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ISSUE #8SUMMER 2011

Tales From thePizza Pub

BeerMovies

Summer Tour

Beer & California

izzaP

Ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around.Anna Quindlen

Issue #8 - Summer 2011

Table of Contents

Editor’s Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Feedback Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Cherry Voodoo Brewing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Pizza Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Santa Barbara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Inside the Pizza Pub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Austin Pizza Adventurers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Beer Movies Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Contents

Despite the typical June Gloom currently hovering over California coastal

areas, the months ahead look to be filled with hot, sunny days. That means more time spent outside enjoying the weather, cooling off at the beach, and looking for ways to enjoy your beer & pizza outdoors. For many people that means firing up the grill and having family and friends over. For others it means choosing pubs & restaurants with outside patio seating. Whatever your preferred location is, hopefully you can find your summer happy place and enjoy all the socializing that goes along with it. When you do settle into your summer rhythm, CB&P would love to hear your stories about the beers & pizza you’re enjoying and where you’re enjoying them. And of course any tips you have for getting to and from your destinations safely would be of great interest to many of us. In This Issue:We start off with a report from Kristina and Andy. They made a trip to Cherry Voodoo and provide us with a look at one of San Francisco’s newest and most interesting breweries. The photo they took of the triple tripels will definitely inspire you to start contemplating what is going to be poured in your glass tonight.

Albert brings us Part II of his series on New Haven style pizza. In this installment he features the classic Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana. This is truly one of America’s legendary pizza establishments. Here on the west coast there can be a bit of a disconnect with east coast happenings and with most of the pizza media coverage on New York many Californians may be unaware of the New Haven pizza tradition. Fortunately Albert is an extraordinary pizza historian and we are lucky to have his contributions to help us round out our pizza education.In the interview segment we hear from the Pizza Adventurers of Austin Texas. Currently consisting of a pair of bloggers plus guests, the Austin Pizza Adventurers are an excellent example of people taking their passion for pizza to the next level (or to the next several levels). Bloggers Karin & Ian offer insights into their quest to write about every pizzeria in Austin. It should be noted that both Albert’s Pizza Therapy blog and the Austin Pizza Adventurers were named to the Best Pizza Blogs list put out by California Culinary Schools. Congratulations to both of them and you can see the entire list here.Getting back to California, we take a beer & pizza tour of Santa Barbara. You may have noticed on the CB&P web site that it say’s: “Send in your recommendations for your favorite California pizzerias & pubs. We want to go there.” Well, the Santa Barbara pizza stop (Woodstock Pizza)

was the direct result of a reader recommendation. It’s not just a line, we really do want your recommendations and we will check out as many of your favorites as time and distances allow. Santa Barbara isn’t overflowing with craft beer the way some cities are but nonetheless, the breweries that are located there are doing an outstanding job and making some exceptional beers. The breweries there tend to brew for their pubs/restaurants or distribute regionally so there are probably a lot of you that haven’t tried beers from The Brewhouse, Telegraph Brewing Co., or Santa Barbara Brewing Co. If you can’t make it to the Santa Barbara area or you don’t see their beers in your local beer store, look for them at the beer festivals and give them a try.Chris Frank returns with the next installment of Tales from the Pizza Pub. This time around Chris shares his views on serving pizza by the slice. Chris has some strong feelings on the topic and after reading his rant you may think about things a little differently next time you are deciding between slices or a whole pie.California Beer & Pizza would like to wish everyone a fun and safe summer. Hopefully wherever you are you’ll enjoy some great beer and pizza and you’ll also have some stories to tell about your summer home brewing experiences and pizzas on the grill!

See you in September

Be a Part of the Community!

Editor’s Note

Bill Graneyemail

Share your latest experiences with your fellow beer & pizza enthusiasts!

info@californiabeerandpizza.com

Letters and photo submissions are welcome and encouraged!

Be a Part of the Community!

Feedback

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 4

WHO DO VOODOO?

