Do you like hot sauce (and by hot sauce I mean red sauce, green sauce, salsa, queso, salsa verde, salsa picante and any other concoction of insanely spicy hot peppers capable of physically scalding your mouth in a delicious way)?  Most of us do, whether for the love of the flavor or some sadomasicistic test of our palate.

Do you like standing in long lines under a hot sun in a dusty park?  Probably not.  But what if we tossed in some toe-tapping, foot-stomping live music?  And what if we add beer to the mix?

Now we're on to something.

Austin Hot Sauce Festival

Austin, Texas is a mecca for festivals.  There are the well-known large music festivals like Austin City Limits, South by Southwest and Fun, Fun, Fun.  There are art festivals, film festivals, street festivals and even a Bat Festival.  And then there are food festivals like the Austin Chronicle's Hot Sauce Festival.

Hot SaucesThe Austin Hot Sauce Festival, held near downtown Austin in Waterloo Park is an opportunity to try to burn one's tongue off with various salsa and spicy concoctions in 100 degree heat.  It's a great opportunity  to challenge your palate and has been consistenly rated one of the most popular festivals by the Austin Chronicle, but it's not perfect.  There are long lines for everything.  Usually it's a long line for a meager handful of tortilla chips and a dollop of sauce.  But much of that salsa is worth the wait. 

And when bands like Nakia and his Southern Cousins  areNakia and His Southern Cousins playing, then it's a wonderful way to spend one of the last Sunday's before the start of football season.  

You'd think it would be a great opportunity to have a good cold beer.  Unfortunately, the beer selection is as weak as the preponderance of lines.  Available beers were the usual mass-produced domestic swill, with not a single microbrew or craft beer.

Big Daddy (on right) and teamBut one team understands what the people want.  And that team is in the booth hosting Big Daddy's Ass Burn Hot Sauce.  Yep, with a motto like "Hell Goin In, Hell Goin Out," it's easy to see this is a crew that takes the Hot Sauce challenge seriously.  There is excitement in the booth and not for just their delicious ass-burning hot sauce or their ingenious marketing.  The excitement is for the realization that their not-so-secret ingredient is St. Arnold beer!

Big Daddy's Ass Burn is a salsa produced by Big Daddy and his family in Houston, TX.  They won the 2007 Austin Hot Sauce festival and have several signature lines of hot sauce, including Ass Burn...

Ass Burn

and High on Fire.

High on Fire

St. Arnold is Texas' oldest craft brewery and brews an award-winning line that has been recognized by the GABF, including St. Arnold's Lawnmower Beer - the 2007 Gold Medal winning trueSt. Arnold German-style Kölsch. As the not-so-secret ingredient of Big Daddy Trevi Biles, St. Arnold's Fancy Lawnmower Beer provides an excellent base to build a tantalizing spicy sauce. At the Austin Hot Sauce festival, it's also the closest thing to a decent beer.  Hopefully next year, the concert organizers will recognize the availability of craft and micro brews could turn the inevitable long lines into opportunities to enjoy another delicious flavor under the hot Texas sun.

Big Daddy's Ass Burn Hot Sauce
519 Railey
Houston, TX  77009
www.bigdaddyassburn.com

St. Arnold's Brewery
Saint Arnold Brewing Company
2522 Fairway Park Drive
Houston, TX 77092
www.saintarnold.com

Raise Your Glass to Hot Sauce and the hope that the Austin Chronicle realizes next year that bad beer just doesn't cut it when we're in a tasting mood.