Last Saturday, we tried something new and fun. There is a steam train that runs through Austin that has its depot right by our house. We've been wanting to try it out for a while, but never found the right trip or weekend to fit it in. Now that I have weekends off, my options have opened up quite a bit. We found a train ride that was the Beer Flyer, featuring beer from Whitestone Brewery and food from Bellini's, one of our favorite restaurants. It was a pretty hot day, so we were glad that the train was air conditioned as we boarded for our 3 hour tour.

The train was pretty cute and it was an actual car from the 1940's. We had volunteers from the Austin Steam Train helping us get seated and told us a little bit about the train and our trip. We rode the train from Cedar Park to Bertram and back. We got to see some cute little towns and even a few fireworks as it was July 4th weekend. We even had a birthday boy in our car, who got a rap and serenaded by the whole car. Shortly after we left the station, we were served our first course. From Whitestone, we got the Cedrela Hefeweizen. It was aged with cedar so it had a different taste that many hefeweizens and was quite tasty. It was paired with a bruschetta. Both the items were light and fresh.

Next, we had a white pizza paired with the Long Gone Blonde. The pizza was full of flavor with a garlicky white sauce covered in cheese. The blonde was light and perfect for a hot summer day.

Our main course was a meat pizza paired with the Lazy Day IPA. I'll be the first to admit, that I don't care for most IPAs. This one wasn't bad. I probably wouldn't order it as my favorite, but I wasn't going to turn down beer. The pizza had a great flavor and was nice and filling.

Finally, on our way home, it was time for dessert. For dessert, we had the Porch Daddy Porter, paired with cannoli. The dark beer was a perfect match with the sweet creamy cannoli.

Another perk to our trip, was that we got to hear about the beer from Ryan, the head brewer, at Whitestone. He told us about each beer and things he did to make his stand out from other beers. We also liked that by taking our train tickets to Whitestone later in the week, we were able to get 20% off our bill and pint glasses. Bellini's also gave us a coupon for our next visit. This was a fun and relaxing evening. It combined food and beer we love with a new experience. I can't wait to try another evening on the steam train. Maybe next time, we will ride the wine flyer or a murder mystery tour.

The New Austonian