The idea of ‘voodoo’ was in a syndicated episode of the late ‘70s TV show ‘The Har-

dy Boys’ – based on the best-sell-ing series of books. It’s an odd ref-erence, I know – but nothing about the early ‘80s feels ‘normal’ – so it will have to do. Needless to say ‘voodoo’ as portrayed in the show was mysterious, scary and utterly unpredictable – but at the same time, it was enticing and begged further exploration. That’s how I felt the first time I ran into the guys from SF’s own Cherry Voodoo when I met them a year and a half ago on a brisk Super Bowl Sun-day in the famous garage housing Elizabeth Street Brewery.At the time, the boys from CV

were a young startup – capable of kegging and running a jockey box to dispense their curious style of voodoo. I don’t remember much (I attribute this to the voodoo), but I do remember I liked it enough to keep my eyes on this little enter-prise.Fast forward 18 months to the fa-miliar, dark surroundings of North Beach’s famed Church Key beer bar and I’m sitting across the ta-ble from Yuri and Greg – found-

ers, proprietors, evangelists and witch doctors of what has evolved into a substantial force in the SF brewing community. We spent a few hours talking about the indus-try and learning about Yuri’s ear-ly days hauling kegs up crooked stairwells for his pals Thirsty Bear over several well-poured glasses of CB’s own fabulous Tripel. The beer clearly had leanings to its Belgian namesake… but was dis-tinctly west coast, thanks to the use of plenty of hops (3 types to

Cherry Voodoo Brewing

Kristina (Twitter.com/hopmonkey) is a digital and social media marketer who believes life and beer should be full of hops and monkeying around

Andy (Twitter.com/brewindie) works as a video game marketer during the day, drinks hoppy beer at night and is an avid music fan always.Kristina is currently taking a 9-month break from beer and Andy is on the hunt for brews that will age 18 years to share with our first child on her 18th birthday.

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 5

be exact) and its rock and roll attitude (more a product of the company vs. the beer itself).Unfortunately, due to the limited production coming out of CV, we were only able to check out the Tripel – but are anxious to get our hands on Filth Pig (a dou-ble-hopped, French Oak-aged tribute to the band, Ministry), Gangster (hom-age to a life-threatening ex-perience en route to fellow SF mainstay, Speakeasy) and the elusive Thermonuclear (the name says it all).

There was never a Hardy Boys episode about picking cherries… which is a good thing, as the fruity part of Cherry Voodoo is similarly

absent and truth be told, the Hardy’s weren’t particularly known for their taste in beer. Do you see the connection? I don’t. In any case, if you’re in the Bay area and looking to explore some of SF’s up-and-comers – I highly encourage you to seek out the Voodoo that these guys do so well.

Follow Cherry Voodoo on:Twitter at:

www.Twitter.com/CherryVoodoo or visit their Website at:

www.CherryVoodoo.com

Cherry Voodoo Brewing (Cont .)

Check out the L.A. Area Beer Adventures Facebook Group Page to keep up with the latest plans for meeting at beer destinations around Southern California. Click Here

If you’d like CB&P to promote your beer and/or pizza enthusiast group send an email with the info about your club/group. info@californiabeerandpizza.com

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 6

If you really want to discover in-credible pizza on the East Coast, you need to go to Pepe’s Pizze-

ria Napoletana on Wooster Street in New Haven.Pepe’s pizza is extraordinary. Founded by Frank Pepe in 1925, it is one of the premier pizzerias on the planet. Frank passed away in 1969 and his grandchildren have continued the legacy to this very day.In recent years, Pepe’s has begun to expand in several locations around Connecticut and New York. Each location boasts a coal fired oven which is going 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. The ovens are shut down once a year for cleaning and maintenance.Arguably, Pepe’s most famous pizza is the Clam Pie. Frank Pepe created the clam pizza quite by accident. Gary Bimonte, Frank’s grandson explained to me how it happened: “...There was a gentleman there and his name was Maxie Beard and he would cut clams in a half shell. This was a summer after-noon in the late forties or early fif-ties. I couldn’t get a time from the gentleman and couldn’t get an ex-act date out of him. The guy was cutting clams on a half shell. They

were hanging around. My grand-father came out of the restaurant for a little breather or whatever and they were all talking. He turns around and says, “Hey pop, why don’t you put some of these on the pizza.”My grandfather said, “Sure.” So, he cut some clams and put them in a dish. He went inside and threw it on a pizza. He came outside and boom! Clam pizza!

Unbelievable. From then on, the turnout was delicious. You know, he used garlic and how we pre-pared it. It was delicious and he put it on the menu....”Pizza Therapy (http://pizzather-apy.com) honor’s the legacy of Frank Pepe and his amazing piz-za, through videos, articles and

blog posts.When I started Pizza Therapy, many years ago, the number one question I would get from pizza fans was: “Does Pepe’s deliver?”Some of the questions came from as far away as the West Coast and Canada. The answer is: no. But I certainly wish they did!Here are some of the comments that I have gotten about Pepe’s:• From Molly: “The crust is per-

fectly thin, cripsy chewy...the real mozz is perfect and the San Marzano tomato sauce tastes amazing...it was cooked to perfection, well worth the road trip I would go back a mil-lion times... “

