I was just informed that Michael Jackson passed away late last night in his home by a fellow beer advocate. I have no details at this time but will update this when I can find out more information. Michael has been a big inspiration for me in my beer explorations and I hope to carry on his legacy by continuing to document and explore the world for new and exciting beers.

Cheers Michael, you will be missed. www.beerhunter.com

The wall of taps I could see behind the counter gave me great hope for Opal Divine’s and the bartender was equally excited to tell me about all the cool beers they have.

As I looked over the "Wall of Paradise", the bartender ran into the back office to print out a description for the DogFish 120 IPA. We had been taking about DogFish and he was a real HopHead. The beer was almost 500 calories per 12oz.; potent as jet fuel and I was glad they didn’t have it because there is no telling where I would have ended up that night.

The food at this pub was nothing to scream about, so don’t expect anything other than AppleBee’s fare. Enjoy the outdoor deck with live music, the pool tables, darts and pub atmosphere the next time you find yourself in North Austin with some time to kill. 

The pub patrons seemed to take over the outdoor lawn/patio fitted with white tables and chairs, so my posse of beer drinkers took over the patio and had a look at their beer menu. I decided to venture inside to peek at the tap wall and made the trek upstairs into the main pub. The bar top was filled from side to side with Tahoans drinking pints of English Ale and Irish Stout.

I asked the bartender if they had any unique beers that I may not have had before in other places, so he showed me a few English Ales. The first was the Duchy Originals Organic English Ale.

The beer had a great hoppy and malty flavor with a distinctive English yeast taste. The undertones were of caramel and toffee, which I always love. The bottle had a really cool label with a very prideful logo displaying the organic barely and hops that make up this wonderful Ale. This organic ale was a great mid-day treat for sitting outside in the cool Tahoe air.

My Father-in-Law to be, a.k.a Johny Boy, joined me with a Fullers London Pride Outstanding Pale. I didn’t try it, but he definitely gave it a thumbs up and said it had a great finishing flavor. All-in-all both of these English beers were a hit and I would recommend ordering them if you ever get the chance.

The atmosphere was an open floor/sports bar feel (large-screen TV on the wall), and you could see the chefs cooking from the main floor. No booths, just tables. As always, I migrated over to the taps to have a look and grabbed a seat at the bar. The bartender was very knowledgeable about their craft beer and told me all about a specialty batch of brew that their master brewer had just released called their Double Time Double Scotch Ale.

So on to the tasting…. the bartender placed a small taster of the Double Time Double Scotch Ale in front of me and told me to smell it before tasting it. I filled my lungs and smelled butterscotch and coffee. Upon tasting the ale I was pleasantly surprised to find an equally similar taste to the aroma. The beer had bold flavors and was high in alcohol content. My first thought was that this would be a great after dinner or dessert beer to be paired with chocolate.

I wasn’t fully in the mood for dessert yet, so I browsed the beer menu looking for my next victim. I quickly spotted a familiar Californian micro brew on their menu and ordered a round for me and my friends. Lagunitas India Pale Ale is by far one of my all time favorite IPA’s perhaps due to the extra dry hopping technique towards the end of the brewing process or the centennial hops they use. I’m just a sucker for good hops and apparently anything Lagunitas brews up.

With the South Lake Tahoe fire 85% contained, the town seemed to sigh in relief. Most of the tourists had choosen not to visit Lake Tahoe this July 4th weekend and it created the perfect atmosphere to relax in.  Continuing my Lake Tahoe tour, I ended up at a Pizzeria and Brewpub named The Brewery at Lake Tahoe. Located on Lake Tahoe Blvd, this hot spot is known to fill up fast on days with good weather. We ordered a couple of beers and a few pizza pies and grabbed a choice picnic table outside with a mountain view.

After looking over the microbrew menu it became clear that I needed to branch out from my traditional order of IPA and try some of the other microbrews The Brewery had potioned up. This led to a bit of worry, until I spotted the "Beer Flight" listing on the beer menu. I immediately warmed to the idea, and ordered it up. Our waiter took the order, and ten 4-ounce glasses of assorted beer were put in front of me. Here’s a quick run down of each one:

• Washoe Wheat Ale – An American style wheat ale – Mild and very refreshing. Their lightest beer in body and color.
• Needle Peak Ale – An American style pale ale – Golden-blonde in color with balanced hops and toasted malts.
• Prince of Pales – An English style pale ale – Dry and Crisp, with a slightly bitter finish. An ale in the tradition of a British pub pint.
• Alpine Amber Ale – An American amber ale – A classic amber ale light in body with a pleasant caramel malt finish.
• Indian Pale Ale – A Traditional IPA – An aggressively hopped brew, golden-amber in color with pronounced bitterness and aroma.
• Paramount Porter – A Brown porter – An amazingly light bodied porter, with a pleasant chocolate essence and malt flavor.
• Bad Ass Ale – A style of its own – Their brewers handcraft this ale to be a perfect balance between its barley and choice hops. Deep burgundy in color, high in alcohol, this beer is always “Bad Ass”.
• Belgian-Style White Bier – A Belgian Wit – This wheat beer made with Curacao orange peel and coriander should be your first choice on a sunny Tahoe day.
• Oatmeal Stout – An Oatmeal stout – An extremely dark and full bodied beer, roasted barley and rolled oats give this beer its rich roasted flavor that any beer drinker will love.
• Captain Dick’s Nut Brown Ale – An English style brown ale – Using specialty malts from 4 different countries, this brown ale has a unique nut flavor and an intense long lasting malt profile.

