Say Yes! To Beer Fest Season!

As a community of beer enthusiasts, I think we need to be pretty fucking proud of ourselves at how vulnerable we've made Big Beer.  How easily we've managed to turn the worm on itself where desperation and pandemonium seem to be actual marketing techniques for the men and women inside the corporate boxes at Busch Stadium and Miller Park.

Wherein MillerCoors LLC is willing to shave profits to the slimmest of margins at Wal fucking Mart and Costco for the sole reason of skewing unit sales for a more attractive position on the worldwide market share chart.

Wherein Big Beer's naughty little parody of genuine craft beer, Blue Moon, begins howling about the "lack of respect" from the now, better-informed beer drinking proletariat, like a Facebook-defriended pre-teen -- yet continue attempts to fleece their target market by publishing "Brewed by Tenth & Blake" on their packaging as if to substitute misrepresentation with integrity.

Wherein, one of America's largest music festivals -- Austin City Limits -- has decreed market space for the vending of small beer under the shadow of mega-sponsors Budweiser, a homegrown dual-fingered salute to corporate trespassing and the overall dilution of Austin as a whole.

And, wherein the competitiveness of craft beer's volume and dollars compared to the big boys has rocketed from absurdly-small way up to only shamefully-small.  But this is okay, because craft beer's perception has surpassed the flame-out of "fad", and progressing to "trend".

The overall message sent to Milwaukee, and Golden, and St. Louis, is that Americans -- at the very least -- are open to exploring new ranges of experimentalism, an ideal that has been stripped from the American psyche since 60's modernism.  Not only do we as a society just fucking love an underdog, but tend to become apocalyptic when we know deep inside, that the longshot is actually the superior product: The '68 Jets, Harry Truman, Bueller vs. Rooney.  In the historical context of this country, it is the very philosophical and cultural foundation in which it was established.

And yet still, with many American microbreweries deprived of important little marketing details, like say, advertising budgets and distribution range, the primary source of sales and popularity still rely primarily on old fashioned word-of-mouth. 

(and technological word-of-mouth ... so, hey! follow me on twitter @anavenueblog, and oh, @draught_punk for our podcast).

So, what would be the best way to gather these eager, enthusiastic, and thrill-seeking Americans for the opportunity to coalesce with some of the country's best brewers?

Craft beer FUCKING festival season.  That's how.

September 28 | Texas Craft Brewers Festival 

But I mean, seriously, can you really just picture in your head the thought of InBevMillerCoors trying to throw some sort of beer fest?  The mental image of curiously similar straw-colored pale lager being poured into two ounce vessels, as patrons discern its tint by the sunlight, while Silverchair plays a reunion gig on the Heineken stage just cracks my shit up.

Coincidentally, Austin host EXACTLY the opposite of that festival, called the Texas Craft Brewers Festival, held ceremoniously in Fiesta Gardens at the foothills of the city's gorgeous downtown skyline.

It is completely devoid of light lagers and "Frogstomp".

But what the Texas Craft Brewers Festival does offer, is 39 breweries pouring 132 beers made right here in the Great State, ensuring that TCBF is the Daytona 500 of Texas Beer Festivals -- local beer's grandest stage, right there on week one.

We here at the [AA] offices polled our opinions and decided that the following are the most anticipated pours from the festival:

Karbach: Cherries of Fire
5 Stone: Rhubarb Cherrylicious
*Buffalo Bayou: Watermelon Wit
Circle: Smokin' Beech
Real Ale: Scots Gone Wild
Hops & Grain: Volumes of Funk
Jester King: Atrial Rubicite
Saint Arnold: 2012 Pumpkinator (right)

... and of course,
Austin Beerworks: Einhorn

* [AA] 2013 Rated Rookie

Rubbin's racin'.  Better get your extra drink tickets before I buy them all.


October 3 | Austin Beer Guide Release Party

In the cutthroat world of Austin beer bloggin', the dudes at ABG cut the deepest, and leave only a scattered assemblage of skanky beer groupies for the rest of us, like breadcrumbs for pigeons.

But they've earned their elevated reputation by making craft beer important enough to burn most of their free time just so you can have something to flip through on Black Sheep Lodge's shitter.  The content is unique and deliberate, and depending on how much respect for my opinion you have, by far the best beer guide in Austin.