• From Big Chuck: “Everything, the line on a summer evening is as almost as enjoyable as the pizza itself, the anticipa-tion is evident. The service, or

Albert Grande is The Pizza Promoter and an internet marketer. His website Pizza Therapy (http://pizzatherapy.com) grew out of his passion for pizza. In addition, to Pizza Therapy, Albert has a number of other food related websites and blogs including: Legends of Pizza (http://legendsofpizza.com) Pizza Therapy Blog: (http://pizzatherapy.blogspot.com/), and his personal blog, Internet Marketing, Pizza and Rock and Roll (http://albertgrande.com)

You can follow Albert on twitter @pizzatherapy

Pizza Therapy - New Haven Part II

Pizza Therapy - (Cont .)

lack thereof makes you realize how good the pizza must be to keep you coming back. and then it comes to your table the best pie(s) you will ever taste.

• From Joe: “As if you have to ask. I’ve been going to Pepe’s Pizza for 42 years and it’s by far the best I have ever had. I still go every week after the hockey games in New Haven. Sausage & Mozzarella. The best”.

• From Harmon: “They do one thing only and have done it bet-ter than anyone else for three quarters of a century. No lasa-gna, no breadsticks, no sal-ads. Tomato pies, with mootz (pronounced “moots”). I’ve had the supposed best pizza in New York, in Florence and in Boston, and nothing comes close to Frank Pepe’s.”

• From N. Toth: “There is no describing this pizza - believe me, I’ve tried. I live 2300 (yes twenty-three hundred) miles from Pepe’s and I still man-age to eat there several times a year. I vacation in CT every summer just to be close to this place! I never knew what a REAL pizza tasted like until I

ate here. NOW I AM RUINED! I CAN’T EAT ANY OTHER!!!! By far the best pizza, especial-ly the white clam!”

Here’s is my own personal re-view of Pepe’s from a recent visit:Let’s face it, when you go to Pepe’s Pizzeria, in New Haven, Connecti-cut you expect an excellent pizza. You know your pizza will contain top quality ingredients. You real-ize your pizza will be cooked in a coal fired oven. There will be a few burn spots and the pizza will not be perfectly round.You understand you are getting a traditional Italian Pizza, New Ha-ven Style. There is no question, you are in a for a positive pizza experience.And you expect that if you go dur-ing peak pizza hours, you may stand in line for 1 to 2 hours, just to get in the door. That is a given.So when 11 pizza fanatics de-scended on Pepe’s we were ex-pecting nothing less than an over the top pizza experience. And Pepe’s did not disappoint us.Because of the diversity of the group (both ethnically and ethi-cally) we decide on three different

pizzas. For the seafood lovers (hey, every-body in the group was a seafood fan), we ordered the original clam pizza. This was Frank Pepe’s sig-nature pie.The standard clam is not made with “mootz” (mozzarella), just a sprinkling of Parmesan. This pie just oozes with clam taste. You won’t find cherry stones or steamers on this pie. This pizza is made with fresh quahogs. These are big, juicy clams, found in New England waters. Overcook these babies and you get a tough rub-bery mess. If done just right the clams seem to jump off the pizza into your mouth.Next for the wannabe vegetar-ians, we ordered the original to-mato pie. This is a plain pizza with cheese. The rationale here was to let the taste of the crust to shine through.Our third pizza was a loaded to the brim bacon and sausage piz-za. Strips of hearty Italian bacon are mixed with a nice Italian sweet sausage.The verdict:Due to a miscue, our server brought out our first clam pie with

The OrignalFrank Pepe

Pizzeria NapoletanaWeb SiteTwitter

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Locations/Maps

(Continued On Page 16)

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 8

Typically, beer and pizza are not the first things that come to mind when it comes to

Santa Barbara. Known for wine and upscale dining Santa Barbara is a popular tourist destination and vibrant beach community. How-ever, as with many places, the craft beer scene is emerging and there is almost always good pizza to be had in California — you just gotta poke around.The first stop on our tour was just outside Santa Bar-bara in Isla Vista for pizza. Thanks to a reader recommenda-tion, Woodstock Pizza was the location of choice for pizza ad-venturing. Woodstock has multiple locations but each location has it’s own web page so if you’re looking for one it’s best to search on Woodstock Pizza and the general area you will be in. Most seem to be located near U.C. campuses and the Isla Vista location is adjacent to U.C.S.B. It was a great way to start the af-ternoon as Woodstock has very good pizza and a pretty good tap list for a pizzeria. They have their own Woodstock lineup of beers (brewed by Firestone Walker). In addition to the pizza & beer it was also a spectacularly beautiful day. The Woodstock method is to prepare the pizzas and then bake them in a gas conveyor oven at 450° F. I questioned the pizzaiolo about the oven temp as it seemed rather low to me but when the

pizza was delivered it was both a little crunchy and a little chewy. There was a very good balance of toppings and cheese and it was the kind of pizza you can eat a lot of without suffering a TKO. The edge of the crust rolled over and was baked to a golden brown. Good pizza, craft brews, a nice day, and a fun college town atmosphere made for a good landing in the Santa Barbara area.

