Austin Beer Week 2012 finally begins (for me)

Finally! I get to start celebrating Austin Beer Week in earnest tonight with the Ommegang Beer Dinner at Easy Tiger Bake Shop & Beer Garden. The Real Ale beer dinner at Easy Tiger a few months ago excited my palate (and loosened my typing fingers; I waxed blogtastic about it here and here), so I’m thrilled to be starting my Austin Beer Week festivities there.

If I didn’t already have a reservation at Easy Tiger, though, I’d be starting my Austin Beer Week tonight at my favorite place in town, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. The Alamo has a tradition of multi-course feasts, pairing chef-prepared selections with great beverages and fantastic films (like their annual all-day Lord of the Rings Trilogy Hobbit Feasts: seven courses in twelve hours of movie with the occasional lembas bread intermezzo). Tonight, the Lake Creek location is showing the Indian sci-fi spectacle Endhiran: The Robot (starring Tamil screen legend Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai) with a five-course Indian meal paired with five local IPAs. I saw Endhiran at an Alamo screening last year and found it bizarre, hilarious and touching, combining modern sci-fi tropes with classic monster movie hijinks, and yes – lots and lots of Indian musical numbers. If you’re into Bollywood, Kollywood, or just have an open mind for a totally new experience, I highly recommend it.

Speaking of totally new experiences, yesterday I went to Black Star Co-op to try their new cask ale, Molly Moocher: their Double Dee amber(ish) ale cask conditioned on morel mushrooms. I’m sure I’ve had mushrooms in beer before, but must confess that morel mushrooms terrify me, with those shriveled alien-egg-looking caps, fleshy and pitted with shadowy tunnels into deep, Lovecraftian darkness (shudder). But October is right for fright, so I jumped in eagerly. Amazingly, I didn’t lose my soul or sanity to the Great Old Ones. I just … drank mushroom beer. It was well attenuated and had a rich earthiness from the mushrooms, complemented by earthy hop character. High attenuation and low carbonation combined to make the beer come across as a little thin, but that’s not uncommon for cask ales.

The better beer that day at Black Star was Old Sour Dewberry, a sour English old ale that poured a deep ruby red with a roaring fizzy head. It popped on my palate with refreshing, effervescent fruitiness, like an alcoholic cherry soda. It was so good I wish it had come in larger than a 9-oz pour, but it packed a punch and was worth slowly savoring. I’ll be back for that one soon.

But now: looking ahead to Easy Tiger tonight by eating as close to nothing as possible today. I’ll post details on the dinner including my favorite dish, favorite beer and pairing reactions in the next day or two.