Little Woodrow’s and B.B. Rover’s finally has a little competition in North Austin. Opal Divine’s Marina is a watering hole up in my neighborhood that has a decent beer and scotch selection. I dropped into the newest location of Opal Divine’s Austin locations, which was previously a Sea Island restaurant, and grabbed a seat at the bar top with my lady friend. We browsed the beer selection and I got giddy.

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. 

Continuing my Lake Tahoe brewpub explorations I came across a prototypical British pub, dark, with one of the largest selections of craft beer I had seen in the area. The Tudor Pub, an upstairs addition to the Fremont Bistro and Wine bar, was lively with bikers and tourists who had either been frequenting the pub for years or heard about it through a Tahoe local.

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.