On to The Brewhouse. Oc-cupying an excellent lo-cation close to the 101

Freeway, the layout is open and there is a lot of light that comes in through the windows and open doors. On a nice sunny afternoon it provides a relaxing environment whether sitting inside or out on the patio. There is a feeling of being in a beach community where people love the outdoors and don’t want to be in dark, cavernous locations.In addition to the beer line up, The Brewhouse offers a full bar, wine,

and a food menu that is more extensive than you will find in most brew pubs. If you have a sweet tooth you’ll want to try their award winning peanut butter cream pie (trust me on this one). The atmosphere is laid back and there is an eclectic mix of people enjoying beers & watching sports at the bar and diners enjoying their food. While we were there The Preakness was on and it generated a lot of excitement.

The bartenders were extremely busy but also very friendly.They brew on site and they must be brewing constantly based on the size and volume of the brewing equipment compared with the number of beers they serve. I opted for the St. Barbs Dubbel. At 8.2% the abv might be considered a little high per style guidelines but it’s an excellent beer and I don’t think toning it down would

be a good idea. You can taste the alcohol but it’s not unbalanced, you know it’s a dubbel. All the flavors I love in dubbels (raisins, plums, chocolate, caramel) are all there and take center stage.It’s good to know that The Brewhouse is such a quick stop off the freeway as it will provide a good place to stop for something to eat and a beer when passing by Santa Barbara (as I do fairly often). With all those beers to sample, doing them one per stop is going to take a while.

Santa Barbara

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 9

Santa Barbara (Cont .)

One of my favorite things to do is visit breweries dur-ing their open tap room

hours. Typically they are in edgier locations as they tend to be in in-dustrial zones rather than in aes-thetically pleasing locations like restaurants or pubs. Eagle Rock Brewing in L.A. and Mac n Jack’s in Washington come to mind as places I enjoy going to hang out at the brewery, have a beer, and get in some beer geek talk with the hard cores. Telegraph Brewing Co. is part of that genre. The team working while I was there was patient with my questions and very enthusias-tic about the operation. I appreci-ated the time they took to tell me about the brewery despite being very busy serving beers and talk-ing with the other guests.After pouring me a pint of their porter, tasting room associate Yeni Salinas spoke to me at length about Telegraph’s beers, where they can be found, and about the craft beer scene in Santa Barbara.

Again, let me emphasize the en-thusiasm levels. The porter I was drinking had a unique taste and Yani brought over assistant brewer Peter Baer to help me identify the flavor com-ponents. I asked him about the grain bill but he said the unique flavor I was getting was likely from the yeast. They cultivate their yeast strains

at Telegraph and choose to focus their beers around the flavors from the yeast. As much as I love the hop cen-tric west coast styles it is a nice change of pace to see a brewer going in a different direction. In fact, Telegraph doesn’t brew an IPA, probably one of very few Cali-fornia breweries that doesn’t.

Continued on Page 10

Yeni Salinas proudly displaying a bottle of Obscura Arborea

The Brewhouse

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 10

Following Yeni’s build up of their barrel aged sour (Obscura Arbo-rea), Peter poured me a taster. That was all it took for me, “I’ll take a couple bottles of that to go please.”Another benefit to stopping at Telegraph is that if you have wine aficionados in your group there is a wine tasting location (Carr Winery) right next door. This is definitely a worthwhile stop when you’re in Santa Barbara.

Another very laid back res-taurant/pub is the Santa Barbara Brewing Co. The

spacious interior allows customers room to relax and enjoy the beer lineup and food. It’s also a place where the brewers take their craft seriously. One need only take a look at their impressive brewing set-up to know the brewers here are paying attention to quality and detail.

The Santa Barbara Brewing Co. is located on State St. in Santa Barbara. If you’ve been to Santa Barbara as a visitor you’ve prob-ably walked down State St. as it is the main shopping thoroughfare. There are numerous dinning and drinking options as well. Santa Barbara Brewing Co. offers a full menu along with their beers in a very busy area that caters to visitors and provides a welcome respite for the beer lover. You

would do well to remember this location if you ever get dragged along on a shopping excursion when you’d rather be spending your day at the beach. Your mood will be greatly improved.With an impressive display of shiny brewing equipment in the multi-level pub the bartenders serve the Santa Barbara Brewing Co. beers from the largest serving vessels I’ve ever seen.

