The last time I went to a Flying Saucer beer festival (the fall 2009 fest at the Fort Worth location), I learned that tasting the big, bad, high-gravity and high-ABV beers before trying lighter brews can throw off your tastebuds and make the latter drinks seem puny by comparison. At…
As many of our Internet-savvy readers have figured out by now, Andrea Grimes is back at ye ol’ Dallas Observer. After less than a week back on the beat, Grimes and I had enjoyed way more than one alcoholic beverage together — holy effers, someone alert the Dallas Marketing Group!…
Thanks to my generous in-laws, Lady Hophead and I headed to the Meddlesome Moth Monday night to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary. Her mother and stepdad offered to take us to a much fancier restaurant, but we felt the Moth, with one of the best beer selections in Dallas, was…
For most music lovers, any old beer will do at a concert or club show as long as the music is good. At, say, Verizon Theatre or whatever they’re calling it these days, a big plastic cup or two full of American macro-lager is all it takes to get in…
I wouldn’t classify my mother as a real big drinker. More like a rare drinker. She’s never had a predilection for Pinot Grigio, and she doesn’t require a cocktail during her nightly stories. On a special occasion, however, she definitely perks up to a good Bloody Mary…prolly like your mom.On…
Just as I was finishing off the sample pack Harpoon sent recently, a few free samples from Magic Hat arrived, offering a nice opportunity to compare IPAs from two well-established New England craft brewers. The contrast between the two companies could hardly be starker. Magic Hat has a markedly lighter,…
As mentioned in Hophead a couple of weeks back, this week (May 17 to 23) is American Craft Beer Week. That item already mentioned the Texas Craft Brewers Festival Saturday night at the Dancing Bear Pub in Waco, but there are a few other ways to celebrate closer to home…
Ask for a Shiner in any Texas bar and you’re almost certain to get a Shiner Bock without any need to clarify, despite the array of other brews offered by the Spoetzl brewery under the Shiner name. In fact, Shiner Bock is so synonymous with Spoetzl that many casual beer…
Lots of people equate lavender with soaps, sachets and lotions. And that’s fair. So much of the reason lavender is even popular is due to its fragrance — which is soft, fresh and somehow, purple.But me, well, this Girl Drink Drunk likes my lavender like I like spiked ice tea…
One recent trend in the culinary world, the concept of the “gastro-pub,” is a boon for beer lovers. Pubs that focus their efforts on good food tend to serve higher quality beers and wines than your average bar. The late, great Zymology on Lower Greenville was one short-lived example, with…
A few new offerings from Harpoon Brewery should be making their way into North Texas: the New England company’s first offering of a Belgian Pale Ale, a new Imperial Red (as part of its Leviathan series) and the annual return of Harpoon Summer Beer. Harpoon is a veteran craft brewery,…
Last installment, Girl Drink Drunk pal Jen and I were just starting our vacations (I use that term liberally as Jen wasn’t really on a work vacation, but it was just so dang fun) with the Dallas International Film Festival. We’d been impressed with Multiple Sarcasms and a custom second-chance…
Apologies for this week’s post being both tardy and short, my fellow beer lovers, but kid-related circumstances have kept Lady Hophead and I housebound, and trying new brews was temporarily knocked down a few pegs on the priority list. Good news is I managed to take some notes on a…
Homebrewing is a labor of love, the creative pursuit of some new twist on beer or refinement on a standard style. Few homebrewers expect anything more than a fresh supply of tasty beer and perhaps a nod of approval from friends and family. But for those few who aspire to…
Last night kicked off an annual tradition for Girl Drink Drunk–taking a week off to spend at the movies. Fellow girl drinker and film festival enthusiast Jen joined me in hitting up the opening night festivities at the Angelika at Mockingbird Station. The draw, for me anyway, was actually the Brooks…
A selection of more than 600 beers surrounded me on refrigerated grocery shelves that seemed to stretch on forever, and a money clip brimming with cash in my jacket pocket bounced against my ribs like a reassuring pat with each step. Yet I had to hold back from the splurge…
The opening of Eno’s Pub last Thursday was marked by too much rock for the karaoke system to handle and too few beer samples for the thirsty donors. But those small setbacks aside, it was a great night, as you may have seen in Spike Johnson’s slideshow.The night had been…
The Pints for Paint fundraiser that Jesse teased in yesterday’s Hophead went off last night at Eno’s Pub in Oak Cliff to the sound of a thousand Journey covers, and some incredibly good beer. It was for a good cause: donations went to purchase the paints and materials for local…
Fort Worth brewery Rahr & Sons’ roof collapsed during the February 12 snowmageddon storm, bringing beer production to a screeching halt as the bottling line and glycol chilling lines cooling the fermentation tanks were crushed and demolished.More than a month later, founder Fritz Rahr said in an interview earlier this…
Cans are starting to catch on in the craft-brew world, with more and more microbreweries offering their products in the once-maligned format — even in Texas. Shiner has long offered its bock in cans, and upstart Southern Star is doing the same. In fact, Dale’s Pale Ale from Colorado’s Oskar…
The weather has been pretty great lately, calling for a little patio here, a little frozen slurp there. But it’s never a guarantee, so this girl drinker has been grabbing the goods when and where she can get them. I’m not going to say one word about the forecast this…
It’s a busy time of year for Guinness brewmaster Fergal Murray, as you might imagine. Not only is he tasked with ensuring the quality of every batch of beer at Dublin’s St. James Gate Brewery (which produces approximately 4 million pints each day), but he serves as the globetrotting brand…
