anniversary party and tickets are only $15! See details and buy tickets here.

 

Have you seen or heard about the superb Untapped Festival happening here in Austin on Saturday 4/18? It’s a perfect marriage of craft beer and music, boasting a truly excellent music selection in addition, of course, to the crazy awesome slate of beers. The full beer list has yet to be released, but we DO know that there will be 277 total beers, 68 IPA or Imperial IPA and 25+ barrel aged beers. Tickets are very reasonably priced & available here. 

Free In-Store Tastings 6-8pm

Thursday, March 26th – Right Now!

Jordan from Left Hand Brewing will be in the house sampling out the newest release Good Juju, a ginger beer in 6 packs (more info below). We’ll also be tasting milk stout & sawtooth nitro in addition to the oak aged version of Wake Up Dead imperial stout!

Tuesday, March 31st

We invite Erik Jensen from Grapevine Brewing back into the store to sample out their new spring release the Saison de Festivals. It’s a grassy, dry and slightly funky saison that is now available in bombers. We’ll sample the other Grapevine beers too, cuz why not?!

Thursday, April 2nd

Artisanal Imports is the US importer for some excellent and very well known Belgian beers, and we’re incredibly lucky to have their US headquarters right here in south Austin! Chad Pilbeam will grace our tasting bar focusing on the import portfolio from St. Feuillien. Not only do they make well balanced Belgian beers but they also starting putting a dry hopped version of their saison into 4 packs cans! Talk about a fantastic summer pool sipper. Taste the whole lineup for free.

New Beers This Week

Back in stock:  Green Flash Soul Style IPA, Anderson Valley Hop Ottin IPA, Community Mosaic IPA (bottled only a week ago!), Bockor Vanderghintse Oud Bruin, Infamous Double Tap, Firestone Wookey Jack, Abita Bourbon Street Imperial Stout, Adelbert’s Vintage Nun (arriving Friday), Lagunitas Gnarlywine, Hops & Grain Greenhouse Batch 17 (arriving Friday!).

Prairie Limo Tint* – Limo Tint is a silky smooth milk stout aged on chocolate. This beer is creamy with a touch of sweetness. We took the raw cacao that we use for Bomb! to add big complexity to this smaller beer. Limo Tint packs big notes of chocolate, carmel and oats, and is layered with a nice creaminess from the lactose. All these flavors combine to make the perfect milk stout. 5.65% ABV/Krebs, OK/Beer Advocate 81/Availability: plenty but will go quickly/*Arriving Friday

Unibroue Blanche de Chambly – A traditional Belgian-style witbier from Unibroue in Quebec, this one has a subtle bouquet of spice, citrus notes, aromas of yeast breads, coriander, and cloves. 5% ABV/Chambly, Quebec/Beer Advocate 87/Availability: decent

Real Ale Sisyphus Barley Wine 2015 – It is uncharacteristically smooth for this style of beer, as it is created with five different kinds of hops. It also displays a rich malt character, and the healthy portion of hops gives it a distinctive dry and balanced finish. 11.5% ABV/Blanco, TX/Ratebeer 95/Availability: plenty

Stone Enjoy By 4-20-15 IPA – This iconic Stone series is back with their aptly named Enjoy By 4/20/15. “Devastatingly dank” is what they call it. Big, hoppy, drink fresh! Bombers and 6 packs available. 9.4% ABV/Escondido, CA/Ratebeer 100/Availability: plenty (though more bombers than 6 packs)

Rahr & Sons Iron Joe Barrel Aged Coffee Scotch Ale – Rahr takes their Iron Thistle scotch ale as a base beer and ages it in American oak barrels. They then add freshly roasted Avoca noir coffee for a nice coffee bite. 4 packs and singles. 8% ABV/Fort Worth, TX/No ratings/Availability: plenty