I had a pint of their IPA and I have to say that it wasn’t just good, but to my palate it was in the memora-ble category. The big hop hit was there but it was also super smooth and balanced. Since they are in a location where I suspect they are serving beer to a lot of people who are unfamiliar with craft beer I was thinking their beers might be a bit toned down for the masses but based on the IPA I don’t think they are backing off on the flavor at all.

Santa Barbara doesn’t have the volume of options that you would find in San Diego

or San Francisco but I found that the options that do exist, are well worth checking out. With the beaches and other amenities that Santa Barbara has to offer one could certainly consider a weekend (or longer) stay here when making travel plans, particularly those which are beer-centric. I plan on making periodic drop ins and in addition to revisiting the spots profiled in this feature, I’m sure there must be other great pizza locations to discover. If you want to do this same tour, one excellent aspect is that The Brewing Co., Santa Barbara Brewing Co., and Telegraph Brew-ing Co., are all within walking dis-tance of each other and the Am-trak Station.Here is a link to a map with all four locations. Woodstock Pizza is well outside of the city so if you want to include a stop there you’ll need some more in depth planning. As always, if you have anything to add, we’d love to hear from you. info@californiabeerandpizza.com

Santa Barbara (Cont .)

Santa Barbara Brewing Co.

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 11

This time around I thought I would use my column to discuss and explore a most

interesting breed of customer—the “fresh-slices” folks. Now, I mean no offense to any reader who happens to fit the description of a Fresh-slicer…I understand where you’re coming from and I appreciate your desire for nice fresh food, but if your main concern when choosing a lunch spot is freshness, then pizza-by-the-slice is not the choice for you.We all know who we’re talking about here, and they come in two categories: The first is never interested (no matter how fresh the pies in the window actually are) in the pizza available for sale. Their first question is always “Do you have anything coming out of the oven?” Yeah, I do…but not for you! Customers at my shop can see the rack of back up case pies from the line, so when you let them know (nicely) that there isn’t anything coming out of the oven, they then ask, “Whatcha got on the rack there?” Oh..those are back-ups for when these sell (pointing to the prominently displayed pies). This usually leads to them asking, “You sure I can’t have one of the newer ones?” Yep! Their last question, “Well which of these is freshest?” Let me consult my calendar—Newsflash! If you want

a pizza right out of the oven, then order a whole pie! The second category of Fresh-slicers doesn’t even look at the pizza, “Gimme whatever’s freshest!” No problem sir, that would be the anchovy and shoelaces drizzled with dishwater. “Sounds great.” It could be anything, they’ll take it. Now, call me crazy, but the point of buying a slice is convenience and speed, not freshness. But what do I know. Some of my best friends fit this description and I’ve let them know exactly how I feel.As a pie slinger I am then left with two choices…give in to their often rude demands for a slice from the rack and save a fight, or explain that pizza shops don’t work like that. If you get a rack slice, then everyone wants a rack slice, then we’re selling pizza off the rack and not out of the case…then where are we? And just when I’m getting ready to tell them how it is I remember that I’m working on the West Coast, land of roses, happiness, good-vibes, and sensitive bloggers, and smile (as sarcastically as possible) and pull them a fresh slice off the rack, silently wishing I worked back east, so I could send them to the back of the line where they belong.

Chris Frank is a pizza pub manager and pizzaiolo in Portland Oregon and he will be sharing his Tales From the Pizza Pub with California Beer & Pizza readers. In each article Chris will offer us a look into what it's like inside the crazy world of making pizzas, serving beer, and managing a restaurant. He is also an avid Portland Timbers fan!

Feedback for Chris can be emailed to California Beer & Pizza.

Rantings of a Misplaced East-Coaster

What’s your take onpizza by the slice?

Hate the very ideaof it?

Love theconvenience?

Okay in apinch?

