Hear, Hear! Root Beer! - Post IX

The Pop Shoppe

Packaging: 4 12 oz. Glass Bottles

1969, the Summer of Love, all the way through 1983 saw The Pop Shoppe’s original run, starting in London, Ontario Canada and finding its way in different corners of the world. Sadly, the soda company went away in the early 80’s citing slow sales and market value, only to be resurrected almost 20 years later in 2002 by Brian Alger, an entrepreneur who grew up as a kid drinking The Pop Shoppe brand soda. 9 years later, the soda was re-introduced in the United States, and here we are, at the shelf of my local grocery store.

Pure cane sugar: check. Caffeine free: check. Two essentials that I look for in a root beer and definitely contribute towards the quality of the drink. Licorice is their weapon of choice here, but it’s not overwhelming, leaving only a hint of the ingredient to linger in your mouth. From a taste perspective, it really has more in common with a cola than a root beer, but the “rootiness” is still there. Not heavily carbonated, smooth going down and an average head make for an enjoyable drink.

The drink comes in a nice package, with a heavy 50’s era nostalgia to it dominated with browns, reds and whites. The package is neat in that it’s offset with a raised half, giving more room for the artwork which consists of simple red and white circles. The bottle was kind of a letdown, because from what I’ve seen online and as is shown on the package, the bottle is a short stubby little thing; but what I got was your standard thin 12 ounce long neck. Odd, because the other flavors that The Pop Shoppe makes actually do come in the shorter bottle. The long neck approach doesn’t really hold up well with this drink, and feels inferior and generic compared to other stout bottles like Boylan or Hank’s. The label and the smaller label on the neck are printed onto the clear while glass bottle, and I guess it’s because the glass is clear as opposed to a darker tinted bottle that it gives me a generic feel. The smaller label boasts “since 1969”, which they’re certainly entitled to claim, even if they did take a near 20 year hiatus.

This is a good root beer, and I really like the packaging best. It’s charming and cute, evoking a playful attitude contrary to what other root beers that take themselves to serious project. I’d argue with the bottle if I had to, but I know from what I’ve seen that you can get the stubby bottle shown on the package through other avenues. The drink itself drinks more like a cola with a hint of licorice, but is ultimately smooth going down with an average head. Plus, I’m an advocate for pure cane sugar and caffeine free sodas so this a must try for any root beer purist.

Laura Stevenson: SXSW 2013 acoustic performance -

Aw heck, since I already posted a video from last weeks show, here is another one from a few months ago. Just a snippet of Barnacles being performed solo.

5/1/2013 – Laura Stevenson & The Cans: The Wheel Tour

at The Mohawk - Austin, TX performing a “full band” version of A Shine To It.

5/1/2013 – Laura Stevenson & The Cans: The Wheel Tour

at The Mohawk - Austin, TX

So a few months ago during SXSW, I was lucky enough to watch Laura Stevenson play a solo acoustic set in downtown Austin, but for whatever reasons be, her set got cut ridiculously short. Sadly, my schedule hadn’t permitted me to see her other performances with her full band during the festival, but she was to return at the beginning of May in support of her latest album, Wheel, so I anxiously awaited her return to Austin. The tour featured Field Mouse as the supporting act, and having had seen Field Mouse a few times already, I knew it was going to be a solid show. Wednesday night came around, and I headed downtown around 9:30 PM and parked east of the interstate so as to avoid having to pay for parking. A few blocks of a walk later, I arrived to The Mohawk and met up with some friends of mine, one whom I hadn’t seen in roughly three to four years. I didn’t really watch the opening band, having had gotten carried away conversating, but Field Mouse finally came on around 10:30 PM or so and I watched the first couple of songs before heading back to the bar and catching up with one of my friends. I’d seen Field Mouse a few times before, and they’re really an awesome band, but I’m old and tired and kinda flabby so I needed to sit. I bought Laura Stevenson’s new record, Wheel, at the bands’ merch booth setup along with a tip and a poster before they started setting up on stage. My friend John really liked Field Mouse, and bought two copies of their Tour EP for $5 each because they didn’t have change for a ten. He gave me the extra copy, and left me feeling bad as it was his birthday the following day and I should have been the one buying him something. Sweet guy all around. The band finally started, and they were playing on the inside stage. When I go to The Mohawk, I normally see bands play on the bigger outside stage, but the inside stage was only appropriate considering that the show was on a normal weeknight. Not only that,  but Laura Stevenson’s music is best enjoyed in a confined space. I won’t go into much detail about the performance, but I will say that the band sounded perfect all the way through. Laura was charming and funny, even telling a few cheesy jokes here and there, and the whole band played their latest material flawlessly. Most of the set list consisted of the new record, and rightfully so as this tour was in support of said record. A handful of songs from Sit Resist were included with fewer songs from my beloved A Record mini album. Towards the end of the show, The Cans let Laura play a couple of acoustic songs on her own before they came back out and finished the set. The show was over, everyone applauded for an encore, and out they came and blazed through the punk number Landslide Song, The Dig from A Record which clocks in around just under 2 minutes. All in all, her set lasted around an hour and a half, finally finishing at close to 1:30 in the morning. Laura’s songs hit you really hard emotionally, some more than others, and the sad songs can be a little overwhelming. The dynamics in the music and the ease in which they were executed really lived up to the recorded material, and oftentimes, even surpassed it. This act is one that delivers both on record and live, and since having had gotten their latest full length that was released on April 23^rd of this year, it’s been growing on me more and more each day, growing the same relationship with me as the last two albums have.