Austin Beerworks Heavy Machinery Double IPA – This monster of an IPA is loaded with Simcoe, Citra, and Ahtanum hops, giving it huge citrus and pine aromas that pack as much punch as Sam Elliott’s mustache. The beer is light amber in color, and features a strong caramel and Vienna malt backbone to complement those intense hops. 10% ABV/Austin, TX/ Ratebeer 97/Availability: plenty but goes fast

Urban Family Rustic Road Farmhouse Ale – Brand new to Texas, Urban Family is a farmhouse brewery in Seattle who just started sending their beers to us. The Rustic Road is a farmhouse ale brewed with a bit of rye malt to lend a spicy graininess to the final brew. 6.5% ABV/Seattle, WA/No ratings/Availability: limited

Urban Family Citron Noir Dark Farmhouse Ale – The Citron is a dark farmhouse ale brewed with black lemons. You get toasted bread and chocolate notes with tart black lemons on the finish. 6.8% ABV/Seattle, WA/No ratings/Availability: limited

Circle Devil’s Envy Bourbon Barrel Amber – Local boys Circle Brewing are venturing into the barrel aging game with their first release in the Inner Circle series (pretty sure that’s not the inner circle they meant). They took their Envy amber ale and aged it in Jack Daniels barrels to lend a nice oaky caramel & vanilla quality. 4 packs and singles. 4.8% ABV/Austin, TX/No ratings/Availability: plenty

Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager (bottles) – This is Abita’s most sought after annual release. It’s a lager brewed with pilsner and wheat malts and Vanguard hops. Real Louisiana strawberry juice is added after filtration resulting in a crisp lager with a sweet strawberry flavor, aroma and haze. 4.2% ABV/Abita Springs, LA/Availability: plenty

Alvinne Undressed Sour – Undressed is on the very tart end of the sour spectrum. If you like mouth puckering tartness, or anything in the oud bruin category, you’ll love this one. 6.9% ABV/Moen, Belgium/Beer Advocate 85/Availability: limited

Dogfish Head Aprihop Apricot IPA – A strong IPA brewed with real apricots and finished with whole leaf Willamette and Cascade hops. 7% ABV/Milton, DE/Ratebeer 93/Availability: decent

Real Ale Commissar Russian Imperial Stout – One of the fortunate byproducts of Real Ale’s recent rebranding of the whole lineup is the release of three year-round bombers. The first release is the Commissar Russian Imperial Stout, a 9.8% ABV roasty & toasty beast. 9.8% ABV/Blanco, TX/No ratings yet/Availability: plenty

No Label Boomstick Double Black Rye Coffee IPA – That’s certainly a mouthful! The beer is definitely the same. An aggressively hopped black rye IPA but with coffee added, there is plenty of flavor bursting from this one. 7.46% ABV/Katy, TX/No ratings/Availability: limited

Adelbert’s Oaked Tripel* – This is exactly what it sounds like, an oaked version of the Tripel B. Aged for several weeks with oak spirals, this ale blends a distinct sweet oak character and hints of vanilla with the spicy notes of Tripel B for a beautifully balanced ale. 9.3% ABV/Austin, TX/Beer Advocate 88/Availability: decent

Naughty Brewing She Hung the Moon* – Belgian candy sugar and Mexican piloncillo sugar cones dry the body, sweet pecan smoke adds a bold smoke, laced with the tart note of hibiscus. A dark, dry, tart and smoky beer that would pair well with anything you would put on a grill. 8.4% ABV/San Antonio, TX/No ratings/Availability: decent

Baird Dark Sky Imperial Stout – Baird Brewing from Japan has a couple of new releases that just hit today. The first is an unfiltered and bottle conditioned imperial stout that has already had a bit of time in the bottle. The aroma is gorgeously complex (dry hopping with American Centenniel & Amarillo hops) and the flavor is a stunning smorgasbord (chocolate, toffee, herbs, coffee, licorice, etc.). 10% ABV/Numazu, Japan/Ratebeer 97/Availability: decent

