Nicer tap rooms are in order!

While I was sitting at Odell Brewing in Ft. Collins, CO last December, I had an epiphany when it came to tap rooms: Texas breweries don't have nice tap rooms because they can't sell beer on-site.

I don't know why it took me so long to realize that our tap rooms are 10x lamer than other states! I mean, yes, there are nice ones like St. Arnold's in Houston, but that's few and far between folks.

Most young breweries have a warehouse, a couple of taps in the wall and a bar table to serve it from. It's functional, but it sure isn't pretty.

BUT! With the slate of beer bills close to becoming reality, nicer tap rooms might be in our future! I think if breweries are allowed to charge for samples, pints, etc. they'll put more money into a useable space! I can't wait to see what the breweries come up with!

On Friday afternoon, the Texas House used voice votes to approve the bills. A final House vote on Monday will push the bills to Gov. Rick Perry's desk. There's currently no real opposition, so this is fo'realz people!

I've been keeping up with these bills for awhile, you can read past articles
here
here 
here
and here.

Here are my favorite tap rooms (places that actually have rooms, not just an open warehouse) in Texas right now (in no particular order):

1. Hops and Grain: It's a small room but it is a good space. The room has a/c, seating and a view of the brewery. My favorite thing about this place? Plenty of toilets! Because it's in a shared warehouse, there's a communal bathroom that is HUGE.

2. St. Arnold Brewing Co.: It's a grand beer hall. I remember when they used to have that warehouse on Hwy 290... the good ol' days. The new location has a huge beer hall with plenty of taps. There's usually a line to get in but it's a good deal! Even though there are at least a dozen picnic tables, you might have to sit on the floor if it's really busy, which is only a minor inconvenience.

3. Deep Ellum Brewing Co.: The open-air space below the pergola is lovely! You get your beer inside the warehouse, but there's a nice seating area in the front of the business. There are several picnic tables and wine barrels turned into tables. Bring a lawn chair just in case!

4. Jester King Brewery: Fairly large ranch-style tap room. No seating area inside the room but plenty of space outside!

5. Tie between Ranger Creek Brewing & Distilling and Branchline Brewery:
Not much seating in either place but it's a good spot to hang out if it's 100 degrees outside. I might give RC an extra point because they have cool artwork on the walls. 

Cage, Stake or Sprawl?

It's been one year since I've had my little garden growing in the backyard! Remember when I told you how Micah and his parents got me a raised bed as my 30th Birthday gift? It's a milestone because I've actually kept up with the gardening and have grown some decent stuff over the past 12 months. 

Obviously last summer's okra was a big hit and they lasted well into early fall -- I am growing okra again this year (obvious). In the fall, I removed the summer plants and put in broccoli, kale, cabbage, spinach and green onions. The broccoli seeds never took, but the kale, spinach and green onions did really well. The cabbage heads grew, but they were itty bitty -- probably the size of a medium-sized grapefruit (definitely not like the ginormous ones you see in the regular grocery stores). 

Back in March, I went to a garden sale hosted by Sunshine Community Gardens. They had a slew of tomato plants so I picked up a couple of Cherokee tomatoes, a hybrid one, a cherry tomato plant, and an heirloom one. I planted them in early March and sure enough, there was a slight freeze in early April! Amazingly enough, my plants all made it through the freeze with no issues! I didn't even put a tarp over them. 

I bought so many tomatoes thinking "surely one or two will die, especially with my luck." But fast-forward two months later and the tomatoes are creeping all over the garden! I placed cages on 2-3 of the tomato plants but I didn't cage the cherry tomato one and now it's taking over the whole garden! 

I tried to put some new cages in last week but this plant isn't playing by my rules. Some of the limbs will stay in the cage, the rest is just chilling on the grass.

But how cute are these little tomatoes?!?! I can't wait to eat them!

  

My Cherokee tomato plant is doing really well. 

 

The tomatoes are forming and these two are the biggest ones of the bunch. I hope they're not going bad with those marks on them! I can't wait to see them turn purple!

Here's hoping my tomatoes do well this season! I think I'm off to a better start than I was last season, for sure!

I also decided to pick up a couple of pepper plants at the garden sale and I currently have these babies forming: 

Jalapeno peppers

Thai Chili! I'm sure I'll be giving most of these peppers to my mom. 

I'm also trying yellow squash again. Last year, I had tons of blossoms and a couple of actual formations, but then everything died. 

They seem to be growing well right now. Fingers crossed!

 

I have the following herbs growing:

Basil

Cilantro (although it already decided to flower and try to go to seed) and flat-leaf parsley.

My green onions are still going strong. They're so big that they start sprawling too! I just trim what I need and I've given several whole bunches away to my neighbor but they're still taking up room!

 

Here's hoping this season will be a fruitful one! What are you growing your garden??

Alice in Wonderland AKA Texas

Alice fell down the rabbit hole and somehow found herself in another land full of beef, Tex-Mex and cheap liquor! Some might call it heaven, others just call it Texas. 

Alice, or as we used to call her Utbi, is a childhood friend from California. Her parents were good friends with my parents back in Vietnam! Alice's dad sewed up my mom's finger when she ran it through a sugar cane press machine way back when! So yeah, we're basically family.

We don't get to see each other often (last time was summer 2008), but when we do, we pick up exactly where we left off.. like licking each others faces. Totes normal.