But such myths are only confirmed by reading one, and this quarterly publication appears to be an excuse to host Austin's most consistent beer event: the Austin Beer Guide Release Party.  This time, the guys slum it for once below the Capitol Corridor and into the catacombs of the Central Austin's Rainey Street District.  And if you've ever been to Craft Pride, you'll undoubtedly know that they will have something local and something special to commemorate this work of literature.

And be sure to ask any one of these very helpful Austin Beer Guide guys for a release.


Oct 10 - 12 | Great American Beer Festival

Hey, you like bright sunshine without the nastiness of summer heat?  Like dabbling in barrel aged barley wines to keep hydrated?  Do you believe that #EverySeasonIsStoutSeason?

Well, I hope that you've booked your October flight to Denver, and found a companion you are only mildly repulsed to bunk with during craft beer's version of SXSW.

And really, I couldn't think of a better venue for the masterpiece that is GABF than Denver, particularly because of the city's indigenous mentality of embracing artisinal goods and disseminating positive vibes.  It feels so damn great to be in the freshest air any one of us will breath all year, in a walkable city, with like-minded enthusiasts.  Its has a perpetual senior-vacation affect in that you will run into your favorite local brewers, a thousand miles from home, and have an instantaneous desire to shout shit like "YeeHAW!"  "Fucking TEXAS!" and "How many fucking Plineys should I order this round, bros?!".  It is a pretty amazing experience.  And I couldn't imagine engaging in social media for weeks out of depression if I missed it.   

And as of yet, GABF is still remarkably chaste and NOT a carnival of commercialism, despite the obvious SXSW comparisons.  The glory of this festival is celebrating small-enterprise, which, for the most part has kept the really big sponsors at bay as much as they would just really fucking LOVE to be involved (and guess who doesn't miss out on a booth despite the built up vitriol: Budweiser, Shock Top, and Blue Moon -- erm, Tenth & Blake Brewing Co).  I know the end of craft socialism might be in the mail, but in the meantime come enjoy it like its the OLD Black Keys.

But that said, I am also trying hard not to go with ambitions to work -- because that would be a fruitless endeavor, like trying to wank to math. Like the rest of the GABF media, [AA] will be there to support our friends and local brewers, and let the stories all write themselves during the hangover moments -- over some more pints, of course.  You can read about [AA]'s GABF 2012 experience here.

Plus, I'm pretty sure its like $200 to fly there from any corner of the planet.  Denver is cheap and it is fucking boss.  If you can't make it this year, really try to do it at some point in your short life.

October 19 | Flying Saucer's BeerFeast

This will be my maiden voyage to BeerFeast, which is hosted by Flying Saucer Austin, and will be one of four around the country.  The event features 40 breweries pouring over 60 beers, plus, you know, austin-style grub from food trucks because EVERYTHING is better with street meat -- most especially, craft beer.

Ticket purchase includes admission to the festival, a tasting card that is good for choice of 12 samples of any of the 60 festival beers, and a 2013 commemorative BeerFeast tasting glass.

VIP ticket holders will also receive the taster glass and sampling session, as well as early admission to the festival at noon and access to the VIP-only line for rare tappings.  In addition, VIPs will get food vouchers redeemable at any of the festival food trucks, a 2013 BeerFeast T-shirt and a pair of BeerFeast sunglasses.

Oct 25 - Nov 3 | Austin Beer Week

In addition to killing you all month with various liver disorders, Austin delivers the death blow with an entire week to beer festivities across a number of platforms and venues in the city.

Now, during Austin Beer Week, there really is something for everyone -- like Amsterdam or bath salts -- but undoubtedly, our favorite festivity is Draught House's Anniversary -- its 45th this year -- which is truly remarkable because literally nothing in Austin is 45 years old, Draught House excluded.

This is no place for amateurs.

Here is the full lineup of Austin Beer Week events.
----

So, in conclusion, it can be said that sure, a lot of these Big Beer types have worked hard to get rich, despite the privilege of major budgets and lineage and thousands of employees, et cetera, et cetera.

But the majority of people in beer won't get rich no matter how hard they work, and I think the idea of a craft beer festival embraces that fascinating notion, while helping to stabilize an industry in its infancy.  These festivals support some of the hardest working individuals whose executives-in-charge crack less than a teacher's salary.  And I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to depreciate small business and/or education. 

Consider that when you're deciding between a Chilada and a Pearl Snap.