Send in your rant!info@californiabeerandpizza.com

Tales From the Pizza Pub

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 12

If you are a fan of pizza blogs you are probably aware of Apizzagirl. Known for her colorful portrayals

of pizza delivery, working a professional pizza oven, and the pizza scene in Austin TX, Apizzagirl (aka Karin) conveys extreme passion for pizza. It was definitely great news for CB&P when Karin and her friend and fellow pizza fanatic, Ian, agreed to be interviewed for this issue. Hopefully Karin & Ian will inspire you to start your own piz-za adventuring group. As you will find out, you don’t need a lot of people to launch a vibrant hobby with like-minded people. How did your group get start-ed?Our group (and right now there's really only two of us plus any guests that we invite along) got started with an internet date. Ian and I were matched on an internet dating site and he was intrigued by my desire to try every pizza joint in Austin, which was something I had wanted to do for a long time but had never found a partner in crime. On that first adventure to House Pizzeria we hatched the idea of blogging the whole thing. We didn't end up dating, but we've become good friends. We try to do about a pizzeria a week when life or work isn't getting in the way. How do you decide where your next adventure will be?We take turns deciding. Whoever didn't pick the place writes the re-view.Do the establishments you go to know about your group and that you do reviews?They don't. We don't advertise

the fact while we're there and with the number of food reviewers out there (even if they're not doing exactly what we're doing) it would be hard for a restaurant to know about every reviewer.

Have you ever been contacted after a less than stellar review?We haven't though we've had only a few terrible reviews and I sus-pect that those establishments were out of touch with their cus-tomers long before we noticed it.Is there a general consensus about what makes a great pizza or are your opinions varied? Has one of you thought a par-ticular pizza joint was great while the other didn’t like it?We tend to be of the same mind though there are a few excep-tions. We don't really think of our-selves as reviewers, that's why we call ourselves adventurers. We like pizza in general and it takes a lot of work for us to hate a pizza place.Do you both make your own pizza?We don't... yet. I (Karin) have dreams of opening my own pizza place at some point and I'm cur-rently working in the kitchen of a

pizza place. Ian loves to cook and has said that he'd like do try out making pizza but is just too busy to start right now.Based on your social network-ing it seems you are also dis-covering the joys of craft beers? Is that fully integrated into your pizza adventures?I wouldn't say that it's fully inte-grated but we are known to have a beer or two over a pizza. The problem is that most pizza places around here haven't embraced craft beers and most of the pubs haven't embraced pizza. I would love to go into a place and be able to get something local or unique but the reality is that most res-taurants are going to have the standards. With that said, there is something special about drink-ing a Lonestar tallboy while eating pizza.Can you compare the pizza and/or beer scene in Austin to other places you’ve been to or read/heard about?I read a few blogs that follow the pizza scenes in other cities and I have to say that while we can't compare to the pizza scene in New York City or the beer scene in Seattle, we are getting there. Austin is unique in that we are very proud of our ability to come together as a community over food whether that be through frequenting our neighborhood piz-zerias and pubs, buying produce from the farmers market, or get-ting together to socialize with food as a focal-point. I can't remember the last time someone said to me, "Let's get Dominos" or "Let's go to Chili's for drinks."

Pizza Adventures - Austin

Karin - Apizzagirl

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 13

Austin Pizza Adventures - (Cont .)

Does Austin have a unique style of pizza or is there a particular style that is most popular?We don't have a unique style and the dominant style is what I call "delivery style". It's not thin crust, it's not thick crust. It's neither crunchy nor overly-chewy. It's often criminally overloaded with toppings. A lot of the really great pizza we've had is at places that break that mold like House Pizze-ria with their sourdough Neopoli-tan, Eastside Pies with their su-per-thin crust, and Little Deli with its great crunch.I thought some of your most en-tertaining blogging was about delivering pizzas . Can you sum-marize what the delivery experi-ence was like for you?Delivering pizza was full of frustra-tions and entertainment. I had to keep a sense of humor because it's very easy to get wrapped up in how terrible a job it actually is. It's easy to lament that people don't know they should be tipping and yet we're not allowed to educate them on that fact (and corporate refuses to do so), that my car was racking up miles with little reim-bursement, or that sometimes there are fellow pizza delivery driv-ers that truly don't care about what

they're doing, so instead I chose to pull myself out of the muck, look at it with humor, and try to see the good things.Are you looking to expand your group or are you happy with the way it is?We're happy how it is. As much as we like bringing guests along, the core of it will always be me and Ian on our quest to try every pizzeria in Austin.Do you have any advice for people who might be looking to start a similar group where they live? Use every resource (Yelp, friends, coworkers, etc) to find the little neighborhood pizza places. You never know where a great pizza might be lurking.Do you communicate with other pizza groups?We have gone on one adventure with the Hunt brothers from Pizza Hunt who, as far as I know, are the only other pizza group in Aus-tin. As far as outside of Austin, we haven't sought out communication with other groups though some things, like this interview and my guest-blogging on Slice, happen naturally as a result of blogging and Twitter.