A few weeks ago, Alice visited Austin AND Texas for the first time! I knew I her trip was going to be food-centric, but I was still shocked by the amount of food we put away in the span of three days! 

We did take in a couple of Austin sites and sounds, but the bulk of time was spent chatting and chowing.

 

She couldn't get away from her hometown... 

On the first night, we had a good ol' crawfish boil! I bought the crawdads and Linda hooked it up with Zummo's sausage (gotta have the Zummo's!). We managed to eat around 19#, I had a few pounds leftover that ended up going into an etoufee.  

That night, we went down to Dirty 6th to mix it up a bit! Every visitor wants to see Dirty 6th, right?! Alice was blown away that there are pitchers of booze for sale... at the great price of $15! Shocking.

I don't even want to drink this... But I did. And I kind of liked it.

Here's a recap of where we ate that weekend: 

Brunch at Cover 3, where they have muffin tops! It's like an episode of Seinfeld!

Quick coffee stop at Mozart's on Lake Austin

Beers at the Draught House. We bring everyone here!

A pit stop at the Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood! I mean, you kind of have to go there, right? I guess we could have gone to Franklin's, but the Salt Lick is so much better ambiance! I mean, look at all that meat!

Yep, that's all for 4 of us!

Tacos at TacoDeli -- we didn't get to go by Torchy's for the queso -- so little time!

Another quick stop at Paul Qui's East Side King inside the Hole in the Wall. The ramen was good but nothing AMAZING, the pork buns were fatty but pretty good!

Do you know how to eat ramen? There's a tutorial guide on the wall, just in case!

Last but not least, a stop at Hopdoddy on Anderson. After eating so much meat over the weekend, I opted for a salad. 

While it was a short trip, it was great seeing an old friend and stuffing our faces! I can't wait to visit Cali this year!

P.S. I also sent her home with a dozen kolaches. omgeez.

*Half of the pictures are from Alice's Iphone.

SXSW: Spring Break for Grown Ass People

As an Austinite, there are certain things you can't avoid: traffic and festivals every other month!

I usually try to avoid most of the mayhem, but this year I promised myself that I would do a minimum of three SXSW things. After a staggering 10 day tech/movie/music marathon and roadways being chockful of people, I actually accomplished my goal!

In the end, I'm glad I got out and I actually enjoyed the crowds!


Here is my SXSW 2013 recap:

Sunday 

Started off at the Austin Chamber of Commerce mixer at Max's Wine Dive. 

 

The food was delicious and the Deep Eddy vodka was plentiful. I got a chance to finally meet some of the folks I usually chat with in person -- which is always nice!


Later that night, I got to watch a live taping of Bravo's Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen! I'm a loyal watcher of the show so it was a treat to see Andy less than 10 feet away from me. 

 

I had a blast with Natalia, Edward, and Hannah! Miss Kenya "Gone with the wind fabulous" was one of the guest's that night. 

After the taping, we proceeded to Rain. Oh lookie, Andy showed up here too! Go figure.

Wednesday

After work, a group of us went to the W Hotel for the VH1 Music + Pop Culture Event. 

We waited in line for close to an hour, but we finally made it in... right as Youngblood Hawke was about to take the stage! 

Music, drinks, friendos, cool ranch Doritos... what more can a girl ask for?? 

I even got to chat with VH1 Top 20 host, Jim Shearer, as well as some of his producers.

 

I complained about the show's dvr settings: they have the two-hour show broken up into two shows, instead of having it just as one, really jacks up my dvr timer. But I told them that I'm glad that they air the show in HD now! YAY!

Saturday

My sis decided to come up for the weekend for SXSW festivities and I'm glad she did! We had a fabulous time!

To kick-off the morning, we went to Rachel Ray's Stubb's party. RR has been hosting this party for several years and people love it. 

  

 

{the host with the mostest}

At 11 a.m., the line to get in was backed up towards I-35, CRAZY. Thankfully, we were able to get in without a hitch! The weather was beautiful and the crowd was great!

 

Tequila, vodka. rum, beer, and lots of food. The drink lines were short but the food line was intense. There wasn't a real line, it was more a large mass of people trying to filter into a line. But after 45 minutes of close encounters with random people, Linda and I made it to the food line.

She had a decent menu going: 

 

The sliders was my favorite dish. The chipotle ketchup was good and the buns were fluffy!

This corn soup was everyone's least favorite dish, I think. The pesto dollop on top was not a good addition. 

The carnitas tacos were flavorful but nothing amazing. It didn't matter though, I was so hungry, I inhaled it before I even finished the food line!

Last but not least, the fried chicken. There were wings and tenders -- both were crispy and delicious with a smattering of honey.

After several hours at the RR party, we met up Micah and went to the Cedar Door for the ASOS party. 

ASOS is a British fashion e-tailer, so they had clothing on display. Check out these banana items! 

Red Touch Media was handing out free drives and allowing folks to download free music! Red Touch Media is an offshoot of RedBox... who knew they were going into music and such? Now I know. 

Micah was happy because they had Asahi Black at the party! 

{With Tyler, one of the folks with GiantNoise PR}

Once again, we saw Youngblood Hawke play at this shindig. Two times in one week! They apparently had 10 shows during SXSW -- not sure how they kept up the momentum, but they did. 

Here are some clips from their performance! They even did a Notorious BIG "Juicy" cover!

 

After a week of free events, I have to go back to the real world and actually pay for stuff when I go Downtown -- but I do have free sunglasses as a souvenir.