Day 31: PART 1 - Wednesday 5/1/2013: South First St./Austin, TX

To be honest, I really didn’t know what to make of La Barbecue when I first saw its sign at the old J Mueller location on South First, but it did have my interest because in the same trailer area sat a frozen custard trailer by the name of Yeti Frozen Custard. You know me by now and my obsession with all things bigfoot (or cousin of the bigfoot, the yeti) and all things barbecue, so this was a location that I had my eyes set on ever since my last trip to Smitty’s Market in Lockhart when I passed this area afterwards for dessert at Bananarchy. Under the sign that read La Barbecue were the words “cuisine texicana”. I suppose because of that, I might have thought that this place would have tried to put some sort of Tex-Mex twist on the classic tradition of BBQ, like tamales on the menu or smoked meats in a taco format. Again, I really didn’t know what to expect based on the name alone but it did have my attention. What I did know was that this very same trailer and set-up used to be troubled barbecue genius John Mueller’s old business that was opened up in 2012 and fell shortly after. A lot of Texans saw J Mueller BBQ as John’s triumphant comeback, and I myself made his location my second entry in this very site. From what the rumor mill says though, there was some controversy surrounding the demise of J Mueller BBQ and apparently his sister bought the place out and rechristened it La Barbecue.

The Mueller name carries a lot of BBQ history and weight with it, so it was no shock that when the wife, the baby and I arrived here on the first day of May on a Wednesday, displayed proudly on the trailer door was the infamous picture of barbeque legend Bobby Mueller standing in front of the Texas flag. I skipped breakfast on this day because while I didn’t know what to expect, I wanted to try enough of the menu to really get a feel for the place. The parking here can be difficult, and as we drove into the trailer area, we had no luck in finding a spot, so we had to park in the surrounding neighborhood and walk to the trailer. Of course, once we got there, 2 or 3 spots became open, but the lunch rush was fixing to begin so we waited in line and watched the line grow behind us. Good thing we got here a little after 11:00 AM because this place is open from 11:00 AM until they sell out of food. Comparing the setup from what it is now versus what it used to be under the name J Mueller BBQ wasn’t much of a difference. There were plenty of picnic tables but with an important improvement from what I remember last time; canopy’s covering the tables instead of a makeshift cover getting blown around by the wind. Everything for the most part was familiar, and now that it was my turn to order, I walked up to the window and the girl taking our order gave my wife and I a bite sized sample of brisket. My knees instantly buckled, it was that good, and I almost lost my train of thought. Amazed at the quality of meat, I remembered my order and put in for a half pound of brisket, one sausage link, one beef rib and a side of chipotle slaw. The gal serving us pulled out a whole brisket, unwrapped it and effortlessly cut through the meat to measure out our order. The knife cut through with such ease that you could have sworn the contents of the brisket were just butter. We also ordered two Topo Chico bottles of mineral water, and in all reality, this was probably as close to “cuisine texicana” that the menu got. From what I gathered, everything on the menu was basically traditional Texas barbeque with the exception of the “El Sancho” sandwich and the bottled water that we ordered. One could argue that the chipotle slaw was “texicana” as well but this was the same side offered back in the J Mueller BBQ days, so while I failed to see what made La Barbecue so “texicana”, I had three meats staring me in the face begging to be eaten, so I took my food to the pay window, handed over approximately $35.00 for our lunch, scored some pickles, onions and bread, and worked my way to a nearby picnic table as the line continued to grow.

I took some pictures of my food and if the sample of brisket that I had was any indication, I was going to be in for a real treat. Naturally I tried the brisket first and I was breathless. Easily the most tender, juicy, succulent and perfectly smoked brisket that I have had since my trip to Franklin Barbecue. I make the comparison because former Franklin Barbecue pit boss John Lewis now tends to the pits here at La Barbecue, and what I tasted was quite possibly the closest thing to rival Aaron Franklins take in the brisket category. Words really do this meat no justice as this is pure taste heaven. The brisket has a ridiculous smoke ring to it, so deep and dark pink that it’s just beautiful and a shame to eat. The fat is evenly spread throughout the whole cut giving off just the right touch of saltiness. The rub was heavy on the pepper but so infectious with the caked in juices and smoke that I found myself just gnawing away at the rub in some cases. Hands down, this was easily the closest thing I have gotten to the perfection that is Franklin Barbecue brisket, and I have pit boss John Lewis to thank for that. Next was La Barbecue’s take on hot guts, or rather, Texas sausage. Their sausage is made on site, and the link looked really good, so I started slicing it up in smaller bits so all three of us could enjoy. This stuff was spicy, maybe too spicy. Spicy enough that my poor little girl had to spit it out, but I managed to hold mine down. The problem here was that there was just way too much spice that you really didn’t know what was going on with the actual sausage. The heat was so intense that I didn’t know what I was tasting besides flame. The texture was good, with a nice casing that had plenty of snap to it but I couldn’t really gather much more than that. There were two sauces on our table, one labeled sweet and another labeled tangy. To be frank, I didn’t try the sauce with the brisket because there was no need to. The brisket did much more than carry its own weight, but I tried the sauce with the sausage and while the tangy one was too watery for my taste, the sweet one really delivered. Lots of sugar to it, it managed to make the sausage flame much more tolerable. I moved onto the one side that we ordered, the chipotle slaw, and we were back yet again in the same boat that we were with the sausage. All spice, all heat, but in the distant background, I could taste a perfect side. Let’s tone down the heat here La Barbecue, I’m all for a good spice but when it overtakes the food, then we may want to reevaluate some things. Still, this slaw was as good as I remembered it being during my last visit in the J Mueller BBQ days, just that the heat was on overdrive. Finally I saved the beef rib for last. This was one humungous rib, setting me back a whopping $14.00 so I better have liked it. I did in fact enjoy this behemoth of a rib, and it was so fall of the bone that there was no point in even trying to pick it up. I used some plastic cutlery, cut away at the huge hunks of fat and tore away at the meat with a fork. Beef ribs are known to be really fatty, so it was really cool of the girl that served us to knock off a few bucks based on the amount of fat on this thing. The meat was juicy and tender and ate almost like a roast. I went back to the sweet sauce and the meat could really go either way. I guess the only bad thing about this beef rib was that most of the weight was due to the bone and the fat because there wasn’t a generous amount of beef on it. It was still really good and perfectly smoked though, just not as good of a beef rib as I’ve had at the Texas Rib Kings but still a top notch rib. I went back to whatever was left of the brisket, and picked any little bits that I could muster up before I called it a meal.

