Tag: beer

Brushing up on Texas history.

Austinites have several nice museums to visit.  The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum is one, and  it is loaded with a number of permanent and rotating exhibits about all things Texas.  On the first Sunday of each month, admission is free, or to be more accurate, HEB picks up the tab (another reason HEB is the best grocery store, hands down, ever).

I like to visit a couple of times a year to see the new exhibits.  In particular today we went to see the Becoming Texas exhibit, and to see the new permanent exhibit for the 17th century recovered French ship that wrecked off of the Gulf Coast of Texas in 1686, La Belle.

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The 54′ La Belle, or at least the portions of the timbers that remain of it, on display at the museum.  This ship crossed the Atlantic, brought munitions, provisions and trade goods to the New World, and then sank off the Texas Gulf Coast.   If you live in or near Austin, you should check out the museum.  Ideally on a free First Sunday.

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Afterwards we visited Zilker Brewing; we’re slowly working our way across all the breweries in Austin.  One must have goals.

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B-bye BB’s.

Last night Monte and I went to our local pub for dinner and to watch Monday Night Football. Since we don’t have cable, we have to go out to watch the Seahawks play. We won! 🙂

It was bittersweet, though. Our local favorite and most awesome pub, BB Rover’s, is closing for good in 2 weeks. 😦

I’ve enjoyed lots of good times and good beers in that place over the last 23 years. Post-softball-game celebrations, after-work happy hours, St. Patrick’s Day corned beef and cabbage dinners, darts, Austin Sailing Society meet-ups, live music and open-mic night, and many games of pinochle with friends. It is very sad to see it go.

Fare thee well, BB Rover’s.

Fall festival.

September 22. Autumnal equinox. I just googled it, and it’s happening right now – 9 pm central. Timing!

In honor of the season, we visited Live Oak Brewery today for their OAKtoberfest. Fun. Nice brews. Oompah music. No rain!

His and hers beer steins…

And the Austin Polka Band…

Prost!

Empty nest.  

Not ones to miss a taproom visit opportunity, we left an hour early to take Fran and family to the airport, stopping in at the Live Oak Brewing Company right across the highway from the Austin airport.  It sure beats the cellphone lot!

Back home, the house is sadly quiet.  Except for Keeto asking “who’s here?”  We await our next visitors!

Colleen sent me these cute wine glass charm birdies.  We tried them out last night.   Cheers!

Salad and suds.

One of the two.

I was hankering for a salad for dinner.  Monte was too.  After a brief tactical evaluation, we decided on BB Rover’s.

This is a pic of the suds.  The salads disappeared pretty quickly.

Nite nite!

Beer me, Marge.

Rover's neon.

I love that it’s getting dark later these days.  I can get more things done after work.  But it does tend to make the days longer.

Tonight it was 8:30 by the time we both sat down and and starting thinking about what to do for dinner.  So, we decided to pop out for a quick, late, bite.  We ended up at our local pub, BB Rover’s.

BB Rover’s is a great bar.   Good food.  Nice patio outside.  Tons of beer.  They have over 300 beers from all over the world to choose from every night.   They have a tradition at BBs – once a patron has tried 100 different beers, their name goes up on the 100 Beer Club wall of fame.  Don’t worry, you don’t have to drink all 100 of them in one night.  🙂  To help keep track, they have a form that you can use to check off different beers as you drink them.

We’ve been going to BBs for a long time…over 16 years.  We have friends that have made it to the wall of fame.  But, I can never seem to make progress towards the 100 milestone.   Oh, I’ve tried.   I just dug up my old scorecard.  I have 23 different beers checked off, so far.  But, try as I might, I usually just end up ordering a Stella on draft.  I guess I know what I like.   Maybe I’ll give it another go.   It could happen.

In our travels to the Caribbean, I’ve found some local lagers that I like:  Carib (Trinidad & Tobago), Kalik (Bahamas), Hairoun (St. Vincent & the Grenadines).  But they are hard to find in the US, so they haven’t made it to BB’s checklist.   I guess we’ll just have to keep going down to the islands for a cold one of them.

I’ll leave you with this (source unknown):

The Beer Prayer 

Our lager,
Which art in barrels,
Hallowed be thy drink.
Thy will be drunk, (I will be drunk),
At home as it is in the tavern.
Give us this day our foamy head,
And forgive us our spillage,
As we forgive those who spill against 
us.
And lead us not to incarceration,
But deliver us from hangovers.
For thine is the beer, the bitter, and 
the lager.

Barmen
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