Four years of beer. It’s a great start, and it’s what the folks at Freetail Brewing Company, 4065 N. Loop 1604 W., are gearing to celebrate this weekend, Nov. 23-25.

“We’ll be closed on Thanksgiving Day, but will be open all weekend celebrating our fourthanniversary with the release of our fouranniversary brew (“Four”) – a German Chocolate inspired beer made with toasted coconut and cacao,” founder Scott Metzger says. “We’ll also have a bunch of other favorites on tap that we stocked up throughout the year.”

According to the brewery’s website, beers available now include Buffalo Hump 1840 IPA, Freetail Ale, Hopothesis F, La Muerta, Rye Wit, La Rubia, Morning Wit, Otono Bienvenido and Schoppe’s Lichtenhainer. But you can expect even more than that. A partial list includes American Amber Ale, American India Pale Ale, Belgian Black IPA, Crazy Green Beer, Crazy Pink Beer, Chile Limon Wit, Cherry Wit and Spirulina Wit.

Sounds like a party to us.

For more information, call (210) 395-4974.

Opening a beer doesn’t generally remind me of wine, but the Big Sky IPA is an exception.

I opened a bottle recently and discovered a huge explosion of caramel sweetness and flowers bursting forth in the aroma, in keeping with some India pale ales, though perhaps not at quite this intensity. And there was just the right amount of hoppiness bitterness on the palate. Nice.

And just like one of favorite summertime wines, the Argentine Torrontés, which smells floral and sweet but is dry and crisp in your mouth.

But enough about wine. Back to the beer.

Big  Sky IPA poured a rich copper color with one finger of foam that lingered quite a while.

Those intense aromas carried over into the taste, as caramel, flavors of wheat, a touch of orange and herbs mixed with that hoppy bitterness, all leading to a lengthy finish that had a metallic touch.

I enjoyed this brew with a spicy Caribbean-style oxtail stew and let the various spices in both beer and stew complement each other. the same would be true for pairing this with Mexican street tacos with plenty of onion and cilantro on top or grilled burgers with pickles and, again, onions on a whole wheat bun.

This beer comes from Big Sky Brewing is in Missoula, Mont., an area that has plenty of sky indeed — and now it has beers with enough flavor to match.

Brew notes

A new brewery, Busted Sandal Brewing Company, has plans on opening in SA later this year.

According to the company’s website, the “nanobrewery” will specialize in small craft brews made with locally sourced seasonal ingredients: “We are full of brewing energy! Our ambition is to privately brew 20 concept batches in 18 weeks! In November, members of the ‘secret taster’s circle’ will judge the concept batches. From these 20 beers we will select only our best to move forward with. By this time, we will be very close to beginning pilot batch brewing and will begin opening our tasting events to the public!”

The company is the work of brewer and founder Michael DiCicco, “brewchitect” Robert Garza and brewer Joseph Alvarado, who is also responsible for brand development. Follow them on Twitter @bustedsandal for more details.

Memorial Day weekend is a perfect chance to put a few six-packs on ice, light up the charcoal and relax.

But what beers go best with grilled or smoked meat? The easy answer is whatever you like, of course. A light treat like a Pacifico will go great while you’re sweating over a fire. But is it the best choice for the burgers you’re cooking up or the brisket you’re smoking?

My thought is always to have some fun, go for something new, something that adds to the party. Here are three choices to bear in mind when you’re at the store.

With burgers, one option would be Shiner’s new Wild Hare Pale Ale, which is floral and nicely hoppy, certainly bold enough to stand up to the beef. Or pork. Or even rabbit, as Jeff Balfour of Citrus demonstrated recently when he was drinking the Wild Hare while making cheese-stuffed rabbit burgers.

I asked Mark McDavid of Ranger Creek Brewing & Distilling for a recommendation from his lineup. “Our Mesquite Smoked Porter is perfect for a barbecue,” he says. “It’s not the beer you’ll drink while you’re grilling. It really shines as an ingredient/marinade, so you can drizzle some on your burgers while grilling or marinate your sausages in it. It’s also a great beer to drink with your food. The roasty, smokey, dark chocolate flavors from the beer pair well with grilled red meats and can bring out new dimensions of flavor in food. Plus, our Mesquite Smoked Porter is a beer made for Texans, and grilling is also made for Texans, so enjoying both together can make you feel like a very proud Texan!”

A third choice would be the Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, which I like to pair with a big slab of blue cheese or aged cheddar on that burger. The beer has a certain creaminess that matches the cheese, while the bitterness, with flavors of coffee  and chocolate, provides a rewarding contrast.

