Didn't see this posted elsewhere, but Big Bend posted on their FB page that they've ceased operations as of NYE. Their beers were the greatest but I returned to their Hefe often during the summer and really enjoyed a visit to their taproom last year during a trip to Big Bend.
It's really unfortunate. I've heard there's a small chance they could reopen, pending how the DME stuff works out. I was really hoping to snag a Brewster County last week, but man did that go fast.
It's definitely a shame. I would have liked to visit the brewery. Although I'd never found any of the beers I've had from them to be really good. Everytime I had their Hefe I really found it lacking in body and breadiness. The yeast profile also seemed to be more one dimensional than the great Hefe's. It just seemed to be a lackluster American Hefe.
Have visited the Marfa/Big Bend area twice in the past two years for camping/biking/hiking, and this brewery will be sorely missed. The thing about BB wasn't that their beers were great, although I enjoyed the IPA enough, it's that they were the only good beer in the area. And to be honest, any decent flavorful and fresh beer after a day in the grand outdoors is always a treat, no matter the brewery. It's hard enough to find a good fresh beer down there, and now it's only going to be harder. Any time a local brewery that has embedded itself in a region goes away it's a bad thing. Hope they come back someday b/c it won't be the same without them.
I haven't been, but there's now Brick Vault Brewery & Barbecue out in Marathon, seems like more of a true brew pub.
Didn't they have plans to open a location in or around San Antonio? I wonder how far that project got?
I believe they were hammered in the DME bankruptcy. They paid out $1million for stainless and never received it, DME went tits up. This seems to be just one of things that caused the to cease operations. More detail here https://www.brewbound.com/news/hampered-by-equipment-delays-big-bend-brewing-suspends-operations
For what it's worth I saw a FB post from BB indicating they brewed a specialty beer for an off-site Valentine's party and that the Alpine taproom was also open to the public for a couple of days. So apparently there's still some form of operation there in some capacity.
