Family out of town weekend Extravaganza 4

Oh man here we go again. Every once in a while, a loving father finds himself in the rare position where the wife and kid(s) are gone for an entire weekend and he has the house to himself. That usually results in something happenning between the movies The Hangover and Hot Tub Time Machine. However, this time I took it easy and just enjoyed the barscene in Houston. Oh did I mention it was Saint Patrick's Day as well?

So we kicked it off at (of course) the Saucer. I checked out my plate which they put behind the toilet and enjoyed the EXCELLENT dry irish stouts of Moylans and Breckenridge. For tradition's sake, I even ordered a Guiness. Unfortunately they were out of "Black Crack", also known as Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout. Now the Breckenridge Thunder Stout was very tasty with the more intense chocolate flavor. The Moylan's Draggoon was bit more traditional in it's calming smooth stout flavor. We even took in the Real Ale Shade Grown Coffee Porter, which really stole the show. One I was already feeling sleepy after working all day, and that intense coffee/espresso thing that Real Ale does made a lot of sense. Afterward we hit up Taps and Brixx for a ton of Guiness and Bean Bag toss with the suprisingly non douche-bags on Washington Avenue. We somehow ended up back at the Saucer for some real beering.

Next day it was Friday night and time for some Petrol Station love. Haven't hit this spot in quite some time. Looking forward to some creative beers.

Great Divide Farmhouse Colette
Cloudy straw, very yeasty funky nose. Great lemony slight sour, great wit beer thing going on. Tasty. Some grit. Lots of wheaty leven bread yeast flavor. As estery a they come. 4 stars

Dogfish Na Meste
Serious coriander and orange peel. Nose and flavor. Goes down smooth. Less filling and great taste. As I type this two days later, I want to get a keg of this stuff and hook it up to my veins. High 4 stars for the Fish.

Petrol Station seems to have been struck by the Roller Derby women as well. I love a good roller derby, complete with clotheslines and powerbombs. Looks like they are ramping up the Derby and the ladies were hitting it hard at the Station. Pretty cool ish.

Next day, as in yesterday was a bit of a clusterf*ck. So I started it out last night having some Blue Moon in a can (that's right cans) at the Niko Niko's downtown at the revamped Market Square. I remember the Market Square area a few years back when we first moved to Houston, and the "it" crowd used to hang out there all the time. Then the crowd moved to Richmond Avenue, then Main Street, then Midtown, then the Galleria, and now Washington Avenue. Seems like as soon as me and a few of the brothas find a new cool multi-cultural bar scene, the culture shortly changes their minds. Anyway...

We started out the night at the Saucer enjoying some great Weisse beers. I made the mistake of going for the Jester King/Mikeller collabo beer Drinkin' in the Sunbelt first. The American Pale Wheat was just that, a mish-mash of an American Pale Ale and a Weisse beer. I mirco-blogged this one on my twitter page (@beerbrotha), but my twitter followers were saying they plan on toning down the hops for the next one.

Afterward we hit the Dynamo game home opener and watched the new guys flail around like the Lost Children of Isreal. Damn shame but it was a good time. We stood where we always stand, with El Batallon. The very energetic young supporters group. And they were in full force with trombones, drums, new shirts, ripped orange and black fabric, and early fist fights all in the first six minutes of the damn season. Don't worry, I'll post the video later. I love watching the game with those guys. The stadium officials no longer allow us to stand in the concourse during game play and we prefer not to be held up for everyone else to leave the stadium by standing in the EB after the game has ended. The EB is so wild, but sometimes they mess around and show up late for the game, and if you go to their domain name, you will see they forgot to pay to keep the domain name. But it's South American chants, kinda ghetto, and something akin to a P-Funk crowd is just awesome.

But we figured what the hell and for the first time EVER went to sit on the other side of the stadium with the Texian Army. We only see these guys from our side of the stadium, and their stuff looks organized, well thought out, lots of homemade flags, and whatnot. But the crowd could not be the exact opposite. So HILARIOUS. If the EB is inner city Houston, the TA is Cinco Ranch Suburbia. I'll give the TA credit, they are all in it with their Soccer moms waiving flags, retired oil execs on the drums, and darling little children throwing real ass confetti. The EB uses shredded phone books for confetti, whereas the TA actually went to the Party store. Ah the dichotemy of life.

