Firewheel in Rowlett Closing

Maybe, one day, Yellow House Canyon will open, or Eight 0 Six. Until then, it will remain a BMC town....which sucks since I spend some time there every year.

 

It's just beginning, as far as the closings are concerned. I think we'll see more of this of the weaker breweries around the country, and there will be a lot of nice brewing equipment available on the cheap. I'm all for small business, don't get me wrong; my mother owns and operates a small business, but I will only support those that put out a good product worthy of my money, which I, like many others work damn hard for. Not saying they were banking on this, but the whole "buy local" bullshit, is just that, bullshit. If you produce good quality product, I will buy it, if you don't, I won't, simple as that. IMHO, Firewheel did not produce very good beer; hence, going the way of the Dodo. I had two of their offerings, and based off of that, I didn't want any others.

 

I completely agree with ^^^^^^ (granted, I never had Firewheel, so I can't say how it was). I do think we will see some turnover on the lower end of the brewery pecking order, but it will still be at a number that is much much much lower than the number that are opening.

Mediocre beer won't survive. Texas is becoming more knowledgeable on their beer, the competition (internally and externally) is becoming better, and it will just force good beer. You either evolve and make better beer or go out. I also think breweries will be forced to start up with more capital to be able to withstand 6-12 months of making a name for themselves. It is going to become harder to open up and just have your beer on shelf/tap at places (unless you know a lot of people). Hopefully, places are prepared for people not just to put them on their wall just because.

 

The Str-Ipa was surprisingly OK. I think I had another type.

 

Sign me up for an extra large ant slam dunk T-shirt.

 

I don't think it is entirely accurate that the notion of "good" breweries being the ones that continue to grow, and the mediocre ones are eventually weeded out. Breweries, and business of all types succeed or fail on any number of things. The quality of the actual product is not always one of them. Talking very generally, many people in this country consume mediocre products, and there is a huge market for mediocre breweries as long as they have a sound business plan. Unfortunately.

 

100% agree. I can't comment on the quality of Firewheel as I only had it years ago. What I can say is I never saw it on tap at the beer bars I go to, so that in itself is a bad sign. My understanding from people who loved their beer is the best stuff was only ever available at the brewery. That model works at the 1-7 bbl level if you can sell growlers and bottles to go. In Texas, with current laws if you aren't in lots of accounts or on shelves, it is hard to make it. I hate to see breweries close, but hopefully other's will study the breweries closing to learn lessons and not just write it off as bad product.

 

I tried at least a sample every time I saw them on tap. Always bad - and not just slightly bad - really bad. I don't see this as a shakeup, more like the extreme growth in the industry allowed them to survive as long as they did.

 

Speaking of Big Texas Beer and breweries closing, I think this, https://www.gofundme.com/txbigbeerbrewery , is a step in that direction.

 

Those are some really uninspiring rewards.

 

Weird. I thought I saw Firewheel at Untapped this weekend.

I was drinking though.

 

They were there.

 

hahaha thats awesome!

They always have something going wrong where they complain that they dont have the money for this or that...

I am not surprised there is a gofundme for them because at some point they are/were going to need an influx of capitol investment to survive. This gofundme seems to be done by outside people (probably a family member or close friend of the family I bet) not the owners.

They are asking for money to help pay for the licensing fee because you had to use money to pay for some repairs to a water line and replace product?? Seriously?

only 500 bucks out of 15,000.. dont think they are going to hit the mark on this.

I have never seen anyone ever drink or buy anything from TBB. Who the hell is buying the crap they produce?

 

nobody or else they wouldn't be begging for donations to keep their brewery afloat.

i really want to rename the craft beer bubble the crap beer bubble, putting craft next to these breweries names is a bit of an insult and implies they have some sort of ability to produce a good product.

 

I like a couple of their beers. Queen's Wheatwine is really good and I find Working Stiff to be a top 3 ESB in Texas. Their problems go beyond their beer. If they had branding and would hire an assistant brewer I think they'd be just fine. Their location hurts them also.

 

My dad bought me a bottle of their Belgian Pale. It was a mess. I have no empathy for them.

 

Queen's Wheatwine is really good


Ho-lee-shit. Craziest thing ive seen posted in the Southwest forum since... Maybe ever

 

Maybe he also liked Fort Bend's Grand Reserve?

 

When they went out of business I got a whole bunch of bottlecaps for my homebrew really really cheap!

Can_has_beer is the first person I have ever heard say anything positive about TBB beers. I was at Growlers Montrose once where the owner and Queenie were giving out samples and people were trying to say nice things but I could tell they were not liking anything.. People were then walking out talking to each other about how bad those beers were. I didnt see anyone buy a bottle of TBB after samples in the 30 minutes I was there.