Baird Jubilation Ale – A hearty ale with a rich malty base and soothing alcoholic warmth, Jubilation Ale is made luxuriant by deft additions of two wonderful ingredients: fully ripened candied figs and cinnamon twigs culled from a Japanese Nikki tree. A sublimely balanced interplay between sweet and spice reminiscent of the yin-yang duality of life results. 6.5% ABV/Numazu, Japan/Ratebeer 83/Availability: decent

Weekend Tastings, 6-8pm

Friday

Austin Beerworks Heavy Machinery Double IPA

Real Ale Commissar Russian Imperial Stout

Argus Ginger Perry

Unibroue Blanche de Chambly

Saturday

Stone Enjoy By

Argus Ciderkin

Founders Black Rye

Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager

It’s that March Madness time of year so we decided to have a little fun with the idea of a bracket competition with our first ever WhichCraft Madness tournament! Read all the details here; fill out a bracket and vote on our social media channels over the next few weeks. Vote for your favorite readily available Texas beer!

 

Sahara’s latest blog post is all about Regional Beers of Germany and can be read here. Her curated 6 pack is now available for sale through the month of March.

Free In-Store Tastings

Saturday, March 21st 1-3pm

We are honored to host Jerome Rebetez, the founder & head brewer of BFM Brewery in Switzerland, on Saturday 3/21 from 1-3pm. We’ll be having a free tasting of the BFM beers and you’ll get a chance to talk with Jerome and have him sign any bottles you buy. BFM is known for innovative and small batch artisan ales, some of which are barrel aged and quite sour. Your tastebuds will thank you for visiting!

Tuesday, March 24th

Circle Brewing from right here in town is packaging their latest small batch release in 4 packs (arriving next Tuesday), a bourbon barrel-aged version of the popular Envy amber ale. We’ll be tasting it for free as well as the standard version of Envy and Blur hefeweizen.

Wednesday, March 25th

South Austin tasting released another canned beer recently, the Crossroads coffee stout. We’ll be tasting that one for free in addition to their other 4 beers as well. Each 4 or 6 pack comes with a free guitar pick!

Thursday, March 26th

Jordan from Left Hand Brewing will be in the house sampling out the newest release Good Juju, a ginger beer in 6 packs (more info below). We’ll also be tasting milk stout & sawtooth nitro in addition to the oak aged version of Wake Up Dead imperial stout!

New Beers This Week

Back in stock: New Belgium Cocoa Mole, Odell Loose Leaf, Smuttynose Durty, Odell Runoff Red.

Boulevard Stout X Coffee* – The first in a new “Stout X” series, this Imperial Stout is put into a sanitized stainless tank that has been fitted with bags of coarsely ground coffee beans. At this point, the beer is at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Infusing the coffee at this temperature is similar to the cold toddy method of brewing coffee. The resulting beer is a marriage of huge, round, chocolate and caramel notes from the base beer, with smooth layers of sweet citrus and floral flavors and aromas from the coffee. 11% ABV/Kansas City, MO/Ratebeer 99/Availability: plenty/*Arriving Friday

Boulevard Spring Belle* – Spring Belle is composed of a fairly traditional saison malt bill of two-row base pale malt and a touch of malted wheat. Magnum and Simcoe hops are utilized for bittering while late hopping with Calypso and Lemondrop lends bright, pear/citrus notes to the beer. During whirlpooling, the brewers infused the wort with just over 70 pounds of a blend of rose petals, chamomile and elderflower.  6.2% ABV/Kansas City, MO/Beer Advocate 85/Availability: limited/*Arriving Friday

Boulevard The Calling IPA* – The Calling is Boulevard’s attempt to create an IPA with a juicy, tropical fruit aroma that leaps from the glass. A simple malt base composed solely of two row base malt serves as a platform for giant, punchy hop flavor and aroma provided by a blend of Simcoe, Bravo, Topaz, Cascade, Mosaic, Equinox, Galaxy, and Amarillo hops. The Calling also receives an addition of lemon peel during the last five minutes of the boil to add an extra citrusy punch. 8.5% ABV/Kansas City, MO/Ratebeer 97/Availability: plenty/*Arriving Friday