The brisket in itself was the winner for this whole lunch, with the beef rib coming in second, and the burning hot sausage and slaw coming in third. I’m curious to try the pork ribs now because they looked amazing at the order counter, and I’d like to try my hand at their sandwiches. I’m not done with this place by a long shot, it still warrants another visit soon because the brisket was just too amazing and essentially carries most of the weight on my final food score. In truth, if brisket was the only thing I ate here, I would have both been completely satisfied and I would have given a score of 5. Looking around at the trailer space area, Yeti Frozen Custard was missing. That would have really made for a perfect dessert, but at the same time, I was so full that maybe I was a good thing that they weren’t here. Stuffed and in a meat coma, we got up and sluggishly headed back to the car. This was just my lunch hour at work, so sadly, I couldn’t adventure any longer, but I will be back here in the near future, and you should really do a favor and head here yourself for the brisket alone. If you can’t stomach the idea of waiting in line at Franklin Barbecue for hours on end but want the same quality brisket, you will definitely get it here.

Now for the score ranked from 1 (Poor) – 5 (Best)

Location/Facility – 3

Service/Staff – 3.5

Food – 4.5

Drink – 3

Hear, Hear! Root Beer! - Post VIII

Boylan Bottleworks Brand Root Beer

Packaging: 4 12 oz. Glass Bottles

The Boylan Bottling Company has some serious history behind it, starting in 1891 by pharmacist William Boylan in Paterson, New Jersey and originally strictly a birch beer before evolving through the years, encompassing an assortment of flavors throughout its existence. Though there is a wide array of selection offered by the Boylan Bottling Company, the flavor we’re concerned with here is root beer. Boylan uses a pretty complex recipe to build their root beer, with sassafras, yucca extract, cinnamon, anise, black pepper, mushroom, sweet birch, extracts of chocolate and coffee, vanilla, and wintergreen oil. Don’t get distracted though, the end result is pretty traditional, with the wintergreen and yucca taking center stage. The carbonation is pretty heavy though, with plenty of bite with each swallow. Be warned because this root beer bites back hard. The head has a decent thickness and doesn’t fizzle easily, and the pure cane sugar is always welcome. The bottle is really attractive, with raised lettering and a professional circular logo dressed onto a stern and commanding 12 ounce dark colored glass bottle.  The packaging itself combines dark and light tones offset by yellow and a classic font that conjures the history of the beverage, with the words “vintage soda pop” on the lower left side and the words “family run since 1891” on the lower right side really driving the point home that this soft drink has remained true to its ‘roots’ through the ages. I really like this root beer, and the bottle alone makes thirst for one. Luckily, even though this is a smaller gourmet soda, it is available in many different restaurants and grocers around my area so it’s never difficult to get a hold of one. A root beer well suited for newcomers to the world of root beer, veterans or even just the occasional curious individual; I don’t see any of the mentioned being put off by this one.

April Summary –

Just as I had predicted, April was a pretty mild month for my blog, but that’s not to say that there wasn’t any activity because there certainly was enough, just not as busy as March was. April took me out to Lockhart, TX, the official BBQ capital of Texas, to Smitty’s Market. This was a pretty big deal for me because of the 4 big ‘cue joints in Lockhart, I had only been to two in the past, Kreuz and Black’s. Smitty’s is a BBQ restaurant synonymous with Texas barbecue, so this was definitely a much needed visit and turned out to be more than well worth the drive. While this was the only restaurant I visited for the entire month of April, I was fortunate enough to drive out to Drippings Springs for the 26^th Founders Day Festival, which hosted a number of different cookoffs including the obligatory barbeque cookoff. Different BBQ vendors, restaurants, competition teams and businesses dominated the food tents and offered a sampling of their product in exchange for a tip. I didn’t “indulge” in smoked meats as much as I’d hoped since I used the majority of my tip money to let my little girl ride different rides in the little carnival setup, but I’d rather have done that for her regardless and I had enough of a taste of the ‘cue being offered at the festival. I took a handful of pictures from the different vendors but there was plenty more in attendance that I didn’t picture.

