Recap: Best of 2009

If you weren't around when we handed out our 11 Best of 2009 awards, this will get you up to speed:

1. Best Pork Chop: Opie's
2. Best Pork: Snow's
3. Best Turkey: Mills County BBQ Company
4. Best Chicken: The Salt Lick
5. Best Beef Ribs: Meyer's
6. Best Pork Ribs: Smitty's
7. Best Sausage: Louie Mueller
8. Best Brisket: Meyer's
9. Best Service: Louie Mueller
10. Best Atmosphere: The Salt Lick
11. Best Overall: Opie's

Most awards (1st, 2nd, & 3rd places): Opie's Barbecue (Spicewood): 7 awards; Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor): 6 awards; Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse (Elgin): 5 awards

Congrats to all of our winners!!! We'll present your award posters as soon as we can.

Best of 2009: Best Overall

We've finally come to our 11th and final Best of 2009 award. As with all of our awards, the overall award goes to the joint that stood out above the rest of the 50+ joints we hit up in 2009. Only 1 joint from our Best Overall of 2008 (at #1) appears on this year's list (at #2). Just 1 point separates this year's #1 and #2, so it was a close one, folks. Same winners as for Best Atmosphere of 2009 but in reverse order. Without further ado, here are last year's best of the best:


1. Opie's Barbecue (Spicewood): 25 points

2. Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor): 24 points

3. The Salt Lick (Driftwood): 17 points

Others receiving votes: Snow's BBQ, Smitty's Market, Mills County BBQ Company, Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse, City Market, Kreuz Market, Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (New Braunfels), Schoepf's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que

Best of 2009: Best Atmosphere

For our penultimate Best of 2009 award, we name our winners for Best Atmosphere. For some folks, the atmosphere of a Texas BBQ joint is as important as, or even more important than, the food (see blog poll on the far-right column). One of the best things about our BBQ trips is that initial feeling you get when you pass through the door. That unmistakable smell of years and years of pit smoke. The pictures and memorabilia on the walls - walls often charred from the aforementioned smoke. Each place is different from the next. We've hit up glorified shacks run by a few or even a single person, and we've hit up monstrosities run like well-oiled machines by large staffs. Last year's first- and second-place winners swapped places this year, and we have a newcomer at #3. Here they are:


1. The Salt Lick (Driftwood): 37 points

2. Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor): 23 points

3. Opie's Barbecue (Spicewood): 17 points

Others receiving votes: Snow's BBQ, Mills County BBQ Company, Smitty's Market, Schoepf's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que, Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (New Braunfels), Milt's Pit BBQ, Mann's Smokehouse, Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse

Best of 2009: Best Service

Our final three Best of 2009 awards are non-menu-item awards: Best Service, Best Atmosphere, & Best Overall. To get our winners for our menu-item awards (Best Brisket, Best Sausage, etc.), we average the scores for each menu item we had throughout the year at each place we officially visit (i.e. score) - provided that the menu item was score by at least two people. For the non-menu-item awards, however, each person who made at least three outings during the year may vote for his/her 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices in each of the three categories. Each 1st-place vote is worth 5 points, each 2nd-place vote is worth 3 points, and each 3rd-place vote is worth 1 point. The points are then added for each vote getter, giving us our top 3.

First up is our award for Best Service of 2009. Without a doubt, one of greatest things about our Man-Up trips and about running this blog is that it lets us cross paths with some wonderful people. Visiting with, and getting to know, the folks at the joints we hit up is often as memorable (if not more memorable) than the food. From the proprietors to the pitmasters to the staff members, we have had some wonderful service throughout our journey, and we are, indeed, so appreciative. Only 1 place that cracked our top 3 in 2008 (at #2) made this year's list (at #1). Many joints received votes, but here are the top 3 for 2009:


1. Louie Mueller Barbecue: 26 points (pictured above: Wayne Mueller)

2. Opie's Barbecue: 24 points

3. Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse: 23 points

Others receiving votes: Snow's BBQ, Mills County BBQ Company, Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (Llano), Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (New Braunfels), The Salt Lick, Mann's Smokehouse, Milt's Pit BBQ, Burnet Feed Store BBQ, and Augie's Barbed Wire Smokehouse.

Best of 2009: Best Brisket

Our final menu-item award is for the gold standard of Texas BBQ: beef brisket. Generations of Texans have mastered the art of turning meat that was probably never meant to be eaten into something delicious - something that, arguably, defines Texas BBQ. Every place we hit up (just like every place we didn't hit up) serves brisket, and we collectively ate more brisket than any other item. As such, we had far more brisket scores than scores for anything else, making this race the most highly contested.