All three would add life and more than a little flavor to your weekend.

Beer of the Week is sponsored by the Lion & Rose. Each week, we introduce you to a wonderful brew that’s a little bit different and well worth seeking out.

What's on tap for Easter?

Sunday is Easter, and hams are practically flying out of the supermarket. So, many possibilities await home cooks. You could dress it up sweet with a honey glaze or brown sugar. You could go savory with mustard and spices. You could go salty with a country ham or smoke it until it boasts a great hickory or pecan flavor.

All these possibilities mean a host of possibilities for the beer that you want to go with dinner.

Here are five brews we have featured in the past and reasons why each would go with that centerpiece.

Franziskaner Weissbier: This German beauty is great with ham and other light foods. Notes of clove and coriander on both the nose and in the flavor make it a great companion to the old-fashioned but ever-welcome style of covering your ham with pineapple slices adhered with cloves. My mom used to make ham like that, and it’s still a crowd-pleaser.

Lindemans Pomme Lambic: Pork and apples are natural companions, so why not try an apple-flavored brew with ham of any style? Lindemans’ lineup of lambic is a great choice if you want to serve people who think they don’t like beer.

Smithwick’s: This Irish ale is rich and fruity with a pleasant touch of bitterness, just right if you’re going with a smoky ham or even with grilled ham steaks. It also will like your mashed potatoes and most all of your side dishes.

Real Ale Firemans #4 Blonde Ale: This local brew night not be the best match with a ham that’s been heavily sweetened, but it’s versatile enough to go with just about every other style, from country ham to one rubbed in a mustard sauce. It’s also coolly refreshing if you’re having a picnic in the heat.

Bard’s Sorghum Malt Beer: This is a great addition if any of your guests are avoiding gluten, but it’s also a fine enough brew to hold its own against a honey-glazed ham.

Happy Easter!

Beer of the Week is sponsored by the Lion & Rose. Each week, we introduce you to a wonderful brew that’s a little bit different and well worth seeking out.

Stella Artois

This lager is probably Belgium’s most famous beer. Not necessarily the best, mind you, but certainly the most popular.

Popularity is, after all, determined by those qualities that are most desired and yet can also appeal to the public at large. So, don’t expect Stella Artois (pronounced R-twah) to provide the same complexity you’ll find in the Chimay brews or an Orval. But do expect a finely crafted beer that’s great for quaffing on a hot day.

In other words, grab a six-pack of this if you’ve got to mow the lawn and put in any spring flowers this weekend. You’ll be able to reward yourself for a job well done. And if it rains, you can still reward yourself for your good intentions.

What you’ll notice first when you start pouring the beer is a gorgeous golden color that shows off the wheat to good effect. The head builds nicely but soon dissipates to little lacing around the edge.

The brewery suggests you pour it into a chalice, and it even offers deals on its website where you can get your own engraved chalice to drink it from. Click here to learn more.

The nose is filled with wheat and a slight skunky quality that’s not off-putting, just somewhat odd.

The taste is what makes the beer so popular. It’s pleasant, with a refreshing lightness and clean feeling that has a touch of wheat and an even lighter note of hoppiness. The finish is dry and a touch bitter, in the best way possible.

This is lager at its most essential. It tastes like beer, like what you think of when you think of beer, like beer on a Platonic level.

So, don’t think. Drink.

That’s what people love about Stella Artois and it’s what will have you wanting more.

It’s perfect with a great deal of flavors, so you can have with whatever you have a hankering for. At the Lion and Rose, you could start with spicy Hackney Hot Wings or go with something as comforting and earthy as Holloway Road Hummus. Then move on to a Lion and Rose Garden Salad with cheddar, bacon and egg or Fin, Feather and Shell, a fried plate of fish, chicken and shrimp.

You might want to finish the Artois before dessert, because its bitterness will fight sweets. Or you could have another instead of dessert.

Beer of the Week is sponsored by the Lion & Rose. Each week, we introduce you to a wonderful brew that’s a little bit different and well worth seeking out.

Harp Lager

Let’s face it. You can’t just dye any beer green for St. Patrick’s Day. Anything but a light-colored beer will take on a rather unappetizing color that can interfere with your drinking enjoyment.

So, let me suggest that if dying your beer green is a high priority for you in the next week, then get yourself some Harp Lager.

First off, it’s Irish, with the harp on the label being the same as that on its parent, Guinness.

Second, it’s a fine lager with plenty to recommend in terms of flavor.

When you pour the beer from the bottle, you’ll notice its light straw color. A hefty foam rises quickly and settles down to a nice lacey rim around the edge.