What’s your favorite beer & pizza combination?Ian: You can't go wrong drinking a Lonestar with any pizza.Karin: I have really been enjoying Shiner's Ruby Redbird seasonal with pizza. Something about the way the grapefruit and ginger in the beer interacts with pepperoni grease is magical.For people who may not be fa-miliar with Austin, do you have opinions about the city you’d like people to know? Do you consider it to be a good travel destination?As a travel destination I'd recom-mend not coming here during one of the big festivals (unless that's your scene). Ian suggested that you find a band that you like, find out when they'll be in Austin, come to see them play and make sure to hit a couple of random shows by local bands while you're here. You can use a service like Do512 to find out what venues have bands on any given night. I'd also say to get online and find some local res-taurants (and pubs) to visit while you're here. I'm happy to make recommendations to anyone visit-ing (and maybe join you for a pie if you're getting pizza).

IanAt the top of both Karin & Ian’s Austin pizza list: House Pizza

LinksFollow apizzagirl on TwitterAustin Pizza Adventurers

Pizza Photos on FlickrDiary of a Pizza Girl

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 14

If the idea of five guys loaded up in a mini-van with a plan of visit-ing 38 breweries in 40 days for

the purpose of recording a docu-mentary on craft beer in America sounds like a recipe for disaster, then you might be surprised by American Beer, a Bockumen-tary. The documentary begins with some teaser footage followed by the five gents loading up the van with luggage and video recording equipment as they prepare to roll out into American from their New York City neighborhood. The expedition took place in 2002 and one of the more interesting aspects is that the crew was (ap-parently) able to pull up to some of American’s best craft breweries and record interviews with brew-ers who today have rock start like celebrity status in the craft brewing world. That list would include the likes of John Maier, Ken Gross-man, Sam Calagione, Garrett Oli-ver, Rob Tod, Larry Bell, and Dan & Deb Carey to name a few. The interviews with the brewers, who are also amazing story tellers (is that a prerequisite for the job?) and the tours of some of the brew-eries are pure beer video gold. These brewers worked extremely hard to get their breweries go-ing and most of the brewers fea-

tured are still going strong today, nearly ten years later. The com-mon threads between all of them seemed to be the desire to make great beer, a willingness to work very hard, and a “unique” person-ality. As for our five hosts; well there is a lot less geekiness involved than you would likely find if this project were to be conducted today. They know their beer and they know what they like but they don’t ex-amine it too closely. They are in this to have fun. They’re young and there is a definite “boys will be boys” aspect but it’s not frat boys on spring break. I found them to be entertaining and they’re ap-proach refreshing. I’m definitely guilty of beer snobbery and geek-ing out and this was a good re-minder to me that well made beer is to be enjoyed and not always necessarily a science experiment. The antics, language and hyjinx can be a bit crude at times but I doubt too many people would be offended by these good natured guys having fun.One subtlety that I appreciated was the Americana background throughout the documentary. The music between the scenes and ac-companying the on-the-road sec-tions over the 12,000 miles that were ultimately covered all added to a sense of this being about American beers being brewed in an American landscape. Check out the website for info about the project. The dvd fea-tures a whopping additional 80 of deleted scenes along with more information about the breweries.

I think most craft beer lovers will appreciate this look into Ameri-can craft beer. You’ll also be able to hear how some of your favor-ite brewers answer the question, “what’s the best hangover cure?”

If you ever wanted to see an in depth look at Rogue Nation, then Rogue University is the

DVD for you. Most beer drinkers are familiar with Rogue Ales and you don’t have to be a hard core beer geek to know that Rogue has something of a unique image and approach to brewing & mar-keting. They are one of the most well known and recognizable craft breweries. This video is very good qual-ity and gets excellent marks for production value. It’s definitely a professionally done project. The features are broken down into roughly five minute segments and are titled World Class, Rogue Nation, Rogue Spirits, John Ma-ier Brewmaster, It’s a Rogue’s Life, and More Hops. The final segment (More Hops) is some-thing of an extra features section and is subdivided into Bathroom Tour, Brewery Tour, Distillery Tour, Pledge of Rogue-legiance, Rogue Docks, and Newport Oregon. The Rogue business model of taking risks and being unique is heavily promoted and it will prob-