Southern Tier Where the Helles Summer* – Where the Helles Summer? is a classic German style lager. These beers originated in the 19th century as a response to Pilsener beers from Czech brewers. Helles is German for “bright.” This is a clean & bready “beer drinker’s beer” balanced with austere noble hop varieties. It’s malt-forward and forward thinking to the warmer days just ahead. 4.6% ABV/Lakewood, NY/Beer Advocate 86/Availability: limited/*Arriving Friday

Lagunitas Olde GnarlyWine – Lagunitas’ big 10.6% ABV barleywine comes out once a year and usually flies off the shelves. It’s both malty and hoppy and packs a punch. 10.6% ABV/Petaluma, CA/Ratebeer 99/Availability: limited

Green Flash Mosaic Session IPA – The latest in the Hop Odyssey series from Green Flash brings a low ABV session IPA packed with mosaic hops. Comes in 6 packs & singles. 4.5% ABV/San Diego, CA/Ratebeer 94/Availability: plenty

Stone Cali-Belgique (now in 6 packs!) – Stone carefully selected a Belgian yeast strain that illuminates a fascinating new aspect of the beer that is otherwise quite simply Stone IPA. The result is both completely new and different, while still being recognizable as a Stone Brew – and Stone IPA in particular. Think of it as an otherwise identical twin to Stone IPA that was raised in a Belgian culture. 6.9% ABV/Escondido, CA/Ratebeer 98/Availability: limited

Argus Ciderkin – We’re excited to see local cidery Argus put out 6 packs of a couple of more approachable cider products. Ciderkin delivers a straightforward apple palate, yet finishes dry and tannic. Traditional Ciderkin is made from reconstituted apple pomace that is pressed and fermented wild to produce a low ABV—dry cider style. Expounding on that tradition, we have employed a yeast blend that finishes dry, yet still preserves a prominent stone fruit nose and apple palate. 4.5% ABV/Austin, TX/Availability: plenty

Argus Ginger Perry Cider – Ginger Perry is Argus’s first unpasteurized fermentation utilizing only the pear. Distinctly dry as characteristic of the Argus portfolio, development of this product placed the upmost importance on delivering a balance of ginger, stone fruit, and citrus flavors without palate fatigue after just one. Residual sugar is present, but don’t expect anything too sweet. 4.5% ABV/Austin, TX

Buffalo Bayou Chai Porter – Brewed with anise and made to taste like chai, the spices play well with the roasted malts of the porter base recipe. 7% ABV/Houston, TX/No ratings

Grapevine Saison de Festivals – With overwhelming tones of grapefruit, this saison is crisp, dry and beautifully simple. No clove here. The beer begins with an intense citrus aroma leading to a slightly peppery finish. The perfect balance between tart and sweet. 7% ABV/Grapevine, TX/Beer Advocate 85

Left Hand Good Juju – This one is basically a pale ale brewed from a relative low gravity, with some of the hops which would normally be used in the beer replaced by freshly ground ginger root. The beer is light in body, lower in alcohol, has a distinct ginger aroma, and has a very crisp finish. It was initially brewed as a refreshing alternative to the plethora of wheat beers which are popular in the summertime. 4.5% ABV/Longmont, CO/Availability: plenty

Victory Summer Love – The golden/blonde ale has a vibrant and refreshing pale color derived from its lean and refreshing malt body. And the initially floral aroma of hops segues into a well integrated, refreshing hop dryness of European heritage. 5.5% ABV/Downington, PA/Ratebeer 89/Availability: decent

Weekend Tastings, 6-8pm

Friday

Stone Delicious IPA

Community Inspiration

Grapevine Saison de Festivals

Abita Macchiato Espresso Milk Stout

Saturday

Green Flash Mosaic Session IPA

Prairie Hop dry hopped saison

Abita Mardi Gras Bock (only $8 per 6 pack!)

One more random thing we’ll open up!