Carl Knutson

New Comic: Primal

I will happily test out a Mac Pro if anyone wants to mail me one!

Sagra. [Photo: Sagra/Facebook]

· Noise Complaints Turn Blackheart into Live Music Hot Spot [ABJ]
· Fired Chef Gets Revenge and Hijacks Restaurant's Twitter [-EN-]
· The Craft Beer Market Exploded; Brewers Are Worried About a Collapse [BI]
· At Restaurants, Gluten-Free Is a Tough Recipe [WSJ]
· The Science Behind Stuffing Your Face at Christmas [WoM/Guardian]
· Illegal Horsemeat Allegations Lead to Arrests in France [The Guardian]
· McDonald's New App Is a Glorified Coupon [Businessweek]
· Review: How the Sriracha Doc Turned Hot Sauce Cloying [-EN-]
· Watch David Chang's MAD Talk Linking Guts and Naiveté [-EN-]

Yellow thing and orange thing is my favorite bistro brunch.

Posted by Nick Piepmeier, Software Engineer

Having access to your data and being able to take it with you is important, especially if that data contains precious memories like old love letters, your first job offer, or that 100-message thread discussing the merits of various cat videos. Starting today we're rolling out the ability to export a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data, making it easy to back up your data or move to another service.

You can download all of your mail and calendars or choose a subset of labels and calendars. You can also download a single archive file for multiple products with a copy of your Gmail, Calendar, Google+, YouTube, Drive, and other Google data.
The ability to download your Gmail messages will be rolled out over the next month while Calendar data is available to download for everyone today.

It's been a good 15 years, but Winamp, our go-to desktop media player, is shutting down on December 20th.

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Jeff Wilson, an environmental science professor at Huston-Tillotson University, takes "dumpster diving" very, very seriously. [ more › ]

With free two-day shipping on millions of items, Netflix-style video streaming, and a library of Kindle books that you can borrow for free, Amazon Prime is a no-brainer for anyone who shops online. Today, a policy change for non-Prime customers makes a membership more valuable than ever.

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CyanogenMod, our favorite Android ROM, has expanded into its own company, Cyanogen Inc. They'll be launching an app that simplifies the installation process, new features, and aiming to update more devices faster. Check out their full blog post for more information.

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The previously launched Android Device Manager just gained the ability to remotely lock your phone with a new password. You'll have to activate ADM as a device administrator first, so be sure to turn it on before you lose your phone. Read more here or try it here.

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CINCINNATI — The cider makers at Angry Orchard, the number one selling hard cider brand in the US, are branching out and experimenting with American culinary apples, crafting two brand new hard ciders just in time for the fall season.

Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple, a sweet and slightly tart hard cider with a spicy kick of cinnamon, and Angry Orchard Green Apple, a hard cider with a tart and bright character like a fresh green apple, are the result of the cider makers’ first experiments with juice from American-grown apples.  Cinnful Apple is a national seasonal release, while Green Apple is a year-round style currently in limited release with the national launch planned for early 2014.

“With Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple and Green Apple hard ciders, we are exploring new apple varieties and flavor profiles that offer our adventurous drinkers a distinctly unique and refreshing taste,” said David Sipes, Cider Maker for Angry Orchard.  “We searched for apples from specific regions in the United States that share characteristics with European apple blends we’ve traditionally used, paying homage to our original cider making techniques while introducing new and exciting hard ciders.”

About Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple & Angry Orchard Green Apple

• ·         Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple (5.0% ABV) imparts a sweet, slightly tart apple flavor, complemented by the aroma of cinnamon spice.  This seasonal cider, available through February of 2014, is refreshing and smooth yet warming— perfect for the colder months ahead.  The sweet and spicy flavor profile of Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple also pairs exceptionally well with fall holiday drinking occasions. The spicy heat of cinnamon contrasts well with the sweet, classic fall foods like butternut squash, ham and pumpkin pie.

• ·         Angry Orchard Green Apple (5.0% ABV) has a bright, fresh apple flavor with notes of sweet honeydew melon and kiwi that balance the lively apple tartness, all leading to a dry and slightly tart finish.  Green Apple’s soft, bright acidity complements heavier flavors of smoked meats and sharp cheeses, as well as sweet desserts.