 I also experimented in my own backyard with a new rib rub during a weekend backyard barbecue. The rub consisted of a decent amount of cinnamon and chili powder with lesser amounts of salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic. I used pecan wood and after an hour and a half of smoking the ribs, I wrapped the rack of ribs in foil and let them finish cooking in apple cider vinegar and apple juice. I realize that the taste palette was all over the place, but I really just went this route by way of experimentation. The end result was a rub that everyone complimented. Personally, I felt that I went too heavy on the cinnamon and could have cut out some of the other flavors, but nobody else seemed to notice or mind. My only complaint was the length of time that it took to cook my rack of ribs. I was shooting for 6 hours but my heat source was pretty high, so they were done around 3-4 hours. The result was a tough meat devoid of moisture which was disappointing to me but at least I got to toy around with a new rub. Of course, you can see the pictures attached to the top of this post to visually judge for yourself.

The end of March actually marked the 1 year anniversary of my blog, but due to lack of time, I made a celebratory post to commemorate my blogs birthday in early to mid-April. Listed was a recap of every barbecue restaurant I had visited and covered on this site along with the different root beers that I have covered so far. And speaking of root beer, I managed to post about two different beverages during April; Henry Weinhard’s Root Beer and Thomas Kemper Root Beer. Two opposing entries for sure, since the former is one of my favorite root beers but the latter left much to be desired.

April was an easy going month overall, with enough activity to keep me busy with my posts. 2 entries for Hear, Hear! Root Beer!, 1 trip to a BBQ joint, a visit to a barbecue cookoff and a celebratory post recapping a years’ worth of blogging is all still available for your reading pleasure. May should be interesting too and I have a lot to look forward to, with two upcoming vacations, a music festival, a handful of shows, my birthday and a few barbeque visits in mind. We’ll see how May goes but I can easily count April’s summary as a success, so until next time, happy moshing!

26th Founders Day Festival - Dripping Springs, TX

While the Founders Day Festival in Dripping Springs, TX on April 20th 2013 wasn’t exactly an exclusively barbecue only event, there was still a plethora of barbecue vendors offering the general public plenty of smoked meats. Naturally, there was a cookoff scheduled for later on in the evening, crowning the best of the best in various categories; not just in BBQ, but in chili and fajitas. The idea behind the food was to leave a tip to the vendor of your choosing (which goes towards charity), and they would give you a sampling of their meats. I came with some loose cash in hopes of trying out a few stands, and while I did get to sample some pork ribs, brisket and pork shoulder, I ultimately spent my loose cash on my little one at the little carnival that they had set up. It was more than worth it to see my little girl have fun on a little train ride, helicopter ride, merry-go-round and a ride that suspended her in mid air while she had an enormous smile on her face. Money well spent for sure on her, and much more satisfying than sampling a ton of ‘cue. I did learn however, to come equipped with plenty more cash next year so I can both let her go on rides to her hearts content and stuff myself with greasy smoked meats to my own hearts content as well.

While there were much more vendors in attendance at this festival, pictured above are just a few of the teams and restaurants that put in some hard work to feed the public and raise tip money to go towards good charitable causes.

26th Founders Day Festival - Dripping Springs, TX

While the Founders Day Festival in Dripping Springs, TX on April 20th 2013 wasn’t exactly an exclusively barbecue only event, there was still a plethora of barbecue vendors offering the general public plenty of smoked meats. Naturally, there was a cookoff scheduled for later on in the evening, crowning the best of the best in various categories; not just in BBQ, but in chili and fajitas. The idea behind the food was to leave a tip to the vendor of your choosing (which goes towards charity), and they would give you a sampling of their meats. I came with some loose cash in hopes of trying out a few stands, and while I did get to sample some pork ribs, brisket and pork shoulder, I ultimately spent my loose cash on my little one at the little carnival that they had set up. It was more than worth it to see my little girl have fun on a little train ride, helicopter ride, merry-go-round and a ride that suspended her in mid air while she had an enormous smile on her face. Money well spent for sure on her, and much more satisfying than sampling a ton of ‘cue. I did learn however, to come equipped with plenty more cash next year so I can both let her go on rides to her hearts content and stuff myself with greasy smoked meats to my own hearts content as well.

While there were much more vendors in attendance at this festival, pictured above are just a few of the teams and restaurants that put in some hard work to feed the public and raise tip money to go towards good charitable causes.

Hear, Hear! Root Beer! - Post VII

Thomas Kemper Root Beer

Packaging: 4 12 oz. Glass Bottles

Thomas Kemper Soda Co. is a soda brewing company owned by Portland, OR company Adventure Funds. Their history goes back to 1990, surviving through many mergers and acquisitions but still remains active, and to this day, their root beers are still handcrafted as they were 23 years ago. The packaging is fairly simple, giving off a very beer-like appearance, with browns, golds and tans being the main colors. The cases come with four 12 ounce glass bottles with a short neck and a stubby body.  At first glance, Thomas Kemper Root Beer sounds promising, boasting pure cane sugar, caffeine free, and “the right note of vanilla and sassafras”. Naturally, this caught my attention, but another extra ingredient is what really turned me off; natural northwest honey. Lots of root beers include some level of honey, but where Thomas Kemper really seemed promising, the honey takes center stage with this drink and takes away from the potential creaminess that could have been made obvious with the vanilla or rooty bite with the sassafras. What I was presented at first sip tastes really good, but that honey aftertaste kind of leaves you with a confusing look on your face. For those that like honey and root beer, this might be right up your alley, but I myself like a “rooty” flavor with a nice balance of vanilla, so sadly, this one isn’t really for me.