Austin's Jester King Celebrates Zwanze Day 2013

Apart from the nonstop luxury flights into other exotic international ports, what do the following worldwide alpha-cities have in common with our modest, southwestern hamlet of Austin, Texas: San Francisco, Brooklyn, Chicago, Seattle, D.C., Montreal, Tokyo, Rome, Brussels, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris, and London?

Zwanze Day.

Zwa-wat?

Zwanze Day: a perfectly imaginative mandate that designates a singular afternoon across the world to drinking a very rare, very desired, one-off beer made by Belgian brewing demi-gods Brasserie Cantillon.  Of these 46 global cities, which appear to be scattered indiscriminately across the face of the Earth, Austin's Jester King Brewery will host a single 30-liter keg shipped directly from Brussels to be distributed at their will to Central Texas beer fans on Saturday, September 14th.  That beer is called Zwanze.

Apart from a complimentary keg of Brasserie Cantillon's Fou Foune handed out at Jester King's 1st anniversary celebration, this will be only the second time that Austin has witnessed the brewery's very limited distribution to the state, and the first keg of Zwanze in Texas overall since its inception in 2008.  Its kind of a big deal.

Although Zwanze is typically a pure lambic beer, this year, Brasserie Cantillon concocted a Tripel in an 'abbey style', blending inoculated natural yeast from the brewery and 10% lambic at different stages of fermentation. 

Because interest for a taste of the beer outweighed Jester King's actual supply, the Texas brewery held random lottery for individuals to win the opportunity for a free, four-ounce sampling (comped because Brasserie Cantillon does not hold a license to be sold in the Lone Star State).  So, check all your email accounts and spam folders, because those who have won the opportunity should hold their golden ticket by now.  According to Jester King, the keg will be tapped at 2PM and will be available until their tasting room closes at 6PM.

If you are not one of the 150 selected for sampling, Jester King stresses that Zwanze Day is not a private event for the brewery, and they will be open for any beer fan wanting to celebrate on their grounds with Jester King beers.  Commemorative Zwanze 2013 glassware and t-shirts will be available for purchase to all.

Founder's Rübæus Pure Raspberry Ale: The Official Beer of Drunk Dialing and Sexting.

Its foolishly hot outside now and the outlook is rather dismal for any climate changes between now and late October.  Its such joyless drama school with the oppressive Texas weather, that all there is to lean on psychologically is the prospect of finding a reliable summer beer that will treat you very well until the great reprieve of Autumn.  This post is about one of those beers.  Founder's Rübæus Pure Raspberry Ale.



Being forthright, [AA] has never been a scoop-whore blog.  Never an, 'Oh, we doubt you've ever heard of it' hipster-kind-of website.

We like to take our time with criticism because we're usually pacified by an aggregate of 'too many new beers', 'so little time', and 'life better spent drinking it, than writing about it'.  There is also the tumor of laziness that metastasizes and cripples cleverness and wit all the time.  The pile of discarded posts tend to look creatively like the rejected song list of any Bloc Party project after 2004.  Just terrible.  Plus, we enjoy liquifying our insides enough to tranquilize a stag moose and, everyone knows, drunk writing tends to end up reading like the lyrics to Gangnam Style.

But never has it been the case, whereupon the doorstep of the [AA] offices rests a gift delivered from one of the country's best brewhouses.  And never has it been from the blog's favorite brewery in the entire country, perhaps the entire planet.

Even more so, it has never has been the pre-release of one of summer's most anticipated seasonal beer releases.

All of this was reason enough to access the pause button on Wendy Williams or Dr. Oz, or whichever terrible soul-destroying fucking daytime bullshit it was just to see what was playing out with the postal guy fiddling about with something on my lawn. 

A fucking score.

So, as quickly this gorgeous trio would cool in the frigidity of a 45 degree beer fridge, would it be pitched down the 45 degree angle of my craned throat, happily internalizing the hype and imminent promotion that  Founder's Rübæus deserved.  I was gonna help sell fucking loads of this stuff.  Right?

Whether by legitimate journalists or amateur hacks like myself, most criticism about beer is fully emo'd out to the extent that its pretty stupid to suggest converting anyone based on your lame opinion.

