"Beer City" Southwest

Austin. While DFW may have surpassed Austin for the number of breweries, I don't feel that there is the same beer culture there. Both cities have some great breweries, I just feel that more of DFWs breweries can be lackluster than Austin's. Also, more "generic" breweries who just make 5-8 beers of just average stuff.

I feel feel the variety of what comes out of Austin is better than what you see in Houston or DFW.

Austin is a lot smaller, which gives it an advantage in that we can easily get to other breweries and there are a couple of "brewery" districts now.

With that said, I still enjoy hitting up Houston or DFW on beer trips a couple times a year.

I am not bashing DFW or Houston, that is just my observation. Houston is catching up, but it is still behind DFW In the number and variety of stuff. Granted, they are gaining rapidly.

 

As someone who lives in DFW... The Austin beer scene is much better. I've gotten into arguments on here saying that Austin breweries are better than DFW ones though. DFW was defended by Austinites.


I think DFW has more breweries focusing on off the wall beers. Cobra Brewing, Hopfusion, Deep Ellum, Small Brewpub, Division, the upcoming Dirty Jobs Brewing. All seem to be focused more on how to make crazy beers than actually making beers well.

The Austin breweries more often have a core set of beers that they actually do well and then bring out more off the wall stuff occasionally if they do at all.

I think at least in part that's because Austin had early examples of excellent breweries. They first had Celis, then Live Oak and Real Ale opened their doors. They had to be very good to compete against Celis. And now the bar is set fairly high for breweries.

In DFW we had nothing until 2004 when Rahr opened. I like their beers. But most people I know don't. But otherwise there really hasn't been any examples to look up to. I think Peticolas is our best brewery.

I don't know as much about the Houston area breweries other than Southern Star, Saint Arnold, and Karbach. I refuse to go down there because the weather and traffic is horrendous.

 

From Houston and I would have to go with Austin. If you decided you wanted to spend a day and hit up several breweries, it is going to take some driving in HTown and Dallas, but Austin has a lot of their breweries very close to each other. Those co-located in Houston and Dallas just don't have the quality that those in Austin do.

 

It's Austin. If you were to rank the top 10 breweries in the Southwest by quality, not popularity, a majority would be in Austin.

In all honesty, Oklahoma might have better quality breweries than DFW and Houston. I'm going to go throw up now.

 

Honestly the only two breweries I know in Oklahoma are Prairie and Coop.

I think Prairie's beers are disgusting.

I struggle to get past a roadblock with Coop... I was at a tasting and we had their blonde ale... I thought it had an interesting malt flavor... But then I took a sip of water to rinse my palate and get a better opinion of the beer... And the next taste of the beer all I could taste was water. The beer was so light tasting that even our water has more flavor than it.
I have also had their F5 IPA... It's alright.

 

I hope we will be hearing from Roughtail down here in the future. I believe they are doing some pretty solid work with their Adaptation series

 

Austin definitely number 1 right now for all the reasons said. I would put Houston as a solid number 2, then Phoenix/DFW/ABQ battling for 3rd.

I would say the top 2-3 Houston area breweries beat the top 2-3 DFW ones, and it's tough to compare the next level without being overly biased. I think a few more brewpubs would go a long way to take Houston to the next level (like a Pinthouse or OG Freetail)

 

I really feel Houston is lacking in hours that breweries are open (it is expanding, but still really limited). More brewpubs would be nice to really help the culture.

 

Prairie, American Solera, Roughtail, Coop and Anthem are ones most know about. If you don't know Elk Valley, I highly suggest.

 

We've got some great breweries out here, along with dozens that are pedestrian. The main problem is that everything here is so spread out, you don't really get that "brewery-hopping" vibe. You really have to make it a point to visit each brewery individually. Walking from one to the other is completely out of the question (with a few exceptions), and our public transportation is awful.

I guess my point is, I don't think you earn the title of "Beer City" because you have great beer, but because you have the right vibe. For instance, in terms of beer quality in AZ, Phoenix almost certainly has the highest number of good breweries, but I think Flagstaff is more well suited to beer tourism, even if the beer is mostly mediocre, simply because it's walkable and historic. In my experience, you'll only find that in older cities, and there simply aren't too many of those in the southwest.

I'll have to make it out to Austin sometime and see what its all about. Phoenix is a lot closer to California than it is to Texas, though, so its hard to justify getting out there for a beer trip when San Diego is an easy drive!

 

Yeah, that is a fair critique. You may know better than I do but, if memory serves, it wasn't too long ago that a lot of the Austin breweries had similar limitations. (Thinking ABW, H&G, Live Oak, probably others)

 

Yeah, a lot more are open every day than there were two years ago.

But even then, we still had a bunch of brewpubs who were open daily - Pinthoue, Draughthouse, ABGB, Uncle Billy's, Flix, NXNW, off the top of my head.

Now, the breweries that are open 5-7 days of the week are those listed above and:

H&G, ABW, 4th Tap, Oskar Blues, Lazarus, Zilker, Blue Owl, St Elmo, South Austin, and a bunch of others.

I think that helps the beer scene here a lot for visitors and locals. You can get more of a taproom experience.

 

And for the life of me I cannot figure that out. You are missing out on the opportunity to sell beer without the middleman. Leaving money on the table as far as I am concerned

 

Would have to agree with Austin as well. I am from DFW and there are tons of breweries to choose from, some I really like- Peticolas, Martin House, Community, etc. But I would argue that with just Jester King, Real Ale, and Live Oak, already makes Austin the best, not to mention all the other great breweries popping up. Never been to any Houston breweries so I can't really comment about that. But hell, I live in west Texas and I'm itching for anything remotely close to a brewery to open up out here..

 

Agree, IF you are central. Sure, opening a brewery on East 6th St. and being open everyday makes sense. But, if you are in some industrial park up north or on a dusty road 20 miles from downtown, the crowd on a random Tuesday may not be enough to pay the taproom staff. Especially for a start up.

 

I'm working on opening a brewery in Houston right now that will be open several days a week with an air-conditioned taproom--Great Heights Brewing Company in Garden Oaks/Oak Forest, on the same block of Wakefield Drive as Petrol Station. Permits in place, construction is underway.

 

Look forward to it, what type of license did you get?

 

brewpub

 

I rode (sp?) the earlier craft wave in Austin in the 90's. It's hard not to pick the Texas capital again here, but don't don't sleep on Houston as a fantastic beer city. Trill City is brewing some damn tasty suds, and the NEIPA scene seems to be a step ahead. (You know you're into that kind of thing.)

Short of the fabled JK releases, the Houston area just might make the most delicious beers overall in the SW, but is Austin a better Beer City? Yes, probably, it's Austin, and who doesn't love sitting on a patio with good friends and tasty beer on a fine Hill Country spring day?

Would like to hear from other SW BAs. I hear the scene in Albuquerque is quite strong...