Day 30: Saturday 4/14/2013: Lockhart, TX

Day 30: Saturday 4/14/2013: Lockhart, TX

Having had just crossed my 1 year anniversary doing this blog, it seemed fitting to make my next visit to a somewhat reputable location. When it comes to barbecue reputation, you can’t really go wrong with Lockhart, TX; and having had only been to Kreuz and Blacks, I was long overdue to a visit to Smitty’s Market, Inc. (known simply as Smitty’s to most people). A blogging celebration of sorts, the family and I headed off around 1:30 PM, made a quick stop to UT to pick up my brother-in-law, then worked our way out to Lockhart while my little one was passed out in her car seat from a rambunctious morning of playtime. Approximately 25 minutes and we arrived to Smitty’s, right off of Highway 183.

Pulling into a dirt parking lot, I knew that I was stepping into a time warp years in the past. Now, I’m not going to go on about the drama behind the family history that links Smitty’s and Kreuz together, you can find plenty of writings on it online; I will say however, that Kreuz was originally housed in the location that Smitty’s is in for years until differences affected the institution in the late 90’s and made way for Smitty’s. Walking in through the back entrance, the time warp effect is really illustrated, as you are greeted with a hot open fire feeding the brick pits and are surrounded by blackened walls affected with years of smoke and soot. There was a small line alongside a rail and coming to a counter in which you order just the meats. I couldn’t help but feel for the poor girls tasked with operating the cash registers here as they were just a few feet away from the scorching pits, but at the same time, this is really the style of setup that I prefer best when it comes to traditional BBQ. This setup is almost identical to that of Kreuz and City Market in Luling, or somewhat similar to Opie’s in Spicewood and Cooper’s in Llano. Order your meats and pay for them first in the pit room, then order your sides and pay for them separately in the actual dining area.

The meat order was simple and traditional: 1 pound of ribs, 1 pound of brisket and 2 full sausage links all wrapped up in brown butcher paper doubling as a plate (the best way to have your meat served). It was considerably busy in the dining area, with limited space and tables connected together. We poked around for a bit looking for an open area to sit in, even considering eating in another room close to the pit room, however, with it being just too uncomfortably hot there, we poked around a bit longer in the dining area until some seats became available close to the ordering counter. Not exactly what I’d call family friendly in here, I plopped my kiddo in a metal chair while my wife went to order sides and drinks. I really like how they do their sides here, coming in almost “fun size” portions (allowing you to focus mostly on the smoked meats) as she returned with cole slaw and potato salad. Additionally, she had a Big Red for herself and an RC Cola for me, both in glass bottles. It’s worth noting that Smitty’s Market is in fact, a market. Literally, in a room over sits a cold meat market where you can order uncooked meats in addition to other goods. In the dining area, you can order your sides along with avocado’s, tomatoes, cheese and other foods. Avocado and cheese has been somewhat of a tradition in Lockhart barbecue, and something that I haven’t really toyed with, so I went up to the counter and bought one avocado and 2 blocks of sharp cheddar cheese.

I sat back down and began my meal, starting first with the brisket. We had both lean and moist brisket, and I started with the moist. This meat could really be summed up as the best part of greasy and juicy. While I’m used to getting cuts of brisket that are either greasy or juicy, this cut managed to have both, and made the eating experience quite manageable as the meat wasn’t overwhelmingly greasy thanks to the juiciness of it all. They offered sauce, but since I had an avocado and a block of cheese, I used these instead and both worked great with the brisket. The avocado gave the brisket a nice creamy consistency with it while the cheese contributed a sharpness that almost dominated the meat flavor. I moved onto the sausage and I instantly thought Kreuz market, further demonstrating the link (honestly, no pun intended) between the two places. They call the sausage “hot rings” here, but hey, sausage is sausage, whether you’re calling it a hot ring here or “hot guts” in Elgin. I was met with a really abrasive casing, chewy and difficult to bite through, but once you tear into it, you are greeted with some of the best sausage you’ll come across. Like the moist cut of brisket, this was also on the greasy side, but with sausage this good, it’s definitely something that you can look past. Sausage of this consistency can really fill you up pretty quick, so I put it down to fit in some potato salad and the ribs. The potato salad here was a mustard base, and was pretty average fare and only made it that more obvious that people aren’t flocking here for the sides. It was a decent little concoction, but nothing to really write home about. Decent cuts of tender potatoes with your usual veggies thrown in and a mild mustard presence made for a decent way to segue into another meat, which was a huge pork rib for me. Up until now, my experience with the meat had proved smokey and greasy, but in the best way of course. Now working my way to the third meat, I was surprised when what I tasted was a sweet crispy exterior followed by an ultra-tender interior. You really can’t argue with pork ribs getting the sweet treatment, and these guys really do it right. Not overwhelmingly sweet either like what you see when it comes to Kansas City style fare, but just sweet enough to really let the meat still stand on its own. This was the fall off the bone meat that you come to expect from ribs, and after my last botched attempt at cooking ribs (they had lots of pull and heavy floss was needed afterwards), it was nice to let the real pitmasters take the lead and deliver some quality tender pork ribs. I still had plenty of meat on my plate, so I ate some of the lean brisket. This wasn’t as good as the moist, with the cut running with the grain and giving long strands of meat instead. It was a little dry and pretty chewy, but still had plenty of bark on the end and a nice smoke ring. The bark was really the highlight but the cuts of meat were still okay and better than what some other places offer as their best. There was one last rib and everyone else was already pretty full, so I went ahead and devoured it myself. Just like my other rib, I wasn’t disappointed in the least with it. The meat still came off of the bone easily and had that perfect sweet and crispy exterior with a background taste of the post oak wood used. This whole time, we had plenty of white bread and crackers on our butcher paper plates, but the meat was the big draw and I barely nibbled on one slice of bread, while completely ignoring the crackers.