“The cinnamon spice notes in Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple add hints of cocoa and a slight heat to the cider, which is balanced by a dry and warm finish. It is a perfect marriage of nostalgic flavors for the fall and winter seasons,” said Sipes.  “Angry Orchard Green Apple showcases the recognizable tart, puckering flavor characteristic of green apples, meant to be enjoyed year-round, and unlike any other cider.”

Angry Orchard Now Exploring American Apples:

Angry Orchard Cider Company launched three cider styles nationally in 2012, and has quickly become a favorite among hard cider drinkers for its high-quality ingredients and distinctly crisp and refreshing taste, making it the number one selling hard cider in the U.S.  The cider makers at Angry Orchard have experimented for years with apple varieties from Europe, and have created high-quality hard ciders with apples from orchards in Italy and France.

Inspired by a sense of exploration among cider drinkers looking to experience new and exciting tastes, Angry Orchard is making its first foray into cider made with American culinary apples, with these two new cider styles.  Certain regions within the United States, such as the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast, share characteristics – rich soil, ample sunshine and water – with the apple-growing regions of France and Italy that are known to produce juicy apples.  The cider makers at Angry Orchard found that slightly less tannic juice from apples from Washington State complemented the ingredients in Cinnful Apple and Green Apple perfectly, creating a unique and balanced flavor profile for each cider.

Recently, hard cider has exploded in popularity in the U.S., with the latest IRI data showing the cider segment up 223% over the end of summer 2013, and GuestMetrics reporting that on-premise cider sales are up 70% versus last year.

Both Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple and Angry Orchard Green Apple hard ciders are naturally gluten-free. Angry Orchard Green Apple is available year-round in 6-packs for a suggested retail price of $7.99 – $9.99 (price varies by market). Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple is available August through February in 6-packs for a suggested retail price of $7.99 – $9.99 and in variety 12-packs with three other Angry Orchard styles for a suggested retail price of $14.99 – $17.99 (price varies by market).  To find where Angry Orchard is served near you, visit our “cider finder” at www.angryorchard.com/find-angry-orchard/.

About Angry Orchard

Angry Orchard Cider Company’s cider makers have been experimenting with apple varieties and unique flavors to develop cider recipes for more than 15 years.  Angry Orchard’s hard cider line-up – Crisp Apple, Apple Ginger, Traditional Dry, Elderflower, Iceman and Strawman – first experimented with a blend of Italian culinary apples from the Northern Alps and French bittersweet apples from Normandy. Angry Orchard’s newest styles, Cinnful Apple and Green Apple, are made with apples from the Pacific Northwest and the foothills of the Northeast.  The juice goes through a lengthy fermentation process, with some ciders aged on oak for additional complexity and balance, before bottling. For more information, please visit www.AngryOrchard.com or like us atwww.Facebook.com/AngryOrchard.

Let's all give Jesus a big hand for walking on one half-inch of water.

Paso Robles, CA -- Firestone Walker Brewing Company’s Velvet Merkin—the beer that almost wasn’t—will soon heed the rallying cry of “release the merkins,” as it is set to be offered for the first time in 22-ounce bottles starting on September 16.

The Vintage 2013 Merkin is an oatmeal stout aged for a year in retired bourbon barrels from Four Roses, Heaven Hill and others.

While it is not Firestone Walker’s usual style to conceive beer monikers that are confounding, scandalous or comical, the brewery inadvertently achieved all three of these things with the name “Velvet Merkin” once upon a time. The name went off the grid for several years, but now it’s back due to popular demand.

“Until now, all you could get was an occasional peek at Velvet Merkin during a special event or in the brewery tasting room,” said Brewmaster Matt Brynildson. “This beer has earned a cult following, and people have been hounding us to release it—and to keep the name. I think some folks are going to wig out when they learn that it’s finally available.”

Velvet Merkin belongs to Firestone Walker’s Proprietor’s Reserve series, and was originally developed as a component of the brewery’s annual barrel-aged Anniversary Ale blend.

The Vintage 2013 Merkin is limited to 3,500 cases of 22-ounce bottles. Below are additional details on the brewing, barrel aging and tasting profile of the Vintage 2013 Merkin:

Lower Alcohol, Higher Notes

With an ABV of 8.5 percent, Velvet Merkin is the first barrel-aged vintage beer that Firestone Walker has released with an alcohol level under 10 percent.

“With barrel aging, it’s easy to gravitate toward higher alcohol beers, because the higher the alcohol, the better the chances that the beer will remain stable in the barrel over time,” Brynildson said. “But we’ve gotten more and more comfortable with putting lower alcohol beers in the barrel, and there’s this interesting synergy when you do that.”

He continued, “Alcohol plays a huge role in the flavor profile of a barrel-aged beer. When you dial the alcohol level down, all sorts of other flavors come to the surface. With Velvet Merkin, the base beer begins with this dark chocolate and roasted coffee character, but after a year in the barrel, it comes out like milk chocolate with creamy vanilla undertones. You still get some of the classic bourbon barrel notes, but the lower alcohol level really allows this unique milk chocolate quality to come to the surface.”

Merkin to Merlin and Back…

The original Velvet Merkin was made solely for the brewery’s tasting room, starting in 2004. “I always wanted to make an oatmeal stout, and so I started making single-turn batches for the tasting room, just for fun,” Brynildson said.

He added, “I came up with this fanciful name, because I thought it was hilarious. I never thought it would leave the tasting room walls. When we decided to bottle it as a fall seasonal release about four years ago, everyone got cold feet, so we changed the name to Velvet Merlin.”

But the Velvet Merkin name was surreptitiously resurrected by Brynildson and the brewing team after they began aging batches of the beer in bourbon barrels at around the same time.

“Velvet Merkin is the barrel-aged version of that original oatmeal stout now known as Velvet Merlin,” Brynildson said. “We’ve been making this iteration of Velvet Merkin for several years as part of our Anniversary Ale program, and now we think it merits its own limited release.”

While not available to the public in bottles until now, Velvet Merkin has already racked up two gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival.

Get Your Merkin On at “Merkinfest”

Velvet Merkin will be officially unveiled at the “Release of The Merkins” party at Firestone Walker’s Barrelworks in Buellton on September 14. Ticket availability is limited. For tickets and details, stay tuned at: www.firestonebeer.com/events/merkinfest.php

Velvet Merkin Tasting Notes

Beautiful chocolate, espresso and vanilla-bourbon aromas hold your nose hostage. Rich milk chocolate, bourbon and espresso create a dangerously smooth and incredibly drinkable barrel-aged oatmeal stout. Hoarding tendencies may occur.

2013 Vintage Merkin Lowdown

• Style: Barrel-Aged Oatmeal Stout
• ABV: 8.5%   IBU: 33   Color: 80SRM
• Malts: 2-Row Pale, Roast Barley, English Dark Caramel, Medium Caramel, Carafa Malt, Oats (15%)
• Hops: U.S.-grown Fuggle
• Aging: Barrel aged for one year on average in retired spirits barrels
• Production: 3,500 cases (22-ounce bottles)
• Retail: $16.99 (22-ounce bottle). Available while supplies last in CA, NV, OR, WA, AZ, CO, MO, Chicago, MA, NJ, NY, VA, PA, DC, and MD.

Great news: Dave Eggers' utterly delightful suite of McSweeney's publications—which includes any books they publish, Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Lucky Peach, and the DVD-journal Wholphin—have been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center at UT. [ more › ]

Coffee shop + Internet—it’s a pairing that many of us have come to rely on. WiFi access makes work time, downtime, travel time and lots of in-between times more enjoyable and productive. That’s why we’re teaming up with Starbucks to bring faster, free WiFi connections to all 7,000 company-operated Starbucks stores in the United States over the next 18 months. When your local Starbucks WiFi network goes Google, you’ll be able to surf the web at speeds up to 10x faster than before. If you’re in a Google Fiber city, we’re hoping to get you a connection that’s up to 100x faster.

Google has long invested in helping the Internet grow stronger, including projects to make Internet access speedier, more affordable, and more widely available. The free Internet connection at Starbucks has become an important part of many communities over the years, such as in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, or for students without Internet at home who do their homework at Starbucks.

We’ll start rolling out the new networks this August. We appreciate your patience if it’s still a little while before we get to your favorite Starbucks—you’ll know your new network is ready to go when you can log in to the “Google Starbucks” SSID.

Posted by Kevin Lo, General Manager, Google Access

When SB 515, 518 and 639 were signed into law earlier this month, brewers and brewpub owners across the state (mostly) rejoiced. Now, they're making plans on how to move forward.

