The Beer Retard - Drinking Beer in Austin: Day 1

After a 4 hour flight from Seattle to Houston and a 3 hour drive from Houston to Austin (with a few white knuckle thunderstorm pockets on the way), I was ready to drink some fuckin' beer. Seriously, I'd worked up a powerful thirst. I would've been happy to hit the nearest bar and drink whatever was there, but instead I had a swanky dinner with my parents at Olivia.

The food at the restaurant was great. Fancy-pants stuff, but it had substance to go with style. We had stuff like arugula and pear salad with peppered goat cheese, grilled red snapper, risotto, etc. But this isn't a food douche blog. Let's get to the beer. I had two Real Ale beers with dinner and both were good.

The first was the Lost Gold IPA and it impressed my jaded West Coast hophead tastebuds. I know I said I was over IPAs, but I'm giving myself slack during this trip and resetting my shit when I get back to Seattle. Anyway, this IPA had more of a hop kick than I expected from a beer brewed in the Lone Star State. I'm not sure if I was just jonesing for a beer so hard that anything would've done the trick, but whatever the case...it was good.

I followed the IPA up with the Brewhouse Brown. Again, I was impressed. Even though it was served way too cold, it had that chocolatey thing going on and had a hop edge in the finish. So definitely an American version of the style, but also a flavorful one.

After dinner, I dragged the parental units to Opal Divine's Freehouse since it was $2.50 Texas beer night. I can't remember a time when I've ever gone out with Mom and Dad for a round. It was kinda weird, but not so bad. All three of us ordered a different beer--I had the Live Oak Oaktoberfest, my Dad had the Live Oak IPA and my mom went with the Real Ale Full Moon Pale Rye Ale. All of them were various shades of decent, but the Real Ale Full Moon was the best of the three. I like that spiciness you get from a rye beer and this one had that working for it.

At the end of a long day of travel, it was a pretty good introduction to Austin beer. I was able to try a bunch of stuff and everything I tasted was decent to very good. Looking forward to a full day of beer adventures on Day 2.