Conclusions are even more skewed when the term FREE is bandied.  The ability to remain totally unbiased is spoiled by the sudden appearance of factory-direct, donated summer badassery, especially since Founder's is like my forever jam, guys, like drinking the brewery equivalent of Neutral Milk Hotel's 'In the Aeroplane Over the Sea'.  The only way to show proper gratitude was to drink the shit out of it and nod energetically and maybe offhandedly mentioning how sipping this from Alison Brie's belly button wouldn't improve Rübæus in the least.  But, erm, not really.

Sipping Rübæus is actually a lot like watching old people Facebook.  As in, 'oh, its just sooo frustratingly fucking close to getting it ... No, I don't think you're doing it right ... Nuh-uh, don't do searches in the status bo-.'  Ah, fuck it.

As gracious as I am regarding Founder's massive generosity, and as ingenious I believed their fruit beers of prior years to be -- Blushing Monk Belgian Raspberry and Cerise Cherry -- I feel like Rübæus uses 2013's fruit du jour the way any freeway exit Chinese buffet uses MSG to assault the palate.  Rübæus is sharply alcoholic at its spectral ends with a patchy wavelength of sweetness that echos in the center.

Yes, this raspberry ale tastes good.  It IS good.  Real fucking tasty.  So are fortified flavored wines.  Rübæus has the clanky delivery of an MD 20/20 face slap, sweetly covered up with a hard kiss of saccharine.  Its like drinking a pint of your high school ex.  Fun and wild and probably very dangerous.  Also, totally unsuited for longevity, lest you're eager for the cops to show up, making you scatter around in the dark for your belonging.

Actually, it sounds like I was right to be excited about this. 

ABV 5.7%
Acquired Beer Mail
Can I Find This in Austin? Yes, look for it starting in early July
Album Pairing Coldplay | A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)
★★★★★★★☆☆☆

And look for more [An Avenue] beer + music opinions on the new collaborative side-project Draught Punk! A podcast!

Queen takes Bishop: How Saint Arnold's Barrel Aged Imperial Stout #3 Can Help You On Karaoke Night

Barrel-aging is a beer genre having a bit of a crisis at the moment.  This is only according to me, of course, but at a certain measure of volume hitting the market (that being the very scientific metric of one shitload), at what point is it where no one gives a damn about drinking a barrel aged beer anymore?

Whereas having a carefully and masterfully structured bourbon barrel aged beer used to be the libatious equivalent of hearing 'Hey Ya' on the car stereo in the very early solstices of 2003, by August of the same year, everyone was generally just tired of its infinity times infinity omnipresence. 

While barrel aging hasn't quite attained the banality of Top 40 radio, it seems like more than a few breweries are scrawling sappy best-sellers for the sake of improving their chart position with the beer dorks, while becoming less engaged with the actual stuff that helped purchase the kettles in the first place.

Let me be clear.  I don't think that Saint Arnold is guilty of this, necessarily.  I think they brew a very respectable recurrent lineup, and I happily order their stuff from time to time.  The sense I do get with breweries similar in size to Saint Arnold's as they accrue the momentum for 100% sustainability and expansion, is that their side projects tend to be wildly inconsistent from one to the next, clichéd even. In the case of Saint Arnold, sometimes both will occur within the same series.

Before I get into Bishop's Barrel #3, here are my thoughts on Bishop's Barrel #1 and Bishop's Barrel #2, which are mostly favorable.  In fact, I maintain that BB1 was probably the best bourbon barrel stout ever brewed and aged in the Southwest.

For that, Saint Arnold gets a guy's-weekend-in-Cabo-style hall pass to live out their Bishop's Barrel dreams for as long as necessary; a series that will consist entirely of barrel-aged beers for its duration.  I'm certainly okay with that given that Saint Arnold is reliably good-to-great in most things, except that the point of reference for this series begins with perhaps an insurmountable baseline for quality.  And lately the tenor of the Bishop's Barrel series is beginning to mimic André 3000's signature opening lyric "1,2,3,4 ...".  How long is it before we switch the station?

Saint Arnold noted a few differences between BB1 and BB3, which basically utilizes the same base beer but with different finishing techniques, for example, Saint Arnold fermented this version of the imperial stout with their house yeast, which is supposed to add a touch of creaminess, 2) BB3 was aged slightly longer -- 12 months versus 10 months, and finally, 3) there is a '3' on the neck label instead of a '1', which is to say that there is so little variance between one of the best stouts ever brewed in Texas and this version, that any nuances should theoretically improve the beer with one already under their belt.  Third verse, same as the first, right?

