Irving/Dallas recommendations

I'll be visiting Dallas in two weeks and am curious if anyone can point my way towards the best lagers (Czech and German, light or dark), more traditional British ales or Belgian inspired options in town? I don't mind an IPA here and there (if it's of the more balanced variety a la Sierra Celebration) but my tastes run counter to the hazy juice craze.

 

Touche, Manhattan does branch out more in terms of style. I guess I meant more of Celestial continuously putting out new beer even if it is an slight change in fruit/haze/stout.

 

Well now your in my wheelhouse. Those styles are my jam as well...
Sadly if you love those styles you'd be MUCH better off in Austin. The DFW area breweries are really not good at those. But there are a few.

Four Bullets is in Richardson. They're owned by a British expat and make a great hoppy Bitter and some other British inspired beers. They are normally hoppy (with British hops) and minerally. But you have to go to the brewery.

Pegasus City brewery is one of my favorites in DFW. They do NOT do hoppy beers. They have a good malty English Bitter, a great regular Porter at only 5.6% and a light bodied black lager.

Braindead Brewery has had the Best pilsners I've had made in DFW by far. Great malt flavor with great herbal hops. They've also had a Bitter recently but I haven't been able to try it. I have kids and we've tried going 3 times fairly recently and haven't been able to go in because it's been too busy during the day.

Oak Highlands Brewery has a Dortmunder that's been very good called Golden Mustache. A pale lager with decent malt backbone with good bitterness and more of a minerally flavor.

We like Cowtown Brewery in Fort Worth for their Dortmunder called High Brau as well. And they have good barbecue as well.

I most often to to Legal Draft in Arlington because they're just 3 miles from our house. I recommend their Blonde which is a helles that's improved a lot in the last few months. And I often mix their light lager and stout for a beer that scratches my Schwarzbier itch.

And of course there's always Rahr who make a decent helles, a decent schwarzbier, and a decent Amber lager. Plus their seasonal hefeweizen and Oktoberfest beers are good.

 

Oh. Pegasus City Brewery also makes Belgian beers. A blonde, dubbel, and tripel.

If you're looking for good German styles in my experience do NOT look towards Franconia Brewing Company.
As an example heres a review that's always matched my experience with their Dunkel Lager.
I tried drinking their hefeweizen for years but it always failed on all counts, body, esters, carbonation, malt flavor. Their Kölsch is the only beer I've ever tasted butter while drinking it (diacetyl, the beer tasted like I was drinking a glass of movie theater butter).

 

WOW this is perfect! Exactly what I was looking for. Can't thank you enough for all this great info. Precisely what this website is best at doing for us enthusiasts.
Talked to my buddy and in addition to letting him show me the hop focused places he likes we're going to be checking out Four Bullets and Oak Highlands. I'll get back on here after our trip and let you know what I think.

 

I look forward to hearing about your trip. The only thing I will add is that I'd be wary of Oak Highlands dunkelweizen DFDub. It's 7% abv and every time I've had it the flavor was dominated by alcohol. It's been a while since I last had it but I was very put off by that.

If you want it I'd ask for a small pour first.

 

I will be in Dallas/Fort Worth in July, so I’ve been keeping an eye on this thread. One brewery I have been considering visiting is Community, as I enjoyed Legion in the past. Community is not getting a lot of love in this thread. I am curious if there is a reason

 

I will throw this out there, if you find yourself in Grapevine, Hop and Sting isn't a bad place to land. Had a good Belgian IPA, good enough to pick up a 6 pack. I remember one of their other IPAs was pretty good. Very chill place and probably one of the more enjoyable places we stopped at on the trip

 

I haven't recommended them for a long time because they were one of two things. Either very generic middle of the road examples of the style or they were gimmicky pastry beers.

That said I did see their Public Ale on tap recently and tried it and did enjoy it.

I haven't tried Mosaic IPA in years because it's 8.5% abv and I really don't care to drink beers that strong except for rare special occasions.

 

Looks like this may be the best thread for Dallas brewery/bottle shop recommendations. Point me in the right direction if not. My beer drinking buddy just got relocated to Plano (lives in Frisco). He is mostly into hazies still (I’m trying to expand his horizons!). While living in SoCal his go to breweries were Monkish and Green Cheek. I’ve read through a few threads in this forum and tried to recommend a few places for him to hit. I know he made it to Tupps already. Do you have any specific recommendations for the best breweries doing hazies out there? What about quality bottle shops that could steer him towards some good selections?

And second, I recently had to send him a box of SoCal hazies to hold him over. Do you have any recommendations for breweries/bottle shops that he could visit to relatively easily source some quality local beers to send back to me? I like pretty much all styles. And hype doesn’t matter. I’m more concerned with them being really solid beers. Stuff like Yellow Rose comes to mind, a killer beer that I think is relatively easy to track down.

Thanks in advance for your tips. Cheers!

 

Manhattan Project Half-Life is the best readily available hazy out of the DFW-based brewers in my opinion. I'm not a big fan of WC or NEIPAs in general but it was a great beer.

As for shops, Total Wine is pretty straightforward for getting the widest selection of Texas craft. Lone Star Beverages in Carrolton is also above average and has some beers that are harder to find even at Total Wine.

 

Some of the best NEIPAs are coming out of the DFW area are from Turning Point (Bedford) and Celestial (Dallas). At least a 30-40 min drive from Frisco but worth it

 

Andy - this is the answer to your question. These 2 breweries make arguably the best hazy ipas in the state. These breweries are a must visit for your friend.

 

This. Some of the best hazies in the state. Only other brewery I recommend (10 mins from Turning Point) is called False Idol. Very new brewery but incredible beer. If in a time crunch, Celestial is the place to go if you’re near Frisco.

 

false idol needs to be be on anyone's dallas brewery map. would probably add vector on that list as well, another excellent newer brewery with a good pizza program and beatiful space.