Heading to San Antonio River Walk area

I've never found a good bottle shop in that area, but there are a couple bars/restaurants worth checking out. The Filling Station is 10-15 minute walk or 2 minute cab ride from the Alamo area and has a pretty solid taplist. Bomb! and Yellow Rose were on tap as well as a vintage Bigfoot. Warning they only serve in plastic cups but that seems to be a thing in San Antonio. They also have plastic growlers for $3 that they'll fill with any beer.

Stella Public House is not far beyond The Filling Station and has delicious food, a good tap lineup and lots of good bottles and cans. The cool thing to is there's a historical district between these two spots with stately homes that I think predate the Civil War if I remember correctly. Beautiful area to walk.

Those are the only places I can really recommend (skip Friendly's!), although in the opposite direction there's a place called Taps y Tapas with good food and a good taplist too.

I didn't see any Jester King anywhere, so can't help you there. FW maybe.

 

If you are travelling on a Friday-Sunday, stop by JK and profit.

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...nd-san-antonio-riverwalk.266858/#post-3398317

http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...n-antonio-this-week-from-grand-rapids.261283/

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/recommendations-for-san-antonio-corpus-christi.186442/

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/two-san-antonio-questions.172186/

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/visiting-san-antonio.169753/

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/5-days-on-river-walk.151492/

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/beers-for-my-hotel-fridge.133985/

 

Amazing what the search function will find

 

It is my ongoing goal to link every other thread for each city into each post...just so it is easier and easier to post these. So far, it is working. Took me 1 min to post all of those links.

 

The Granary is a short cab ride from downtown and will be your best bet for finding good JK beers. They allow bottle purchases to-go, but you'll still be paying bar prices. Call first to see what they have, and plan on going into a meat coma if you end up going there for lunch (highly recommended).

Another good drinking spot very close to downtown is Big Hops "The Bridge" at the foot of the Hays Street Bridge on Austin St. It's pretty new, so probably hasn't been mentioned in any of the previous threads that were linked above. I personally don't mind people starting new threads as you never know when a new bar or store is going to open up nowadays (or close, for that matter). Best to stay current in this ever-changing beer scene.

 

To add to that, Southerlegh just opened up near The Granary and is brewing as well. No idea on how their beer is.

 

The beer is pretty solid. Haven't tried the food yet, but I've heard very good things.

 

Isn't the new Freetail close to the Riverwalk (have never been)?

Remember when Freetail was always popping up on lists of favorite Texas breweries? What happened to them? I haven't heard anything about them in ages and haven't had any of their beers in years (but admittedly don't get down to SA as often as I used to)

 

It is close to downtown.

 

Well...they:

1. Opened a new production facility/taproom and upped production
2. Started canning
3. Started distributing to Jester King and Houston (or at least announced a distribution deal for the latter)
4. Still make tasty wild ales (AFAIK)

I think their latest new releases were the barrel aged and non-ba Local Coffee stout.

 

Yeah, I knew about #1 and #2, which is what made me ask. Seems like the volume of their hype/appreciation/chatter/whatever you want to call it is negatively correlated to the amount of beer they're producing.

I'm not hating, just wondering if this is a case of "Maybe they weren't that great after all" or "No Walez No Care" or "So many other breweries have opened and surpassed them".

 

Mostly the 2nd maybe? SMABRD and La Muerta day were a while ago and there was no Ananke day last year, though I've heard good things about the Local Coffee. Talk of their standard offerings would be the Austin equivalent of getting hyped about ABW's Pearl Snap (which for better or worse, won't really ever happen on BA).

That said, I'm excited about Yo Soy in cans.

 

It's definitely the second answer. Both versions of the Local Coffee Stout were outstanding, and their standard lineup is really good. It's just not in line with current hype/fads.

I think it is just going to take time for their newly expanded barrel releases to come out and make waves. Anyone who is not excited about Yo Soy in cans is an idiot!

 

It's fairly close to downtown, and definitely worth a visit. Their new production beers have been rock-solid (those of you who were disappointed with Hop Delusion really need to try Hopothesis), but I think the lack of sours has kept people quiet. As for me, I'll keep breaking the bank on Soul Doubt (top 5 TX IPA, imo). And I may need to take out a bank loan when Yo Soy is released.

 

Thanks for the defense, @Heretic42 @ElChuques and @pwsoldier!

@spaceycasey hopefully next time you're in SA you can visit us again, or someone can smuggle you some to North of the Wall in Austin.

I think we are making good beer, but I'm definitely the most biased guy there is.

I've been racking my brain trying to come up with Whale-related beer names, but all the good ones are taken. We will, however, have the first output from our new barrel program coming out later this summer.

Cheers!

Scott

 

I'd also second going to the Freetail Production Tap Room. You get very good cheap beer, in a very good laid back place. I was there last week and there weren't a lot of people in the tap room, which was a good thing for me, but may not be for everyone. The barrels there look really good, and they do seem to have more than what they did in the 1604 location.
Also, there was a group of ladies doing yoga inside the brewery. I am of the opinion that it's always nice to sip on brews while ogling women stretching their bodies in tight clothes.

 

"FREEtail WILLY" with the logo as the Free Willy image but with bat wings on Willy.