The bad thing about getting a soda in a bottle is that once it’s gone, you really can’t go back for refills, so I made sure to save the last swig of RC Cola for the end of my meal. I commend this place for offering plenty of bottle selections of soda, from RC and Big Red to Frostie Root Beer and others. Soda in cans were also offered, but I don’t recall seeing a fountain anywhere, although I could be completely wrong considering how busy it was. Looking around the busy dining area, the walls were covered with antique brand tins like Butter Krust, RC Cola and Red Rock Cola while another end of a wall was decorated in framed acclaim, from awards to newspaper and magazine coverage of Smitty’s. Right behind our table was a counter that served Blue Bell ice cream, but I didn’t have ice cream on my mind as I had a different place lined up for dessert. The staff was helpful in taking away our empty glass bottles, and taking it as a sign to hurry up and get out, I threw away all of our trash and worked my way through the hallway that connects the restaurant to the meat market. A few people sat in the hallway benches surrounded by walls charred with years of smoke and nothing decorating them. It was really confusing being in this hallway, feeling so out of place with modern times. Again, I couldn’t help but feel that I had travelled backwards through time, and after taking a few pictures of the hallway, my family soon came through the restaurant exit door and we all exited the main door to the outside. To help work our food down, we walked completely around Lockhart’s town square, finally coming back to the car and heading back into the city.

My experience here at Smitty’s was unique, and from my experiences at many different ‘cue joints in the last year, I can summarize my experience as being the familiar setup and similar food offerings that you get at Kreuz with the history and atmosphere that you get at Louie Mueller in Taylor, TX. My favorite meat was the sausage with the pork ribs coming in second and the moist brisket being just a hair away from the ribs. The lean brisket could definitely have been better and the potato salad was good but nothing worth getting excited over. The avocado and cheese was a perfect alternative to sauce, and considering that sauce can be frowned upon at times here in Lockhart, will probably be my best bet for future visits. Smitty’s Market is full of history, and you can really feel it everywhere in this place. For being my first time eating here, I left completely satisfied and all of my expectations were completely met. Now the drive back into the city was about 25-30 minutes away and like I mentioned earlier, I had plans for dessert. I had to basically force myself into being hungry because my next stop was to South First St. to a place that I hadn’t been to in close to a year, the frozen banana stand Bananarchy.

Now for the score ranked from 1 (Poor) – 5 (Best)

Location/Facility – 5

Service/Staff – 3

Food – 4

Drink – 4

Happy Belated 1 Year Birthday!

I realize that this entry is a little overdue but bear with me, last month was a really busy month for my writings.

March 26^th, 2012…..the day that I started this blog. Just a little over a year ago, my work started humbly enough while eating a chopped brisket barbecue sandwich at Smokey Mo’s and taking a picture of the restaurant’s logo on my cup. It really hit me like a bolt of lightning that day. Mostly growing up in the Hill Country, barbecue is as normal here as blazing hot summers, so with it being so second-nature, I never really paid much attention to the culture that surrounds this unique tradition. I remember common Sundays as a kid after church, my family would drive out to Kingsland or Llano in a beat up old station wagon and feast on smoked meats, beans, potato salad, pickles and lots of white bread, generally in a rundown old BBQ joint with picnic tables on a dirt floor as the main dining area. Family gatherings were no different, with brisket consistently being a staple; but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I really began to understand the difference between Texas BBQ and the rest of the South, most important being the focus on beef (more specifically brisket, not pork) in the Central Texas tradition. Brisket is the prized meat here, and as I have found out, the most difficult to master. That day during the end of March last year, I thought that it would be interesting to document all of my future visits to each barbecue restaurant that I visit and rate them based on a rating system that I felt would be appropriate. I explored different hosting platforms and decided that Tumblr would be the best route for my endeavor, and created this blog with the BBQ being the driving force behind it. In truth, I’ve shocked myself in that I’ve managed to keep this up for a year now and I really have no plans on slowing down. While barbecue is the main focus here, I’ve managed to commit a fair amount of posts to my music interests, and to a lesser extent, some writings concerning my obsession with the Bigfoot/Sasquatch mystery. This work is more or less a way in which to see my skewed view of the world through my eyes, with the angle reduced specifically to my main interests.  At the start of the year, I even expanded my blog further by starting a new feature focused solely on root beer and have managed to log six entries so far. The feature is specifically a bi-weekly entry, so although I’ve drank inordinate amounts of root beer, the feature is really designed to give some consistency on my tumblr page.  Counting my most recent BBQ visit, I’ve visited and reviewed 29 BBQ joints so far, even visiting some places and writing about them more than once. That may seem petty considering that I’ve had more than a year to explore the world of ‘cue, but you have to remember that I’m a working father on a budget; short on time and short on money. In either case, all 29 visits that I’ve logged have had their fair share of adventure with family and friends and have even inspired me to go down the road of an aspiring pitmaster. With so many BBQ restaurants in the Hill Country, I haven’t even began to scratch the surface; so with that said, I have listed below each BBQ joint that I’ve visited/reviewed on this site. All reviews are still up for your reading enjoyment, so if you see a place on my list that you may be curious about, by all means, go take a look. Now let’s see where my second year of doing this work takes me!