Truthfully, it tasted like a Crown & Coke.

Yep, as special as karaoke night 10 minutes before your stage debut of 'Killer Queen' and the barbaric attempt to catch a fast buzz for $3.  It has the demeanor of Brett Favre trying to make himself into a luxury brand.  It drifts so far from Houston-y beer into a lattice of country cousins at a BYOB wedding who've delved into the Canadian elitism of all-denim outfits and velvet bag booze.

I'll state that I do respect a brewery for evolving in a Radiohead kind of way, and Kid A is right about where I see Saint Arnold idling.  But with this series at least, there is a precarious pathway between recording Amnesiac and recording a carnival of laughs like El Camino from a formerly-evolving, presently digressing band like The Black Keys.

Admittedly, there are notes at the bookends of BB3 that are really fantastic -- like the creaminess they were going for, it certainly features that.  Also, the open-mouthed, wet kiss of booze at the end is very clever for an 11-and-a-half percent beer that leaves no heat.  But that is as much talent as this beer shows with its strumming.  And I really hate when people mistake effort for talent.  I call it the Tim Tebow effect.  This beer exemplifies the Tim Tebow effect.

It seems 12 months in the wood was asking BB3 to do more than it really could, or should, or really needed to -- like using a kiln to make cinnamon toast -- a bit of an overkill.  No worries these things happen from time to time.  I'll still be scrambling around for #4.

ABV 11.5%
Acquired Craft Pride [Austin]
Can I Find This in Austin? You'll need a Twitter account.
Album Pairing Oasis | Heathen Chemistry (2002)
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

The State of the Texas Craft Beer Scene Part 3: Capitol Gains in Austin

Well, its been a pretty interesting week hasn't it?

While this post didn't intend to start out with emotional catatonia, I think it is appropriate to take a moment to pause on the passing of Walt Powell, a guy whose influence was felt beyond the silliness of beer drinking, but into something more profound; the personal friendships he developed as a result of beer drinking.  I didn't know Walt well in person, having only shared a few mutual drinks at whatever event had collected the beer community that day, but I felt like I knew him well digitally.  We interacted online quite a bit because I think we shared a mutual sense of what humor should rightly be, and that is snark with a good amount of browbeating, all tied together with a loose beer-related theme. He was cool.

I only recently learned that before his gig at Flix, Walt was a beer writer.  And having accumulated cachet doing that, landed him in a place where he thought he could probably be even more influential to the local and statewide craft community.  He was.

I think it would please him to learn that his demise brought forth shock and bewilderment in the beer community the same way as Joe Johnson going out in the 2006 NBA playoffs against the Spurs or Michael Owen withdrawing from the English squad in the '06 Cup.  Total bewilderment, everyone scrambling to make sense of it.  Over beers of course.  That went without saying.

Walt left an irreplaceable gap in the landscape of possibility, not only for him as a very decent dude, but as a leader in the craft beer movement.  We've lost our target man.  Our sharp shooter.  And the immediacy of its circumstance makes it weird as we attempt to maintain the house.  As humans, we are conditioned to tell somebody goodbye while they are still within earshot.  But to people like my son, for example, who hasn't quite grasped that social premise yet, it feels weird to send someone off without letting them know we meant to say goodbye. Its good to know that some of his wit has preserved him in script somewhere on the internet.

As beer people, we like to travel in packs -- bar crawls, bottle shares, brewery releases, and so on.  I think we like the assurance that we're a community.  It preserves the delicate nature of altruistic relationships necessary in the craft world.  The consumer is as important as the brewer.  The retailer is as vital as the distributor.  I think it denotes that, for the most part, we've all got each others backs and it makes us less-panicky animals without being set free on our own too much.  If you want an example of how inane we get, see how we respond as individuals to rare beer releases left to our own devices.

This notable herd mentality, however, sets the true pioneers of beer in Austin apart from the mass; individuals like Pinthouse Joe, Josh Hare, Jake Maddox, and yes, Walt -- who engage their own loyalties and devotions and grassroots innovative resonance.  People who can make good ideas survive meetings and have minds like boxes of marbles spilled onto granite countertops.  We scramble around trying to aggregate their cognizance.