So after the game, we hit us midtown for some beering and UFC. As per my stance I was rooting for the brotha Jon Jones against Shogun Rua. As much as I like Jones, I still don't have that connection to him that I have with Rampage, Evans, Anderson Silva, Alistair Overeem and King Mo. Jones answers the age old question: what if a hippie from the 1960s were black, athletically gifted, very intelligent, and fought in the UFC? I think I like more that the MMA fanboys hate him so much which is why I like him. He's getting his due and now it's gametime. Of course he absolutely smashed Shogun and made him tap out to strikes. Fricken awesome.

The family doesn't come back for a while, and after I ran 12 miles yesterday morning, I'm debating between getting some crawfish or a pedicure. Or a Pedicure while eating crawfish. That would be the ballz. Holla. See you at Anvil.

Petrol Station Black Party, Jester King

So a couple weeks ago I find thought I was able to squeeze in enough time to run by Petrol Station for some stout/porter party, which Ben said I can call the "Black Party". The place was packed with people and had one special guest, the head man at Jester King, Jeff.

Hold up....

Beer Log: Right now
State: Tongue a little burnt from tea and hot tomato catfish I was eating

Breckenridge Pandora's Bock
Ruby-brown color with a great clarity. I love how this puppy has a nice light head and that sweet malt nose of the lighter bocks, though it's darker in color. The taste is that perfect light caramel-cookie-cinnamon with a pinch of chocolate and toast that makes Bock season my favorite beer season of all. Light bitterness, dare I say English hops with the simpleness of it all. I can see I'll be drinking these steely bocks as long as they'll let me. 4 Stars for the simple and excellently crafted beer.

The beeradvocate dudes are hating on it, but whatever. Those guys are like how I used to be, where only the hugest mega-hopped barrel aged with a specialty strains harvested from the Lost City of Atlantis would spark my interest. You just weren't a true craft brewer if you were spitting out a pilsner or helles. After surfing the strong, creative stuff which I still love, I find that I'm getting a major appreciation for the subtly of a Bohemian pilsner, the gentleness of a German maibock, and sometimes the smoothness of an English mild. Plus I don't have to have a DD to get home. Funny that I find myself copping a sixer of Pilsner Urquell more often than say a Broken Halo IPA.

OK, so Petrol was jam packed with people and I had an excellent long conversation with Jeff about his beer and how things are going. Being the consummate Houston oil-man, I couldn't help but try to sell our city and how great it is for craft beer, just has not had much success in the brewpub scene. I couldn't help but point out that sheer number of people drove many miles to the hood just for a stout party at some bar the size of a postage stamp. It's instances like that that show me we really are thirsty" for craft beer in Houston. Luckily Jeff has some space to get beer to the larger Houston beer bars, so I should be able to drown in Wytchmaker IPA all I want.

Just quickly on the beering...

Beer Log: January 22, 2011

State: Relaxed, just downed a ton of PS's great french fries, not really in the mood for the Oxtails, fried chicken, waffles, and collard greens they were cooking out back. Just a quick thing on the food, I had a few tweets and texts with some of the brothas out there. I think it's ultra cool that Petrol broke out the soul food for this event. These guys are awesome.

Rogue Hazelnut John John
The John John boys are at it again, this time with a hazelnut thing juicing with what I thought were whiskey barrels. Dark Amber gold. No head do no nose, but I get a great hazelnut flavor aged in probably whiskey. Low nutty AT. Has this thin body that makes it feel sessionable. Turns out it's rum barrels. 3 stars

Somewhere around this point I caught with several of the other Houston beer-munity, including a nice lady who recognized me from this blog and gave me a few really cool knit beer coozies, which I use all the time.

Jester King Black Metal
Good strong roast and toast. Low hops and alc flavor. High carbo, very drinkable. As I kept drinking it, the hops came out as it warmed, and the black patent smoke starting coming through. Not bad at all. I typically shy away from black patent beers as I get a lot of smoke and band-aid flavor, but this one did not overdue it. 3 stars.

Rogue Dirtoir
Very smooth and choco. The JK blows it up. I should have had this one first. Turns out this one was a black lager, which won't taste like much after you drink a smokey imperial stout and a rum-barrel stout.