Fittingly, as it turns out, the results of the top 3 are also the closest of all the menu-item awards. Only 1 of last year's winners (#1, in fact) made this year's list (at #3). So, without further ado, here are our picks for Best Brisket of 2009 (rounded to the nearest thousandth - because rounding to the nearest hundredth left us with a tie for #1). Okay, I lied. Further ado: Before you get in a tizzy from not seeing a pic of glistening, fatty beef, I don't have a picture of the winner's moist brisket - so a pic of their lean will have to suffice:


1. Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse (Elgin): 9.664

2. Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (New Braunfels): 9.663

3. Snow's BBQ (Lexington): 9.63

Best of 2009: Best Sausage

Sausage. We're all a little scared of what it is, but we all love it. Like brisket, sausage is on every Texas BBQ joint's menu. Some serve it straight up. Others kick it up a notch with jalapenos or some other pepper. Either way, when it's done right, undesireables come together in perfect protein harmony. This year, we have a whole new group of winners, as none of last year's winners made the list:

1. Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor): 9.87

2. Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse (Elgin): 9.66

3. Opie's Barbecue (Spicewood): 9.61

Best of 2009: Best Pork Ribs

Like brisket, pork ribs are a staple on Man-Up outings, so dozens of joints were in the running for our top 3. It's always fun to see how each joint serves 'em up. Some are dry, some are wet. Some have a sweet glaze, some are covered in cracked pepper. We rarely have ribs that we think are just like (or even really similar to) another joints. Many places do pork ribs well, and some do them really, really well. Last year's winner took third, a newcomer nabbed second, and last year's second-place winner rose a spot to #1:


1. Smitty's Market (Lockhart): 9.82

2. Mills County BBQ Company (Goldthwaite): 9.72

3. Opie's Barbecue (Spicewood): 9.69

Best of 2009: Best Beef Ribs

Even in Texas, beef ribs are not easy to come by. Most of the places we hit up don't have them, so we're always glad to find places that do. For example, we were delighted to find out last Saturday that Black's Barbecue (Lockhart) began serving gargantuan beef ribs 6 months ago (just wait for the pics). Black's wasn't in the running for 2009's best beef ribs, but we found 3 really great ones, just the same. Some "Dino ribs" edged out last year's winner for the top spot:


1. Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse (Elgin): 9.95

2. Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor): 9.8

3. Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (New Braunfels): 9.42

Best of 2009: Best Chicken

Another new award this year is Best Chicken. A half chicken is a go-to order for me. I order it pretty much everywhere it's on the menu, including each of our winners (rounded to the nearest hundredth):

1. The Salt Lick (Driftwood): 9.49

2. Snow's BBQ (Lexington): 9.4

3. Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (Llano): 9.3

Best of 2009: Best Turkey

Russell is quick to tell me that "Bird ain't BBQ," but I beg to differ. Sometimes, a moist piece of turkey just outta the smoker can hang with anything else on a menu. The problem is that many places (perhaps most) don't deliver on the moistness - and dry turkey can't hang with anything. Some places, however, get it right. Here are the 3 that did it best in 2009 (rounded to nearest hundredth):


1. Mills County BBQ Company (Goldthwaite): 9.86

2. Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor): 9.52

3. Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse (Elgin): 9.1

Next up: Best Turkey

Tune in tomorrow at 10:35 am to see who was tops for turkey in '09.

Best of 2009: Best Pork

Unlike brisket, sausage, and pork ribs, you don't find pork at every BBQ joint in Texas; and, for the joints that offer it, there isn't much consistency in pork type. So, for the category of Best Pork, we group together all of the non-pork-ribs pork we had this year: pork loin, pulled pork, and pork shoulder. A pork shoulder nabbed our top spot, while pulled porks took 2nd and 3rd. Here are our winners (rounded to nearest hundredth of a point):


1. Snow's BBQ (Lexington): 9.7

2. Lamberts Downtown Barbecue (Austin): 9.48

3. Opie's Barbecue (Spicewood): 9.02

Manning up shortly...

Fresh on the heels of yesterday's announcement that Opie's had the Best Pork Chop of 2009, we're making our first Opie's trip of 2010 today. While there, we'll finally present Opie's with their award for Best Pork Ribs of 2008. Speaking of Opie's, don't forget to submit your entries for our Opie's giveaway, if you haven't already done so! And speaking of awards, be sure to tune in Monday, when we will name our pick for Best Pork, another new award this year.

Best of 2009: Best Pork Chop

Our first Best of 2009 award is for Best Pork Chop, an award we didn't hand out last year. All of our winners received scores above 9, but by a convincing margin, our award for 2009's Best Pork Chop goes to Opie's Barbecue in Spicewood, Texas (pic of an Opie's pork chop above). Here are the scores for all 3 (each rounded to nearest hundredth of a point):

1. Opie's Barbecue (Spicewood): 9.94

2. Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (New Braunfels): 9.46

3. Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (Llano): 9.27

Best of 2009 Awards!!!

It's that time again. We've all been waiting for it (and by "we," I mean "I," but hope the same is true for you). It's time to hand out our Best of 2009 awards. Last year, we doled out eight Best of 2008 awards, but this year, we'll be giving out 11 awards:

1. Best Pork Chop
2. Best Pork
3. Best Turkey
4. Best Chicken
5. Best Beef Ribs
6. Best Pork Ribs
7. Best Sausage
8. Best Brisket
9. Best Service
10. Best Atmosphere
11. Best Overall

For the winners of the first 8 categories (the menu items), I averaged every score for that item (for each place) for the entire year - provided that that particular item was tried by at least two people. I will list the top 3 for each category. For the final 3 categories (service, atmosphere, and overall), each person who made at least 3 Man-Up outings was asked to list his/her top 3 choices for each category. First-place votes receive 5 points, second-place votes get 3 points, and third-place votes get 1 point. The points for each joint are then added, to give us the top 3. Tomorrow, we're announcing Best Pork Chop, and we'll roll out the other ten throughout January, so stick with us!