Austin: Battle of the Gluten Free Beers

I’ve been to Austin, TX several times before, but those trips were very “work-centric” and left little time to explore the actual city itself. This past week, my husband and I went to Austin for what we’ve now started calling a mini “workation”. Both of us had work out there so we decided to travel together and explore the city at night. It ended up being an incredible trip!

I often travel for work, but very rarely bring up my Gluten-intolerance in front of customers. I typically carefully select menu items without making a big deal of the issue whenever we’re out to eat. And I never, I mean never, request a gluten-free menu unless it specifically states on the menu that they have one or I know we’re eating at a restaurant with one. Might I have missed out on hundreds of opportunities for gluten-free deliciousness? Of course. But we all know that pointing out an allergy often leads to others asking questions. And my dinners with customers are not meant to focus on my food allergy.

So when the hubs and I arrived in Austin, we decided to live up our Gluten-Free dining options. After all, he is only recently diagnosed with a Gluten Allergy and he is still discovering what “good” gluten-free eating is all about. Especially in restaurants.

As soon as we arrived, we used the app, Find Me Gluten Free, to explore restaurants and bars surrounding our hotel to find a place for a late lunch. When we use this app in Mississippi, it usually comes back with just a few results. In fact, in our hometown of Vicksburg, MS, the app brings back only 3 restaurants – one of which, McAlister’s, does not even have Gluten-Free bread at our location! So we were extremely excited to see pages and pages of results – most within walking distance of our hotel! (If you don’t have the FMGF app on your phone yet, download it immediately! It’s a lifesaver!)

The first place we visited, Hickory Street Bar & Grill, had an incredible selection of Gluten-Free menu items including fried chicken, mac and cheese, a buffalo chicken sandwich and fried pickles! We loaded up on everything! But the best thing they had was Gluten-Free beer! My husband, a beer lover in his “gluten days” was most excited about this. I hadn’t had a beer since college, but nothing sounded better on a hot Texas afternoon so I ordered one as well.

The staff recommended Omission. Talk about an awesome choice! We couldn’t believe how delicious it was! Even my husband, who is often hesitant to agree that anything Gluten-Free tastes 100% like the “real thing” agreed that this beer was AWESOME. Two thumbs way up!

As the week carried on, we enjoyed a ridiculous amount of delicious food. One of my favorites was when our incredible waiter at UchiKo brought us some amazing Gluten-Free fried chicken to try. Sounds like an odd dish for a sushi restaurant, right? But it was arguably the most delicious thing we ate all week long!

Towards the end of the week, we headed to Top Golf Austin to play some competitive games with my customers – and maybe enjoy a cocktail or two. Top Golf is where we discovered Bard’s Gluten-Free Beer! It had been YEARS since I had even had a beer and here I was trying two different kinds of beer in one week – and loving them! I was in beer heaven!

If you had to ask me to choose between Omission and Bard’s, I would have a hard time. (Probably because I was just so darn excited to be drinking a beer at all). But for my husband, the choice was easy. He is an Omission fan all the way now. If only there was somewhere near our hometown where we could actually get some…!

But Austin, keep an eye out for this girl. I will definitely be back for more!

How about you? Have you tried any amazing gluten-free beers recently?