512 Cream Stout

Much later on I did try this one.
Very candy like. Chocolate/butterscotch thing going on. Again should have had this one first.

I am so far behind in my beer adventures blogging it's ridiculous. I've got San Francisco, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Houston beer adventures of note since November. And I'm only getting further behind with the new beering available in Houston, and Bock season coming on strong. Future travels in the 1st and 2nd quarter should include Tampa (Ybor of course) Cozumel, St. Louis, and I'll probably hit up Austin for my birthday. Of course there are a couple of trips to New Orleans/Covington.

I'll probably fly Southwest this time to NO b/c they've got the NOLA and Covington beers on that side of the airport. On the Continental side they can only get you a bomber of Abita SOS and a shot glass of Jack, not that that's a bad thing, but I need that NOLA Blonde like a crackhead needs crack, and they ain't bottling. We are also looking at a trip to Boston some time soon to visit my wife's Alma Mater (MIT baby).

Beering in Houston: Jesterking, Barcadia, Reef. Who you kicking out of the hot tub

So the wife wants to show me a good time as I happen to have had a particularly rough year at the job. I think I did pretty well performance wise, just a whole lot of work right up to the bell.

So she planned out this night of our hitting some great bars and restaurants.

Stop 1: Petrol Station
The owners wife couldn't help but remark on how great we both looked as we stepped into the bar Saturday afternoon. That's the kind of place this is. I've been making it a point that if all things were equal, I would order or buy the Texas craft beer instead of rank purchasing of the out-of-town stuff. But the beauty is that there was a beer on tap that I had had, but never reviewed.

Beer Log: December 18, 2010
State: Chilling, eating some hummus

Jester king Wytchmaker IPA
Ah I remember Jester King when they were still soliciting investors not too long ago. Now they've got a some great beer here in Houston though they are based in Austin, and they are going ballz out on the creative beer side as you can see the number of barrels sitting at the ranch/brewery for some aging programs. I'm sure they need to pay some bills now, hence the beer we are seeing at our beer bars in town.

Had this one on draft into a shaker glass. Little chill haze and burnt orange appearance (I'm sure those Longhorn boys will love that). Rather citrus hop nose. Big extra ipa hops, very orange citra and grassy. Loving the light caramel barely holding on for balance. Has a med body with something that's a bit chewy, which goes well for me in that I'm just all over this style of beer right now. 4 stars for the Kings.

After that we dragged ass down to the Tasting Room in the Upper Kirby area for some Pinot. Seems like the wine at the Tasting Room is just really fresh. I actually kind of dig that in that all the flavors have not melded together yet. Actually adds a little something for me.

Onward to Downing Street pub for some PRE-dinner cigars and Chimay Blue. I should have gotten the White. But any place with Chimay on tap is cool with me.

Finally onward to dinner at Reef. The beer twitter folks were saying they had some Saint Arnolds, but they must have run out or something, as I opted for the sparkling white wine to go with my Mussels made with Shiner Bock. This is my first time at Reef and man those boys just have killer seafood. The mussels were perfect, as well as the Salmon. I even ordered the fries to see how they would do it, and I think I got the Alton Brown method of french fries. Loving life. The ambiance at first blush feels like some of my rugby games, with lots of commotion, conversation, waiters everywhere. But once we sat down the rugby gave way to something like a ballet. Great service, everybody rolling nicely.

After stuffing our faces with mussels and Italian rice, I was feeling a little sluggish. And then she took me to Barcadia.

This spot just opened about a week ago, and I had totally ignored it as the advertisements n the Houston press looked like a burlesque house. And unless the house of burlesque has incredibly loud Lil' Jon and Ying Yang Twins music, owned by a Nigerian guy, and has a semi-legal champagne room, I'm not interested. However, this spot was rather a beer bar with great music, and a wall lined with 80s and early 90s era arcade games. And what's more, on that night most of the games were free. OMG. I felt like a pre-teen again. I was playing Star Wars, Ms. Pac-Man, Street Fighter II, the first Mortal Kombat, and Dig F'n Dug. Couple that was Dogfish Head 90 Minute on draft, a few other good brews, and the place is CONNECTED TO REEF. One time for the Montrose Area coming through once again.