Iron Swan, the newest brew from Real Ale, was created in partnership with Austin heavy metal band The Sword.

Stone Farking Wheaton #w00tstout! 

Wil and Greg from Stone Brewing asked me to design a label for their super Vultron beer collaboration with Drew Curtis from Fark.com. The final brew has three different bottle designs. That’s mine on the far right. The pics beneath show the full wrap around design. The beer will be debuted at SDCC this year at a party that, as far as I know, YOU can come to. 

Here’s the details about the beer and the event from Stone: 

DEBUTING the THREE bottles for our Drew Curtis /Wil Wheaton / Greg Koch Stone Farking Wheaton#w00tstout, one of which was illustrated by comic book artist Joel Watson of Hijinks Ensue.

Join us in #SanDiego during Comic-Con International, July 17, for HOP-CON: The #w00tstout Launch Party (http://bit.ly/HopCon). It’s our 1st event at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens - Liberty Station and will featureGreg Koch, Wil Wheaton, live music from Paul and Storm, and, oh yeah, some righteous beer…

- Drew Curtis/Wil Wheaton/Greg Koch Stone FARKING WHEATON w00tstout
- Drew Curtis/Wil Wheaton/Greg Koch Stone FARKING WHEATON w00tstout on cask 
- 2006 Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine aged in Bourbon Barrels
- Dogfish Head/Victory/Stone Saison du BUFF
- Stone Cali-Belgique IPA aged in Red Wine Barrels 
- Special Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens - Liberty Station beers (brewed on site!)

Press release from Hops & Grain below. When I find time, I'll make a little additional comment about the new Texas laws that the press release refers to. Now that I work for the Texas Legislature, I got an inside view of these laws moving through the legislative process. My boss, State Senator Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio played a key role in making this happen, and I'm very proud of her.

The design's scope has undergone some rebranding in the interim as a way to "reconnect" east and west Austin. [ more › ]

I just walked to work in the rain wearing my thin-ass, brand new cloth sneakers which I sprayed with NeverWet. As you can see, they are dry enough that there’s a cat hair on the toe.

I didn’t go insane with the spray so they would retain some breathability. I did a second treatment after testing so I could see where I missed. My socks are perfectly dry after 15 minutes in medium-strength rain with a few walks across wet grass.

It worked pretty well on a thin cloth jacket, too. I’ll need to do a second treatment to get into seams and flaps, focusing on the shoulders.

I got my NeverWet from the Home Depot website. It cost about $20. Paid for it myself, no contact with anyone at any related company, blah blah blah. Really pleased that my enthusiasm for this stuff is about 95% warranted.

It really is kind of magic. I could see Batman spraying his cape with this.

Beer! More specifically: Craft beer! The New Yorker, in their typical, beautiful New Yorker-y way, has put together this nifty interactive breaking down the rise of the craft beer breweries in the U.S. [ more › ]

How do you like your hot sauce? Hot? Or extra hot? [ more › ]

Big data cloud services provider Infochimps Inc. has raised $595,000 of a planned $700,000 financing. The Austin-based company collected the capital from eight investors, according to a Wednesday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Infochimps, founded in 2009, develops big-data systems for enterprise companies. The company employs 14 workers. In February, it reported raising $2.7 million of a planned $3 million financing from 15 investors. The filing was an update to an April…

Last week, Eater Austin asked readers to weigh in on the city's most underrated restaurants. With so much hype surrounding the Austin Food & Wine Festival, SXSW, Circuit of the Americas, Austin City Limits and the rest of the city's packed schedule of parties, it can be frustrating to see the same restaurants recommended over and over again—even if Uchi, La Condesa, Barley Swine and Franklin Barbecue really, truly are that good ... and they are.

What constitutes an "underrated" restaurant? It's a restaurant that needs a signal boost, one that rarely makes top-ten lists, one that a recent Austin transplant isn't likely to recognize by name, one that hasn't been visited by a Bourdain or a Fieri or a Zimmern, one one that might inspire you to exclaim, "Oh yeah, that place! I love that place!" Y'all get the idea.

Now, we've sifted through one of the longest comment threads in the history of the site, read your e-mail recommendations and your Facebook comments and your tweets, and we're ready to bring you the twenty most underrated restaurants in Austin, mapped.