Austin's Ale House

On one side of the bar, you have your horse racing addicts & their spreadsheets, at the other end you have your sports fanatics & average imbibers. There is this thin mist of floaters that separate them from the inevitable clash of the titans. Wow, what a strange place.

Straight up Queens blvd., south on the turnpike, then up east a few blocks. Really, much easier then I had thought. This is all on bike by the way. The fresh air does a body good, but really I'm just too cheap to call a cab.

Like I said, the bar is busy & tense. Wedging myself in, I do manage to grab a stool in the buffer zone. Wow, from the reviews, the taps haven't changed at all; just barely. I order up a SA winter, & tried to get a feel for the place, but I really couldn't. Should I stay here, or try out the restaurant in the back? I manage to draw a blank, & next order up the Franziskaner, which is $4 & is drawn into an official half liter glass. I didn't expect that. Ooh, I killed another keg. I'm good at this. :) The bartender without asking though, popped in a lemon wedge. Too bad I didn't have any shrimp scampi in my pocket.

The ambiance definitely could use some improvement, but it wasn't totally awkward if your a horsie fan. The three wisemen in Rangers jerseys sitting next to me made for some amusing background noise. Once the rambling got a bit too incoherent, I knew I had probably gotten to know my new friend Franz a little too well, so I headed back.

Man, did that wind burn going home.

Cheers!

 

 

This is a very strange place. There is an OTB horse betting office located inside this bar. Hence the place is filled with older guys with racing papers watching any one of about 30 flat screen tvs that show about 15 differant tracks around the country. Weird. They do have a few decent taps out of about 20 all together. All the bottles are space wasters. Service was friendly. Didnt try the food. Only worth a visit if youre a local or if in the neighborhood. PS not the easiest place to locate, queens county is a maze, with streets, avenues all going all over the place.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.
It's a bar that has the words "Ale House" in it's name which is suggestive in and of itself. The city of New York is 5 boroughs. We have a good number of bars, beer stores and a handful of brewpubs in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and there are even places listed in Staten Island and (the) Bronx but virtually nothing (except for Bohemia Hall) in Queens. And then there's Austin's Ale House...
Austin's (steak and) Ale House is like a bar, restaurant, and OTB rolled into one. Once you enter, you are immediately overwhelmed by the dozens of horseraces on the TV's mounted everywhere. Adjacent to the bar is a small room with many more TV's, a bunch of little tables, a few couches, and a little booth where these gambling people were placing bets. This much on this, this on this, this on this, and gimme this on this. Freaky.
They had 20 taps, most of which were macros. Otherwise, Guinness, Harp, Bass, Spaten Octo, Franziskaner Weisse, Brooklyn Lager, Sam Lager, Sam Winter, SN Pale Ale, Stella, nothing too crazy.
They had a large number of bottles with some redeeming choices.
Micros (Otter Creek Copper, Magic Hat Blind Faith, Rogue Dead Guy, Saranac Black & Tan, Geary's Porter) and imports (Paulaner Salvator, Chimay Red, Young's Old Nick, Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout, Franziskaner & Schneider Weisses, Fullers ESB, Dinkel Acker Pils & Dark) although somehow, I don't think this crowd of 55 year old pony players are drinking the imports. Yea, I'll bet that they're sticking to the cheap drafts.
There's a steakhouse/restaurant back room and they have an outdoor "trackside cafe" open during the warmer months. Service was plesant and prompt. Not my crowd and not my scene but in fairness, they have some decent bottles.