Am I missing something here?!?

Distribution has increased across the board since covid, as many people have not been going into breweries for the past year. Many of these breweries basically had no choice but to expand distro, or risk closing entirely.

I would love (and I'm sure everyone else too) if Jackie O’s & Angry Chair were distributed to Texas, but they are barely even distributed in their own respective towns, let alone here, due to smaller production mainly.

In my opinion, what we really need here are more legit stout producing breweries. TX has the lager and wild ale game handled, but we don't have a lot of the fun stuff, or quality versions of it. Weathered Souls and Turning Point are doing good things with stout at least, but we need more.

 

I think United Art has at least been around for a year or two (maybe more now), I can't say I have noticed the others...not sure how long they have been on the shelf here. Unless if its 3 Fonteinen or Maine, which nobody seems to care about (all good with me, I can just pick up bottles whenever). I have all but given up when it comes to the new "craft" beers coming in. I really don't care about them. Good imports, good "regular" locals, Live Oak, 512, and Real Ale are about all I really drink anymore. Also some Maine will make it to my fridge now and again when fresh, that is probably the only new US brewery to come to town recently that I like.

And for the argument that "Texas breweries need to step up", what ever that means, I'm not sure? I have traveled all over the world, no one place has all "world class breweries" anybody that says so is just using selective memory and/or bias. Are there places that generally have "better" breweries, sure, but every place will have "overrated" stuff and "underrated" based on anybodies particular tastes. For instance, as much as I love Saisons and traditional Lambic and Geuze, Jester King is completely overrated for me. It might not be for some others, but that just like their opinion, and mine. Though, I find True Anomaly in Houston to be doing great examples of Saisons and traditional Belgian styles. Anyway, thats all the energy I have for a rant right now, its been a while since a stir the pot thread has arrived, so this should be interesting

 

100%. There is A LOT of homerism here.

Don't get me wrong @champ103 I think there are many world class breweries in Texas, but the number of blonde ale, amber, IPA, Belgian wit, lager, 1997 model breweries that are still opening here is ridiculous. And the bar they have to reach for most TX beer consumers to love them? Is being a local brewery from TX. That's it! lol we can do better.

 

Sure everyplace will have good and bad breweries, I don't think any one place is an exception to that. There are some pretty bad breweries in Houston.

I'll also take a well made Wit or any well made lager over any of the cool kid styles around. I would love for the rebrand of Celis to not have to go through bankruptcy (much of that was self inflicted though), and am much more excided about eventually planning a trip to Altstadt. I really couldn't care less about he next sugary sweet pastry stout, NEIPA, and non sour "sour" fruit puree beer, which I'm seeing just as much of, if not more than the old school 90's brewpub model. The next Great Notion or Other Half can stay in Portland and New York for all I care.

My personal wish instead would be to have something like MacLeod Brewing that concentrates on traditional British cask beer, or other great German style breweries opening that can rival Live Oak (thinking something like Lagerhaus, Urban Chestnut). I like the stuff I have had off the shelf from Altstadt, but not exactly to that level yet. Though all of that is just kind of a pipe dream, I've got a good rotation that I generally like, and sometimes love. For the stuff I don't like (which is many, and for different reasons) I'll just ignore that noise and enjoy what I can

 

MN Advocate checking in far outside his territory. A few points.

Untitled Art & Brewing Projekt are also flooding MN & from what I can tell, Wisconsin as well. Seems like it's how they roll. Since Fair State is a MN brewery I can't speak to them, but they are not a huge presence on local shelves.

Absolutely true that from all appearances B.P. is chasing every fad down & grinding it into the dust. Untitled Art seems more like "we're going to brew a different beer six days a week until we collapse from exhaustion" so the sheer number of beers they produce may make it appear they're chasing trends, but I don't believe they are. Fair State flat out isn't. One of their most popular beers in MN is a lager & they have quite a variety of taps in their taproom. They do make a fair amount of saisons & sours but hype chasing isn't their thing, with very few hazies/stouts/barrel aged stuff coming out (too bad, because their handful of big boys in barrels have been really good).