While not all of the beers in the sampler were my personal favorites, I would recommend trying this out at least once. You get to try a variety of tasty homebrews (different every day, and often seasonal), and, at just under ten bucks, it’s not a bad deal. Also, if you chug each and every glass, you can get drunk rather quickly if you continue to order the sampler like it’s going out of style.

Yes, there is good beer to be had in South Lake Tahoe, one of the most popular outdoor wonderlands for skiing, hiking and getaways in the Midwest. I stopped in a corner bar called Whiskey Dick’s Saloon http://www.whiskeydicksslt.com, which from the name you would expect to find stripper poles and drunken cowboys passed out all over the floor. This corner pub had a long island bar, three coolers full of microbrews and at least 24 cases of a town favorite Pabst Blue Ribbon.

As I looked over the beer coolers I noticed a shot-of-the-day sign that read "Russian Pussy". I couldn’t bring myself to ask what made up this classy concoction, but I know I probably didn’t miss out on much. The bartender was very nice while I stared into the beer coolers looking for something new. Three sweat-covered men entered shortly after we did. "Working on a Saturday, are we?" a young woman asked. They grinned and nodded their heads. As they drank their beers, they talked in thick Cali-surfer accents. One drank Miller Lite, another Budweiser and the third had Coors Light on ice.

I saw a beer called SIRIUS, a Lagunitas Special Release High Gravity Cream Ale and the bartender told me he had just got it in that day. I gave it a try and it ended up being a winner. A girl down the bar was curious to know what it tasted like, so the bartender asked if he could pour a spot into a shot glass for her to taste. "Of course", I said and she described it as a great beer, but not a great cream ale. I agreed that the beer was great, but it was definitely a stretch from cream ale. Lagunitas is one of my favorite California microbreweries, so I really enjoyed getting a hint of their classic hop/barley combo in this beer.

Lake Tahoe offers many exciting thrills for skiers and climbers as well as those with a taste for fine cuisine and fine brew. Thousands flock to Lake Tahoe every year to do a bit of sight seeing and many will run across a great little brewery called The Brewery at Lake Tahoe.

Located on the main drag at 3542 South Lake Tahoe Blvd, this pizzeria/brewery is the perfect spot to unwind after a day on the slopes or on the many trails that circle the lake.

The brewery is known for its unfiltered and copper fermentation process, which results in craftbrews that have wonderful aromas of rich malt. There Indian Pale Ale stands up against some of the best IPAs on the market including Stone’s Ruination IPA or Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPA. It’s hazy copper color and rich malty aroma tells the story of what’s hidden inside. It’s just slightly floral in the nose with flavors that weigh heavy with malt at first and then gliding into a forest of hops. Very, very bitter. HopHeads love this one. The finish is crisp and bitter. One of the better IPA’s we’ve ever tasted.

Owner Wayne Overton and a small crew constructed a 30-foot long mahogany bar and the quaint building which housed it. Inside, handcrafted furniture and details such as wainscotting and exposed cedar beams and trim created a warmly traditional atmosphere. With a look and feel straight out of the English countryside, it was the ideal setting for serving a wide variety of beers.

The concept was simple: to serve only draught beer (a small percentage of beer sales in the US) on a “short-draw” system to allow for only the freshest and coldest of products. In 1995, under new ownership, a brewing operation is added to the business and the Draught House Pub and Brewery becomes the fourth addition to Austin’s thriving brewpub scene. The relatively small system produces approximately 350 bbl per year, from thirty different recipes.

Brewer Josh Wilson, certified and trained at the University of California’s Institute of Brewing, has been in the business for over eight years. Because the pub sells 60 other draught beers, Wilson has the luxury of experimentation and produces beverages not often found in other brewpubs, such as the ever popular Vanilla Porter and Ginger Weiss. Like any proper English pub, the Draught House also features two hand- pulled ales. A common line-up of ales that you’d find on a typical evening would include Calloway’s Vanilla Porter, a modestly perfect concoction that mystifies the palate, Bedell’s Best Brown, a complex blend of crystal, pale and toasted malt with a hint of hops, and the dry and roasty Hammerhead Stout.

The Draught House specializes in English ales. They are made exclusively with imported malt and hops and fermented with the world-famous Fuller’s yeast. This may be somewhat more expensive, but the outcome is true to style and unusual in the US market. The porters and stouts are served in the correct manner, under bar gas, with a thick and creamy head. Seasonally, The Draught House features lagers and wheat beers brewed with 100% Czechslovokian malt and German hops.

Address & Phone:
4112 Medical Parkway, Austin, TX 78756
512.452.MALT

Master Brewer: Josh Wilson

*Provides Free WiFi

Draught House Pub and Brewery