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Uncle Billy's Brew & Que

Slid-sliding away at Uncle Billy's

By Mike Sutter
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT CRITIC
Thursday, November 20, 2008

Sliders - those White Castle bun-bombs from the nostalgic haze of best-forgotten benders - are migrating onto menus all over town.

But do sliders faithfully translate into other food languages? The wee meat patty, the two big bites of carby-sweet bun with pickle and onion? Please spare us the fajita slideritas, the pepperoni slideronis, the deli slidelis. But pulled pork sliders at Uncle Billy's Brew & Que on Barton Springs Road? Maybe.

Maybe not. At $6.29, the barbecue sliders appetizer of four build-your-own minibuns with a pile of onion and pickles and a tiny bowl of pulled pork - smoky-sweet and righteously toothy though it was - looked less like an appetizer and more like a child's plate with four dinner rolls and no sides. On another visit, for $3.20 more, I opted for a more satisfying pulled-pork plate with two sides.

Truthfully, though, the real reason to visit Uncle Billy's is the beer - which, because of condo construction, makes it bearable to park and walk or take a shuttle from the Austin Java/Uncle Billy's lot past Chuy's off Sterzing Street. Brewmaster Brian Peters, a veteran of Live Oak Brewing Co. and the late Bitter End, offers a half-dozen house beers on tap, from a dry, kolsch-style blonde ale to a hoppy pale ale to a "special malt tap" that might be a smoked porter on one visit or a coffee stout on another. And on Tuesdays, those beers start at $2 a pint, right at half their normal price.

And because beer at $2 a glass needs something to stabilize you, the sliders shouldn't be a stop sign on the road to exploring the rest of Uncle Billy's menu. The pork ribs, which added $3 to an already pricey $15.99 three-meat tray, are dry-rubbed rather than lacquered with sauce, and the meat falls politely from the bone. Accompanied by serviceable brisket, snappy-hot jalapeño-cheese sausage and two sides (for us, creamy mac and cheese and overly salted pinto beans), the tray could have fed two people, which gives you an excuse to skip the institutional-tasting fried pickle spears ($6.29).

But bless me, John Kelso, for I have sinned. I ordered salad at a barbecue joint. How could I resist? The smokehouse Cobb salad promised brisket, pulled chicken, avocado, egg, bacon and blue cheese. At $8.99, it was a right-priced gateway to the hard-core meat plates. I couldn't finish it in one sitting. The orange chipotle vinaigrette dressing was awful, though, and I'm glad I stuck with barbecue sauce, mixing the sweet house sauce with a smoldering habañero version from a bottle sporting a skull and crossbones. Heed the warning.

The beer, though. Let's talk more about that. Haystack Hefeweizen is a summer sunrise in a glass: cloudy, quenching, braced with lemon and a fleeting spice note. Other winning wheats included a slightly sweet, agave-fermented style and an opaque, fortifying, hop-tanged "über-weisse." On the dark side, a coffee stout was robust enough to forgive the unfulfilled promise of the Smokehouse Porter, which flowered with tawny sparkle when I wanted a woodsy punch in the nose.

For an extra dollar on a Tuesday visit, I sprang for the cask-conditioned, hoppy twang of the Mooneye Rye. A cask beer - a showcase for new styles - shows up every first Tuesday of the month. It's gone, I'm told, in less than an hour. The honeycombed foam, the cloudy mystique of the unfiltered yeast, the Zen-like accord of the malt. These are the things that make homebrewers weep with envy.

My server swung back by to cradle his hands around the glass, an embrace of avuncular pride. "It needs to warm up," he said. "You don't want to drink it too cold."

I won't, Uncle Billy. I promise. Just don't make me order the sliders.

msutter@statesman.com; 912-5902