The aroma is sweet and yeasty, with notes of bread, malt and a slight touch of floral hops.

The scents carry over into the taste, with flavors of grain and a pleasant hoppy bitterness dominating in a light yet sure way. There’s a clean finish that makes it all uncomplicated and so easy to love.

That simplicity makes this an easy beer to pair with all your Irish and Irish-American favorites. At Lion & Rose, you could start with Limerick Fries, deep-fried green beans, then move on to bangers and mash, corned beef and cabbage, fish and chips, and even a vegetarian combination of bubble and squeak, Guinness mac and cheese,  and those wonderful Parmesan-broiled tomatoes.

The combinations are perfect for St. Patrick’s Day — or any day, for that matter — whether you dye the Harp green or not.

Beer of the Week is sponsored by the Lion & Rose. Each week, we introduce you to a wonderful brew that’s a little bit different and well worth seeking out.

Boddington’s Pub Ale

If you ever wanted to get a beer mustache to rival those in the “got milk?” ads, then pour yourself a Boddington’s and dive right in. I don’t know what the carbonation causes all the foam that rises from this beauty when you pour it, either from the tap or the can (with its nitrogen ball inside), but expect a generous head, white, frothy and creamy on top.

The beer itself, a British brew that has been around for more than 200 years, displays a polished light golden glow. It is perfectly clear, luminous and enticing.

Subtle aromas of yeast and malt with a mild sweetness and a faint sense of hops emerge. The flavors enlarge the aromas. Suddenly, in your mouth, the yeast has become all bread-like, the malt more intense, the hops more pleasantly bitter and citrusy.

But it’s the mouthfeel that really grabs you. It’s full bodied and creamy, coating your tongue in a richness you didn’t quite expect. This is the real lure of Boddington’s, and it will stay with you, calling you back for another and another.

The finish is hoppy and bitter and altogether welcome.

A good acid level that manages to assert itself in all that unctuousness makes this a perfect beer to pair with something spicy. At the Lion and Rose, that would be the spicy Hackney Hot Wings, hands down, though Scotch eggs would also be a good match. Grilled Jerk Chicken would work well, too, for the contrast, while a side order of Bubble and Squeak or Guinness Mac and Cheese would offer succulent proof that rich food and rich drink can make for a great meal.

Just make sure you remember to wipe the foam off your upper lip every once in a while.

Beer of the Week is sponsored by the Lion & Rose. Each week, we introduce you to a wonderful brew that’s a little bit different and well worth seeking out.

St. Peter’s Cream Stout

Why would anyone want to drink an iced mocha or Frappuccino, when you could have an adult beverage like St. Peter’s Cream Stout, which boasts more flavor than any of those super-sweet caffeine bombs? With this potent brew, you get flavors of chocolate and coffee swirling through each sip, but you get so much more.

First off, you get a great bottle. This is another of the distinctive St. Peter’s bottles (we wrote about St. Peter’s equally fine Old-Style Porter back in August), a 16.9-ounce antique-style green bottle that harkens back to the days when pharmacists worked in apothecaries, not drug stores.

There’s nothing medicinal about the aromas that burst forth when you remove the cap. Floral, toffee and licorice, partially stemming from what the label tells us are Fuggles and Challenger hops, mix with an obvious, strong roasted coffee quality as well as roasted malts.

Pour it into the pint glass and, well, it sort of looks like used WD40. It’s blacker than the most eye-opening jolt of espresso you’ve ever had, and it produces a lovely full head that dissipates to a state of lace around the edges of the glass fairly quickly.

The sense of sweetness carries over from the nose, but it’s held firmly in check by the bitter coffee flavors that somehow don’t coalesce the way sugar melts into coffee. Also, the cream is there, and it works well with the other flavors, but you would never mistake this for the cream in your coffee. And that’s all for the better, especially when you add the gentle carbonation that offers a pleasant tongue tingle.

Chocolate is also there, along with some fruit and caramel flavors, and all those dark, mysterious qualities that mark a fine stout. The sweetness disappears entirely at the back of your palate, leading to a creamy yet dry finish.

Is it any wonder this brew took gold medals from the International Beer Competition/Challenge in 2003, 2004 and 2006, as the label says?

Serve St. Peter’s Cream Stout at cellar temperature, a little warmer than refrigerator level but not Texas room temperature. That makes it ideal in cooler weather.

I like the fact that this comes in a bottle just slightly larger than a pint glass. That means you have a little left over, kind of like when you order a milkshake and your server brings you the metal container with whatever wouldn’t fit into your serving glass.