And the irony of hammering others for chasing fads in "pastry stouts" while complementing Ingenious...oh my!

 

I can't stand Ingenious ha

 

Have you checked out Acopon in Dripping Springs? They're doing good cask ales. Not as extensively as Hoggshead or MacLeod, but it's worth a visit.

 

Haven't yet, but it looks great, on my list to visit.

 

Why would brewing Blonde Ale, Amber, IPA, Belgian Wit, and Lager make a brewery not "world class"?

But even then at least in DFW there are very few breweries that I can tell meet your description. Almost every single brewery opening up is cranking out some varieties of Hazy IPA, Fruited sour, Pastry stout, Fruited IPA.

I'm only really excited when a brewery opens up carrying more traditional styles because it's not the same old same old that every other brewery is chasing.

 

Yes and all of those breweries cans just seem to sit on the shelves. I have grabbed some of the Modern Times when it rolls in with a fresh set of cans, but the Untitled Art stuff never makes it into my buggy ($$$). Grabbed some Segundo to try out (singles) and they were ok. Grabbed a few 4 packs (AleSmith Speedway Stout Espresso & Mad.., AleSmith Cloud Stream, Equal Parts Dot Matrix and Belching Beaver Phantom Bride) to make up some Easter presents for my son/son inlaws today. Most of the breweries discuss in this thread had their beers sitting on the shelves for too long to make it in my buggy, these were the freshest I could find. The Belching Beaver is the one I am interested in trying, that was a six pack of pounders for $11.99. If that beer is any good, it is a pretty good deal.

 

2 things:
1. That Phantom Bride is really tasty! Enjoy!

2. What'd you think of the Alesmith Speedway / Speedway with espresso/vanilla? I've had a 4 pack of regular and the espresso/vanilla variant. Both, I thought, were much less coffee forward than when they were sold as singles?
Maybe it's just in my head, but I don't think so. I very recently had one of thing 'singles' cans as reference.

 

It doesn't make a brewery not world class, but it's boring as hell, and believe it or not is actually more played out than the new "cool kid" styles. Especially if you've been into craft beer for a longer period of time.

And I get that it's now trendy for beer people to hate on slushy sours, hazy IPA's and pasty stouts and be all about pilsner and traditional styles, but the overall bar for Texas beer quality (outside of lager) is low. If it's local people love it, and we can do better, especially for a state of this size. That's my argument.

 

I kept one of the Alesmith for myself, prob won't try it out until next week, but will let you know

 

Now. From my experience going to most of the breweries in the DFW area with few exceptions I'd consider them below average quality.
I've been to a lot of breweries in Austin though and I'd consider most to be above average quality though. Again though there are one's I think there are not very good in Austin.
I don't go to Houston often it's been a few years since I went. Things seemed to be more right in the middle though. Nothing I had seemed really good but nothing bad.

But I make most of my judgements based off of more traditional styles.

I spent years drinking mostly IPAs, big stouts and barleywines. But these days I just don't find them interesting at all.

I though really see very few breweries opening up with more than one or two traditional styles. If they do have more than one or two traditional styles it's because they also have a dozen or more fruity or pastry styles.

Even more traditional breweries like Rahr are discontinuing almost every one of their more traditional styles and just coming out with new styles to appeal to the modern craft beer geek.

 

After living and working in Hill Country for two years I came to realize the craft beer scene in Texas is utterly mediocre. The best beers being made are by the legacy breweries who make a wide variety of classic styles that are clean and to style. They are not flashy and do not put out a new beer every week, they make great beer flavored beer. The rest of the newer breweries make the same crappy hazies, slushies, pastry stouts where the coolness and branding of the beer is more important than the actual beer. Most of these newer breweries have no idea how to make a clean to style pale ale or lager so they add a bunch of adjuncts, come up with a pithy name and get a cool artist to make a hip label. Just my 2 cents. Cheers.