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Happy Saturday night everybody. Welcome to Maxing on Civic Media,
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Jimmy Burak is a bar in a restaurant in Sherman Plaza on Madison's north side serving
craft beer and comfort food called Burak and hosting live music on most Friday and Saturday nights.
Burak owner Brian Caravu books the artist and plays the role of hosts introducing the bands.
Brian, welcome to Maxing Radio. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. I'm happy to have you here,
dude. I have been in your establishment a number of times with our good friend E. Dub.
And I love the atmosphere at Burak. Well, thank you. That's very kind of you to say.
Can I give kind of a testimonial about something too? I came in during a fat Tuesday.
You were doing the Jumbalaya stuff and I have an egg allergy and you know this. And I wanted the
Jumbalaya Burak, you know, but I couldn't eat the Burak because it's made with egg. You guys went
out of your way and gave me a side of just the Jumbalaya rice and sausage and goodness on the side
without the so I can eat it and have dinner. Thank you. Appreciate that. You're welcome. Yeah. Happy
or chef could make that accommodation. That that's pretty interesting, Jimmy. Good story. I wanted
to make it down for the Jumbalaya, but I wasn't available. Good. It was good. You're making me jealous.
Brian, the Burak is a restaurant, a bar, a music venue, food, beer music. It must be all of your
passions. And before we hear about the Burak, tell us a little bit about yourself and what's your
backstory? You told me off air. He said, this is his third career. So how does one get there?
Yeah. Started off as a teacher from there. I was a writer and editor and now I manage a bar and
restaurant and music venue. So what did you teach? I taught English and journalism.
Okay. High school and middle schoolers. So you're judging me pretty hard right now.
I do not judge. You're a professional. No, I'm not. Well, so Jimmy, you came from
up north and then came to school here and like a lot of people coming to the UW, you just couldn't
leave. Madison's awesome. What can I say? I mean, I love it here. This is home now. So yeah,
I absolutely adore it and live on the north side by beer rock. Maybe only live a mile and a half
away. Nice. So that's convenient. But yeah, that's home now. Shout out to the Norseiders because
we're all Norseiders here. Every one of us here. You know, the bar, the food, the restaurant
business, it's brutal. What made you want to open a restaurant? Just that passion for food and
drink. The beer rock is my wife's family recipe. No kidding. And yeah, we thought we have something
that you can't find anywhere else in the city, in the even this perhaps the state. You know,
pasties come close. But this is the German version of a pasty. So that's what makes it unique.
So you said the beer rocks are a family recipe. What are their kind of interesting tidbits about
beer rock? Can you tell us about like what are their influences from the family have come into
this restaurant? Yeah, the wife's family recipe. So it goes back generations. And this is
something that, you know, her grandma made her mom made. And now she makes it at beer rock now.
The our classic is ground beef, sauerkraut and onion inside a freshly baked bread dough that we
make ourselves everything from scratch on the side comes a nice host made vina, mustard vinaigrette
dipping sauce. And that's just our classic version. We got all sorts of different interpretations
on top of that. Well, I saw, you know, I saw a bunch of them and one that actually caught my eye.
It was, it was a dessert. And so it was caramel apple beer rock, apple pie filling with cinnamon
inside with a freshly baked dough topped with powdered sugar and served with a side of house made
caramel. You know, I was hungry before you went on the air. And dinner is on the way.
Thanks to Alice. I'm starving now. Oh, how late are you guys open tonight?
Tell kitchen open till 10 p.m. tonight. Kitchens open till 10, Jimmy. I think we're going to miss it.
But we're going to have to go back for that. Is your wife? Is she the primary chef cook or idea
for the recipes at beer rock? She's the inspiration. We do have a head chef that's hired chef
Cordell, who's awesome, who kind of does his own spin on the beer rock as well. So we kind of have
both both brains going there. And with the German heritage, of course, we got to talk about beer.
Beer. And it's spelted. It's not beer. It's B-I-E-R-Ock, right? So it's like beer rock, beer rock.
And beer, of course, that's the German spelling for beer, right? Yeah, absolutely.
And well, you know, it sounds like your venue is a merging of beer and rock, right?
But you know, I was wondering, you were mentioning the pasty, right? That's the kind of up north,
like little goodness thing pocket that they create. What's different from a beer rock from a pasty?
Like what's the German difference, I guess? Yeah, a pasty is a corner's recipe. First of all,
the bread part is more of a flaky pastry. And then on the inside is like ground beef,
root bagas, potatoes, a lot of starches there. Whereas a beer rock is the German version.