BBQ Restaurants (In chronological order)

Smokey Mo’s – Northwest Austin

J Mueller – South Austin [Closed]

Mann’s Smokehouse – North Central Austin

Black’s Barbecue – Lockhart, TX

Dickey’s Barbecue Pit – Central Austin & South Austin/Sunset Valley

Branch Bar-B-Q & Catering – North Austin/Pflugerville

Stubb’s Bar-B-Q – Downtown Austin

Opie’s BBQ – Spicewood, TX

J&J Burgers and BBQ – Cedar Park/Leander, TX

Southside Market – Elgin, TX

Johnny T’s Round Rock B-B-Q – Round Rock, TX

Donn’s B-B-Q – Oak Hill/Southeast Austin

Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q – Northwest Austin/Jollyville

Kreuz Market – Lockhart, TX

Pok-E-Jo’s Smokehouse – North Austin

Franklin Barbecue – Downtown Austin

City Market – Luling, TX

Bill Miller Bar-B-Q – South Austin

Ruby’s B-B-Q – University of Texas/Downtown Austin

Peete Mesquite – Marble Falls, TX

The Salt Lick – Old Settlers Park/Round Rock, TX

Stiles Switch BBQ & Brew – North Lamar/Central Austin

Cooper’s Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que – Llano, TX

Louie Mueller Barbecue – Taylor, TX

Snow’s BBQ – Lexington, TX

M, N & J’s Rocky Creek BBQ – Bee Cave/Dripping Springs

Blue Ribbon Barbecue – Downtown Austin

Texas Rib Kings BBQ & Catering – North Austin

Smitty’s Market Inc. – Lockhart, TX

Root Beer (Documented bi-weekly effective January 2013)

Hank’s Gourmet Root Beer

Sioux City Root Beer

WBC/Goose Island Root Beer

Gale’s Root Beer

Original Stewart’s Root Beer

Henry Weinhard’s Root Beer

Hear, Hear! Root Beer! - Post VI

Henry Weinhard’s Root Beer

Packaging: 6 12 oz. Glass Bottles

Blitz-Weinhard Co., based in the Pacific Northwest manufactures Henry Weinhard beverages, which is mostly a beer based company. While the Blitz-Weinhard Co. is situated in the Pacific Northwest, the soft drink portion of the company is based out of Fort Worth, TX. Lots of beer companies dabble in root beer, so it’s not unheard of that Henry Weinhard, mostly a beer company, makes this root beer. It is however, sad that I couldn’t even find the soft drinks on their official website. As great as this root beer is, it definitely warrants some mention on the company’s official site, but who knows; maybe I was just looking in the wrong place. Nonetheless, Henry Weinhard’s Root Beer is one of the best root beers I’ve had, and comes as a shock as it contains high fructose corn syrup. The formula also combines honey and vanilla in addition to the essential sassafras and acacia extracts, and while I have had bad luck with root beers that combine honey in the past, this one has a very subtle honey taste to it and is more focused on the vanilla, acacia and sassafras. The packaging boasts a draught style head, and this root beer definitely has the most persistently thick head out of any other root beers that I’ve tried. I think that the thick foamy goodness is really what draws me to this one in addition to its near flawless taste. The packaging is also essential to the product as it really gives off a classic feel. For lack of better words, this is what a root beer should look like. There are lots of light and heavy browns on both the paper and bottle packaging, a black and white image of Henry Weinhard himself, and a case consisting of 6 bottles instead of the standard 4. The bottle packaging really screams gourmet soda with its dark bottle that compliments the dark drink inside, long necks with an elegant paper label wrapped around them and a bottle cap that illustrates Henry Weinhard saying different things in a word bubble. In the one pictured here, he simply says, “MMM…..my favorite”. Henry Weinhard brags about its age, with “since 1856” visible on its website, and rightfully so. The man left Germany for America in 1856 and brewed his specialty beer recipe in Portland. The fact of the matter though is that it’s a beer based brand, but the root beer recipe is near perfect and this is one gourmet root beer that really lives up to the “gourmet” tag. Like I said, this is one of my favorite root beers thus far, so I encourage any fan of good root beer to give this one a try.

March Summary –

Wow was March a crazy month for my blog, so many adventures both for BBQ and music that I don’t even know where to begin, but here we go, let’s give it a shot. For BBQ, I visited 7 places, probably a record for me since I started doing this blog almost a year ago. Where did I eat at this month? Let’s count:

Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, TX (first time visit)

Southside Market in Elgin, TX (second entry in this blog)

Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor, TX (first time visit)

Rocky Creek BBQ in Bee Cave/Dripping Springs, TX (first time visit)

Blue Ribbon Barbecue in downtown Austin (first time visit)

Texas Rib Kings in North Austin (first time visit)

Opie’s BBQ in Spicewood, TX (undocumented)

So that’s 7 places I went to in March for delicious ‘cue, 5 first time visits, 1 second entry and 1 undocumented visit. Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to make three of those trips (1-3) without the help of PBS’s Daytripper Chet Garner since the beginning part of the month saw me taking a mini-daytrip along with him and 49 other hungry BBQ enthusiasts. The trip was worthwhile, and I got to visit two places that I has always wanted to go out and visit. Although I had a blast, you can only imagine just how stuffed you can get on a trip like this; but should the television program host another event like this in the future, I’ll be one of the first to sign up for it. My next trip was a stop to Rocky Creek BBQ somewhere in the middle of Bee Cave and Dripping Springs. More of a sampling rather than a full-fledged visit, this was a barbecue drive thru that had always perked my curiosity. Next, I found myself at Blue Ribbon BBQ in downtown Austin during the SXSW music portion of the festival. This was a BBQ joint that I had sampled in the past during a vendor tent at another music festival, but this time, I was at the brick and mortar location and I got to try the real menu. A visit to the Texas Rib Kings was my 6^th visit, and true to their name, they served up some quality ribs that cemented their place in barbeque royalty. Finally, my last barbecue trip found me in Spicewood for an undocumented visit to Opie’s BBQ. I say undocumented because I didn’t review my visit here, feeling it’s no longer needed as I’ve already covered Opie’s twice on this site. Nonetheless, it was still a visit that really happened, so it’s only fair that I mention it.

Furthermore, not only did I visit 7 places but I was tasked with hosting Easter Sunday at my house this year. The mission was to smoke a full brisket, two racks of ribs and about 12 sausage links. An arduous task indeed, and although I was short on time, I threw caution to the wind and went head first. Since I was short on time, I had to abandon my preferred “low and slow” method of traditional barbecuing and go for a “hot and fast” approach. Don’t worry, I didn’t use direct heat, but rather, I used a much hotter internal temperature to get the meat done much quicker, like, a total 4-5 hour cooking time. The quality of the work certainly suffers in cases like these, and even though everyone said it was good, I knew that I’ve produced better quality meat in the past and time was the real key. On a positive note though, I’m becoming increasingly comfortable in controlling my flame, and I also toyed around with my own rub for the brisket and ribs. The brisket was treated with a combination of salt, pepper, garlic powder and a heavy dose of onion powder. The ribs got the same treatment, except I mixed in a little bit of chili powder and brown sugar. I smoked some sausage links and my sister made some pretty good egg heavy potato salad. My wife made some cream corn comparable to that of Rudy’s, if not better, and some amazing BBQ baked beans. Top it off with some strawberry cake made from scratch and my mother’s jello made for a pretty filling Easter dinner. I washed it all down with some ice cold root beer and watched the meats slowly disappear. Plenty of pictures from my smoked meats are attached to this post, but that’s enough about food.

In the world of music, I went to my annual South By Southwest music festival. While the music festival portion runs for most of the week of spring break, I have always historically only gone to Thursday – Saturday, and this year was no different. While my schedule for the festival was pretty light, I still had a ton of fun and got to see much of what I had wanted to along with a few surprises. Instead of music, I was dangerously close to having my SXSW weekend consist of bigfoot since I had originally planned to attend the annual Texas Bigfoot Conference hosted in Fort Worth this year. Too short on time to plan the trip, our plans fell through and I missed my chance to meet two of my favorite cryptid researchers, Josh Gates from the television show Destination Truth and renowned bigfoot researcher Professor Jeff Meldrum. I still made the most of my SXSW week, so it really wasn’t much of a loss. The Sunday of SXSW, my family and I went to the Austin Rodeo for some rides, food and animals. There’s an annual BBQ cook off here on Saturday, and walking into the grounds, we saw the truck for the television show BBQ Pitmasters. I love season one of that show, and while the format carried on in season 2 through now doesn’t really hold my attention, it still features much of the cast from the first season. After a couple of hours of family fun, we walked to where the bus was and there sat Myron Mixon, Tuffy Stone and frequent guest judge, Austin’s own Aaron Franklin. I had asked one of the crew members if I could meet the cast, more specifically Myron, and he said that they were in the middle of filming but I could come by later on and it would be no problem. We hung out for about 15 minutes, but in all honesty, they could have had hours of filming ahead of them so we left hot and tired. It would’ve been pretty rad to meet Myron since he’s a pretty acclaimed prize winner in the world of BBQ, but who knows, maybe they’ll be here next year. Wait a minute, I thought I was done talking about food? This should be the music part. Well, in other music stuff aside from SXSW, I picked up the new David Bowie record, “The Next Day” and the new Rival Mob album “Mob Justice”. Both amazing records, both highly anticipated in my opinion, and both getting lots of play in my car stereo.

My latest feature, “Hear, Hear! Root Beer!” didn’t get much attention in March, with only one entry on Original Stewart’s Root Beer. With so much writing going on during the month, I had to skip the second Saturday entry. Not a big deal though since I have plenty of root beers ready to cover and I don’t anticipate that April will be as busy as March was for my blog. So, if you’re still reading this, I have a ton of posts that you can still read below and they are as follows: A four part post that covers my Daytripper BBQ Tour with PBS’s Chet Garner; an entry in “Hear, Hear! Root Beer!” covering Original Stewart’s Root Beer; a trip to Rocky Creek BBQ touching upon a sampling of their food; my 3 day coverage and 3 part post of a thinner yet equally fun South by Southwest music festival along with a post about a trip to Blue Ribbon Barbecue during the music festival; and finally, a mouthwatering trip to Texas Rib Kings for an eye opening surprise in rib heaven.  March was truly one busy month with much more that I just couldn’t fit in. I don’t anticipate what April has in store for me, I really don’t have any plans so we’ll just see how things pan out. If you really want to know what my day to day is like, friend me on Facebook, but until next time, happy moshing!