Beer Movies Part II

American Beera Bockumentary

Link to Amazon

RogueUniversity

Link to Rogue

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California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 15

ably not come as a surprise to most beer drinkers to learn that the people who produce Rogue’s ales and spirits are an interesting cast of characters. The viewer is treated to numer-ous looks inside the brewery and the brewing process. Brewmas-ter John Maier does a great job conveying his brewing philoso-phies and other members of Team Rogue weigh in on the importance of beer in their lives. The smell of the boiling wort with the hops. I live for that smell.” John MaierAs interesting and valuable as the looks into the brewing pro-cess are, I think the spotlight of this video is the sense of fun that encompasses all of Rogue Na-tion and the community that has been built around the brewery and pubs. Probably more so than any other brewery Rogue has devel-oped a loyal customer base that not only embraces the beers but also the philosophy and lifestyle of the company. The distillery tour footage is enter-taining even for people (like me) who aren’t particularly interested in spirits. From a homebrewer’s perspective there are interesting parallels between the processes of brewing beer and distilling spir-its. This is definitely a fun and inter-esting set of video features. If you have a beer video library this is a must have. To order a copy of the DVD and check out all things Rogue Nation go to: www.rogue.com.

The one movie that rocked the craft beer world is Beer Wars, Brewed in America.

Taking on controversial topics re-garding advertising, beer quality, and distribution rules & regula-tions, film maker Anat Baron took aim at the big guys. Her film fo-cuses on the difficulties faced by small brewers in their efforts to compete in the realm of beer sales and give customers the op-portunity to try their beers. The documentary begins with a history of beer in America and some brief biographical informa-tion on Ms. Baron. She left cor-porate life to work for Mike’s Hard Lemonade and thus began her beer industry education. Included in the background infor-mation is an emphasis placed on most of the regional brewers hav-ing been wiped out by the 1970’s due to very aggressive advertis-ing campaigns by the larger brew-ers. From that point we hear from some of the elite in the craft beer movement on the difficulties they faced getting started and promot-ing their beers. Insights are of-fered from Kim Jordan (New Bel-gium), Greg Kock (Stone), Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head), and Jim Koch (Boston Brewing).In addition to the comments from the brewers, we hear from the Alstrom brothers (Beeradvocate.

com) and the always entertaining guru of home brewing; Charlie Pa-pazian.Clearly the film maker did her homework and sought out the opinions of the people involved at both a micro, as well as macro, level. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film is the feature on the three tier distribution system. This system gets fairly involved and it’s covered pretty well, but for this review it’s suffice to say that it covers how beer can be distrib-uted and how it has evolved into a system that heavily favors the largest brewers. This whole area gets into “the ugly political side” in which beer industry lobbyists, of what appears to be questionable ethics, influence politicians and attempt to maintain a monopoly on beer distribution. There is also a somewhat shock-ing segment on Anheuser-Busch filing a law suit against Dogfish Head Brewing for using certain words in the titles of their beer. It was these types of revelations that tended to infuriate craft beer aficionados when the film came out. There has certainly been a lot of discussion about this film and based on social media comments from beer fans it seems the major-ity were in support of Ms. Baron’s points. Others found the film one-sided and biased against A-B/Miller/Coors. The discussion of the movie on Chowhound led to varied opinions. If you have an opinion we’d love to hear it: info@californiabeerand pizza.com

Beer Movies (Cont .)

Beer WarsBrewed in America

Link to Netflix➦

California Beer & Pizza — Summer 2011 — 16

mozzarella on it. Not what we had ordered but we were given the piz-za anyway. Everyone was pleas-antly surprised. The taste of the mozzarella blended well with the clams. Everyone gave this pizza a positive review.The original tomato pie was excel-lent. Indeed the taste of the crust came shining through. The veg-etarians of the group felt this was a perfect blend of sauce, cheese and crust. The original, was in a word outstanding.Out came the bacon and sausage pizza. The bacon strips were thick and meaty. The sausage had a pleasant melding of meat and

spices. The pizza was finished in an instant.Finally our clam pizza (sans moz-zarella) appeared. It was not only a visual delight but the taste was just incredible. No one and I mean no one can match a Pepe’s clam pizza. Sure many have tried to recreate it, However, the taste of this pizza is beyond description.Simply amazing.It was interesting to compare and contrast the taste of the two clam pies: one with mootz, the other made without it. While I won’t be ordering the clam with “mootz” anytime soon, it was nice to be

able to contrast the two very dif-ferent pies. Again, Pepe’s did not disappoint.

We all will be going back soon!

Pizza Therapy - (Cont .)

(Continued From Page 5)

Don’t lose your head or go overboard this summer. Plan your adventures

safely by clicking on the links below. Enjoy the fun in the sun but remember

to think about what you’re doing and act responsibly.

The Designated Driver Program

Public Transportation Options

Boating Safety

Swimming Safety