Ideally, you would pair this beer with something as robust and vigorous as this is. At the Lion and Rose, that could be an appetizer order of Bloke’s Mushrooms with cream gravy on the side. It could be any of the steaks, such as the King Richard’s Rib-eye or a Pub Burger with sautéed mushrooms and blue cheese added for good measure. Top it off with a Four High Chocolate Cake for dessert.

Beer of the Week is sponsored by the Lion & Rose. Each week, we introduce you to a wonderful brew that’s a little bit different and well worth seeking out.

Wells Banana Bread Beer

And now for something completely different.

What else could you say about a beer that promises the flavor of banana bread?

Naturally, the first thing you’ll do is read the label to clarify matters, but that won’t help much entirely. Sure, it tells you the beer is made in Bedford, England, by Wells and Young. And it does remind us that beer has long been known as liquid bread, so that explains the bread part of it. And it is made with bananas, free-trade bananas actually.

But then it goes on to say that it’s made with something called banoffee, a word that sent me to the dictionary. It’s “a filling for a pie, consisting of toffee and banana,” according to thefreedictionary.com, and the word is a combination of “banana” and “toffee.” Makes sense, but what doesn’t is the overriding question of whether banana has a place in beer.

The only way to answer that is to pop the top and take in a good strong breath. Sure enough, bananas, ripe and artificial, seem to emerge from the bottle along with a sweet sense mixed with malt, giving the feeling of, you guessed it, banana bread.

Pour the beauty into a glass and notice the coppery color tumble into it. A medium head forms and quickly dissipates into a nice lace on the rim of the brew.

Take a sip and you’ll notice at least two things at once. One is that, yes, it tastes like banana bread, although perhaps the flavor is not quite as forceful as the aroma. The other is that it is not as sweet as it smells; the toffee is kept in check.

Then the rest of the beer’s flavors come into the picture. There’s a pleasant warm spice feeling, suggestive of mace or allspice, and the finish is quite dry, clean and hoppy. There isn’t a great deal of carbonation, so it’s soft in the mouth, yet a good sip leaves your taste buds tingling and anticipating more.  It’s not exactly complex; in fact, it is little more than what the label says it is: banana beer bread.

If you’re still not convinced, perhaps you’ll want to share this brew over a dessert at the Lion and Rose. The one that springs naturally to mind is the Sticky Toffee Pudding, which is not made with banoffee, but has the requisite, delicious sweetness to match it. The King’s Bread Pudding or the Pear William Cake with its Bavarian pear mousse would also work beautifully.

By the way, my pet cockatoo, who eats a fingerling banana every day, also gave his approval to a drop that he had.

Beer of the Week is sponsored by the Lion & Rose. Each week, we introduce you to a wonderful brew that’s a little bit different and well worth seeking out.

Old Speckled Hen

Guys, if you’re out on a first date, take a few words of advice: Don’t order an Old Speckled Hen for the lady. As good as the beer is, and it is quite good, she may just take the name as an editorial comment, and there won’t be any such thing as a second date.

On just about any other occasion, order this British ale with gusto.

The drink dates back to 1979, when the Morland Brewery decided to craft a beer in honor of the 50th anniversary of the MG sports car factory in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, according to the beer’s website:

Named after an old MG car which was used as the factory run around, they would park the old MG Featherweight Fabric Saloon outside the paint shop where it would normally get spattered in paint and so it became known as the ‘Owld Speckl’d Un’. This turned into “Old Speckled Hen” when the beer was unveiled.

Pour it into a glass and you’ll notice its copper color with a nice fizz. A head builds up and then falls back to about 1/4 inch, and that foam lingers through most of the drinking time.

The aroma is fruity and malty in good measures of each, suggesting the smooth balance that is the hallmark o this brew. There’s a touch of honeyed sweetness, too that adds to its appeal.

Flavors of yeasty whole grain bread, again with a touch of honey, come to the fore with a light funkiness that is mixture of both hops and citrus fruit. But the flavors aren’t quite as important as the refreshing nature that the Hen brings to your mouth. Its zing lingers even as the ale itself passes through to a dry, hoppy finish.

This is a beer that the Brits made with a pub in mind, and at the Lion and Rose, you can pair this beauty off the tap with just about any of the pub grub on the menu, from fish and chips or bangers and mash to the vegetarian plate made up of side dishes. This is an ale that would love a potato in just about any form, especially the bubble and squeak.

If you like a brew early in the day, try it with the breakfast dishes now being served at the Lion & Rose’s Stone Oak location, 700 E. Sonterra Blvd.

Or try it by itself.  This is a smooth talker, a welcome addition to your regular beer repertoire if it isn’t already in the lineup.