Beer culture in Austin is healthy as all fuck.  Beer is a huge, uncontrollable threat to our spare time and vital organs.  Beer culture in Austin is not histrionic in the same way something like craft cocktail culture has blossomed and died on its stem, accidentally poisoned by its own caretakers.

Beer culture in Austin, is something that wants to stick, particularly given two circumstances: One, is that this is the second -- possibly even third -- iteration of the craft beer boom in Austin after the rise and fall of both Copper Tank and Waterloo brewing, and the ancillary passing wave of The (original) Ginger Man and Celis Brewing.  With more than a few failures and consequential frustration under its belt, Austin most certainly feels like its got its master plan.  The second circumstance is the crucial system of check-and-balances between brewers, media, and consumers. 

And through chance, luck, skill and achievement, we are now witness to a developing Rat Pack of Austin breweries who are treating this deluged town like its own personal Oceans 11 casting call.  It's as good as we're gonna feel all day.



And above all that, the shit that is really about to make this situation get real-real is the impending act-of-congress (quite literally) that had to happen in order for craft beer in Austin to be completely sustainable.  With the passing of recent legislation, (given the refusal of veto powers by Texas' Aggie-in-Cheif) the Jester King Brewery and Hops & Grain Tasting Room will be full-fledged brewpubs (, but with a license to distribute!).  What this means is, while one can still visit whatever booze depot of his/her choosing to stock beer for personal use, breweries will be allowed direct sales to its customers at its source through a confounding system of product-for-currency exchange!  Right there in the brewhouse!  Yes, quite on the cuttingest of edges by the Texas lege.

When this moment comes upon its much anticipated threshold, Texas will have officially arrived into the premier leagues of beer along with California, Oregon, Michigan, etc with a door kicking entrance.  And the same way it would be baffling for state residents of these beer giants to not spend locally on craft, it would be equally as inappropriate for resident Austinites, or Houstonians, or Dallasites to venture too far out of the vicinity.  Otherwise, take your yankee asses back to Kentucky.  A simple fiver -- and often less than than that -- will get you something great and local in an Austin pub.

Photo courtesy of Josh Hare, Hops & Grain

But in Austin, popularity + growth means one impenetrable force: lines.

Shit, someone should do a study of how long the average Austinite waits in line.  We do it for everything.  Well, anything worth doing at least.

During this past SXSW -- while waiting in line, of course -- I mentioned to whoever happened to be in my immediate vicinity that we should start the next internet meme craze like Planking or Harlem Shake called Queuing.  Just line right the fuck up, doesn't matter to what.  Car wash? Queue. Furbies Live? Get in line, motherfucker. Random door entrance? Behind me, sister.  Been here all day.

It will be a hit.  Hurry up and wait, err' one.

The thing is, good beer and demand are very coincident pals. Who can blame the public for wanting to be participant in something that takes so much time and care?  Aaron Franklin has built an empire on it, and soon, so will the micros of Austin.  Hurry up and wait, indeed.

Good for them.  Like BBQ, breweries operate on razor thin margins and no industry on the planet deserves more income than does the craft industry.  I suspect you'll have to wake up pretty early to beat me to the front of the line of all these new tap rooms.

Finally, as summer begins to vex us with sun-frowns and devastating thirsts, Austin brewers find that this is typically their time to shine (pun, ugh.). This summer in particular will likely finalize Austin's spot on future top-beer-cities lists -- and then get REALLY ready to stand around.

In high anticipation to the folks here at [AA], we expect the following to rip our pants in the front:

• Austin Beerworks' Heavy Machinery Pt. II The DIPA & Einhorn Berliner Weisse, which stays in our heads persistently. 
• Hops & Grain's Greenhouse Series making quiet waves right now, but just you wait.  Fucking wait.
• Pinthouse Pizza's continuing expansion into experimental batches, including the Fallen Cask series.
• The impending debut of Austin Beer Garden Brewery.
• Jester King's Atrial Rubicite Raspberry Wild Ale (pictured above)

What more is there to say to really register the point that the craft beer scene in Austin is as healthy and promising as was its musical culture in the 70s and its barbeque outlook in the 90s?  We're at the front steps of another revolution that makes Austin appear like the cultural center of the planet for people with these interests. The house is in order and now she's picking throw pillows.  These are the giddy days.  Why don't you stop waiting and chip in?

The State of the Texas Craft Beer Scene Part 1: Fort Worth
The State of the Texas Craft Beer Scene Part 2: Houston