The Barbecue Chronicles: Austin is the new Lockhart BBQ Tour

       The Texas BBQ Posse dives into a spread of sausage, brisket, ribs and turkey at La Barbecue in Austin. 

(Photo by Tom Fox/DMN)     

Story by Gary Jacobson

It would be easy to get carried away by what’s happening in Austin barbecue.

Amid a fertile startup environment, young pitmasters are creating a smoked-meat renaissance, using only wood-fired pits and adopting old-school ways to cook for a new generation. A case could even be made that Austin has replaced Lockhart as the capital of Texas barbecue.

We’ll leave that big-think stuff for another time. This is a story about barbecue tourism.

The Texas BBQ Posse has been riding since 2009, and the mission on its most recent tour was to sample as much of that good Austin barbecue as possible during a day trip from Dallas, covering 400 miles in 13 hours.

The five places we visited were all located within a 5-mile radius of the state Capitol building.

Video: The Texas BBQ Posse talks about their Austin BBQ Tour

Here's our latest barbecue tour video, shot and produced by Dallas Morning News photojournalist Nathan Hunsinger.

Is Austin rapidly becoming the the new Texas BBQ capital, replacing Lockhart? Some of our readers wholeheartedly agree, while some consider such statements as blasphemy. Yes, barbecue is a highly emotional issue.

Click here to read our Austin BBQ Tour story and see the tour slideshow on dallasnews.com.

You can join us for an online chat about the Austin BBQ Tour at 1pm-2pm on Monday, April 29th. Click here for the link to the chat on dallasnews.com.

Today in the Dallas Morning News: The BBQ Posse's Austin BBQ Tour

Here's a look at our Austin BBQ Tour story in today's Dallas Morning News travel section. This is the Posse's second installment from the Texas BBQ trail in the DMN this year. Our Best of Texas BBQ project was published in early March.

The tour grew out of a growing suspicion that Austin might be quickly replacing Lockhart as the state's barbecue capital. And nothing we experienced on that day disproved the theory, every stop on the tour was nothing short of sensational.

Click here to see the story, slideshow and video links on the DMN Travel section of dallasnews.com.

Also, you can join us for an online chat about the Austin BBQ Tour at 1pm-2pm on Monday, April 29th. Click here for the link to the chat on dallasnews.com.

See the photos from the Posse's Austin BBQ Tour - The Fantastic Mr. Fox strikes again

Dallas Morning News staff photographer Tom Fox at work on the Austin BBQ Tour.
(Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

When you're on the road with the Texas BBQ Posse, it's kind of like being in the middle of a media storm. The Posse is mainly made up of Dallas Morning News writers, editors, photojournalists and their friends. Yes, we have been accused before of being the BBQ paparazzi.

On the recent Austin BBQ Tour we had nine journalists and artists in the group, including five photographers. One of those was award-winning DMN staff photographer Tom Fox.

Tom has captured numerous major awards in our industry, including being part of DMN team who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for photo coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Here's a DMN photo blog post he wrote just yesterday about shooting a historic photo of the five living Presidents at the Bush Library dedication on Thursday.

The Posse's Austin BBQ Tour: Is Austin poised to overtake Lockhart as the barbecue capital of Texas?

Stops on the Austin BBQ Tour, clockwise from top left: John Mueller Meat Co., Franklin Barbecue, La Barbecue and Stiles Switch BBQ & Brew. (Photos by Tom Fox/DMN)

The Dallas Morning News just posted Gary Jacobson's story on our recent Austin BBQ Tour on both dallasnews.com and the DMN iPad app. The print story will appear on the in the newspaper's travel section on Sunday.

This may have been the best single day of barbecue we've ever had on tour, sampling four meats from each joint visited. As a collective group, the brisket, ribs, sausage and turkey from La Barbecue, Franklin Barbecue, John Mueller Meat Co. and Stiles Switch BBQ & Brew were outstanding. We had a fifth joint on the itinerary, but Micklethwait Craft Meats had run out of meat for the day by the time we got there at 2 p.m.

Sneak peek at our Austin BBQ Tour

Lunch no. 1 at Franklin Barbecue. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

The Posse was wheels up from Dallas early this morning to check out the growing Austin barbecue scene, which we believe could be overtaking Lockhart as the capital of Texas BBQ. This trip was a chance to test that theory.

Stay tuned to the Texas BBQ Posse blog for stories and snippets from the trip. Our reporting will culminate at the end of April with a story in The Dallas Morning News and multimedia on dallasnews.com.

Here's the trip itinerary: