Texas Beer Scene

I guess I'll jump in here. I remember messaging Exiled about trading for Backwoods Bastard years ago and what it would take. He also was high on any Insanity I could get. Don't remember what I traded to get either , but it shows how far we have come when BB is seasonally available in Texas now. Remember picking up growlers of Live oak hefe when in Austin to ship to California for PTE, etc. Not much trading is necessary now to satisfy my hop cravings...HEB has a reserved parking spot for me when picking up Union Jack, Odell, Deep Ellum, etc. . You youngsters don't know how good you have it!


PS. Get off my lawn!!!

 

I know that feeling very well. Chimay was my 1st "big" beer. I remember buying it back when it was $8.50 a bottle. Good times.

 

Haven't seen this answered, so I wanted to pitch in. Yes. Two years ago, the Texas legislature passed a package of bills that vastly changed the economics for breweries. Prior to 2015, production breweries could not sell their own beer -- they could only sell to distributors. That was a hard and fast rule, and it is the reason that even to this day many production breweries in Texas bundle a brewery tour and beer tastings. It became a tradition. The even more important change occurred for brewpubs, which gained the right to ramp up production to 10,000 bbls annually and to distribute their beer beyond their four walls. That law meant that most Texas breweries could change their licenses to become brewpubs to take advantage of the new kinder laws.

No doubt there are still tweaks needed. Production breweries can't sell for off-premise consumption -- even growlers -- which is nuts. Wineries can, spirits companies can and brewpubs can.

But that's a big reason you are seeing a lot of new brewery startups. Other factors include the second generation of brewers who have ventured out on their own. It would be interesting for someone to do a six degrees of separation analysis on the rash of breweries. Former Saint Arnold brewers alone are involved in Armadillo, Southern Star, the new Brash Brewing and probably a bunch of others I am not thinking of. The brewer at Revolver came from Sam Adams. The Grapevine brewer came from Boulevard.

As for the assessment that nobody is setting themselves apart from the pack, the first priority of a business is to be financially viable. You can't do that if you are only catering to the 5% of the 10% who drink craft beer and want something mind blowing that the 95% of craft beer lovers don't care for. As others have noted, that comes over time, but first you need to cater to that 90% of the 10%. As tastes evolve that also changes. In Portland, breweries are able to segment and focus only on edgy concepts (all sours or all barrel aged, etc.) that would have a difficult time making it in markets as immature as DFW or Houston. It will happen over time.

For me, the thing to encourage right now is quality and consistency. We have a few breweries who turn out an exceptional product that you can trust, and a larger percentage that are still finding their way on the fundamentals of brewing and the brewing business. Before they rack their brains trying to think of something nobody else has done, I would love for them to master the basics.

 

Thanks for the info. I appreciate all the responses.

I'm not so sure that it's only 5% of the 10% (craft beer drinkers) that want mind blowing beer. I think a decent sized chunk of the craft beer drinkers in the area would love to be able to try local BA or experimental beers on a more frequent basis than they are able to do so now. I understand what you're saying about first needing to be financially viable but it wouldn't cost much extra to do some experimenting. How much more would it cost Lakewood to put each of their Temptress variants in a barrel or two and serve it at the brewery? That seems like a no-brainer to me. I just think it would be a good way to get ahead of the pack.

 

@thirdeye11 : I totally agree. When I got into it there was barely anything here. I remember (hence my username) that german beer, deschutes, and stone was pretty much all there was. Shiner 100 was a release I was excited about.

Things have changed so much, and this scene is still really young. That being said, I wish some of the more established breweries would branch out and try some different things to stand out. It seems like Dallas hasn't been able to do this despite Lone Pint, Jester King, Freetail and some others doing so.

I don't know what it is, but I hope some breweries out there are planning big things.

 

Hell me and my friends used to joke, that if any beer was put into a bourbon barrel at the time it would have made instant top 50 on BA. I remember when The Abyss was in the top 10.

 

Damn, I didn't realize that it wasn't anymore. Obviously I haven't looked at that list in a while. I remember when Westy 12 seemed untouchable at the #1 spot.

 

Lakewood is doing a BA series right now. http://lakewoodbrewing.com/special-releases/

It's more than money. You gotta feed the beast. When a young brewery has an unmitigated hit (think Temptress and/or Revolver Blood n Honey), they often have to throw all their resources - money, personnel, time - at making sure they keep that product available. The moment it isn't there, the stores fill that shelf space and the bars give someone else the tap and the customer will choose something else and they might fall in love with that. It sounds nuts, but some of us remember the boom of the 90s and the washout that occurred because small breweries nationwide were not properly capitalized and they died the death of cash flow hiccups. Once they can get to the point where they are consistently cash flow positive and they can ensure their staple beers never run out, then they can do some interesting things. Lakewood apparently has reached that point.

 

Abyss was the beer that allowed me to trade for a myriad of Top 100 beers in my early days. Thank you, Deschutes!

 

Just wondering if Texas sees Bell's beer? Seekabrew say no, but they are typically out of date. Thanks.

 

Uh, no....

 

Always the distribution map. Um, nope.
http://bellsbeer.com/brands/brand-finder/

 

Check out Real Ale in Blanco. Some of their products are better than others, but some stand out. As their name implies, their beers are unfiltered, although admittedly bottled, not cask conditioned. Pretty solid line. But I agree with you, Texas is still light years behind CA, OR, & NY.

 

Thank you Real Ale Sisyphus. Thanks also goes to the US Army for giving me ample time to do beer research without being able to drink any.

 

They're the biggest brewery that doesn't distribute to Texas

 

I hear ya. I was in Iraq when I passed the Certified Beer Server exam and made the decision to work in beer instead of food, something that probably wouldn't have been possible for me just two years prior.

 

My local beer guy tells me they are coming, he told me that they would be here 2 months ago.

 

People said the same thing about Southern Tier for about 5 years. They were eventually right, but I prefer not to indulge rumors and speculation.

 

People have been saying that about bells for years and their official reasons is "it's on our radar." Like what @pwsoldier said, I'll believe it when I see them on the shelf.

 

I pretty much assumed this was not true because he asked me to lug back a couple of cases of 2 hearted when I came back from Florida