Ground beef, sauerkraut, onion, things you associate with Germany. Yeah, sausage.
So two different, you know, Cornish versus German. Both, you know, every culture has its own
savoury pie. There's empanadas. This is just the German version of it, you know,
Kelzones for Italy. Oh, interesting. I never really thought about it. Yeah, I didn't think of that
either. That's great. Brian, the owner of beer rock is with us here on Maxing Gradio, civic media.
Let's talk about the beers. I like beer. You have a mighty beer selection at beer rock. Tell us
about that. And how do you decide what goes on tap? Yeah, we have 24 tap lines of craft beer.
And the goal is to have something for everyone. There's something light, something dark,
something multi, something hoppy, something sauer, something barrel aged pretty much.
If you can't find something you like, then, then the problem's with you.
Quite frankly. Yeah. We got a cider or a seltzer. You know, there's, we cover all the
bases. What's your favorite? And feel free to give me a couple classes if you want to or a
couple categories of the beer, because I know otherwise, you know, but what do you like right now
that you have on tap? I mean, I'm partial to the hoppy beers. Okay. Yeah. I'll tell you right
now, we have an nectarine dreams by Titletown Brewing Company, a New Zealand IPA, made with New
Zealand hops. So it's really good, really smooth, really hoppy and really fresh. And I love it.
Nice. And now I saw that you guys filled growlers and howlers. And I know what a growler is.
What's a holer? Holers just a half size growler. So a half size. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Doesn't it? Yeah. Well, there's 64 ounces. Holers 32. If you want a little smaller size. Yeah.
Oh, wow. And the cool thing about beer rock too, you guys some good food. You got awesome beer.
Oh, and you have some live music offering too. We do. Pretty much every Friday, Saturday night,
may not every single one, every once in a while. There might be a sporting event that might,
you know, interfere with it. But, you know, pretty much every Friday, Saturday night, we've got
live music at beer rock. Pretty much 8 to 10 pm. You can count on it. And yeah, it's awesome. We
have so much good local talent that we bring in that I love showcasing. If bands or if bands
are listening, if they want to, you know, play a show at beer rock, how do they go to hold you?
How do fans or, you know, potential customers get your address and find out where you are?
Yeah. It used to be me, you know, talking to people asking them if they'd want to play a beer
rock. For the most part, now it's that people come to me. Either, you know, in person actually come
to beer rock and their customers and then, you know, find out how I'm in a band. And we get to
talking and, and yeah, we book them. Or I mean, if anybody is, you know, wants to reach out on the
net, you can email me info at beerrockmanison.com. So awesome. Now tonight you have Blame it on
King. They're coming out here from Milwaukee. They're friends of the show they've been on here
before. And then you have quite a music schedule coming up, including Eddie Berth on March 15th.
Tell us a few highlights from your schedule that you're looking forward to. Yeah, both the
examples you just said are credible musicians. I'm so happy to let Blame it on King wants to come
all the way from Milwaukee to Madison just to play at beer rock. That's that's an honor and a
privilege for me that they want to come from away and play. Yeah, they're kind of 90s nostalgia rock.
I remember them playing cumbersome by seven Mary three is just one cover. They do all sorts
of originals too. Yeah, just to point people in the right direction, you know, like what are you
gonna hear? They started APM tonight. So you got maybe a little over an hour to head to beer rock
and catch Blame it on cane. But you mentioned it too. Eddie Berth later this month. He's awesome.
Yeah. He's great. Great songwriter. Yeah. Folk Americana. He plenty of originals.
Fuse covers. He slips in Tom Tom Petty stuff stuff like that. So songs about dogs about dogs.
I like that. Morales is dog and he's got a song about it. Yep. Yeah, that's right. No, he was in
here and performed that actually at one time in the layer. He was a lot of fun. That was good.
And he's played at our stage on make music Madison last year. Did he did? Dude, it's great to see
you. Thank you so much for coming in today, Brian. We really appreciate beer rock is right on the
north side of Madison. What is that? Northgate, the North Town Mall, right at the corner of North
Port Town center. Yep. North Port and North Sherman right next to the hardware store right there
in the Willie Street co-op. Stop in, say hello. Go see Blame it on cane tonight and get a
oh, get some good food there too. Yeah, I'm sending food now. Jimmy K Hungary. Thanks, Brian.
Appreciate you. Thanks. Let's do some Blame it on cane right now. This is a tuna. It's Max
Inc. on Civic Media. We are local music.