What beers in your locality to you think everyone in the region should try? My example: I think Karbach is solid, but to my knowledge, their distribution range is still limited to Houston. I know that for Texas, Austin and Dallas have a lot of solid breweries busting out beers left and right. So, from your local, limited distribution brewery, what are some breweries and key beers to check out? Also, clearly I can run and look at the Top Beers - Southwest and look at reviews, but I'm sure there's a lot of people like me who don't review every beer they taste; I'm really just looking for personal opinions.
Austin - lots of good stuff being produced that isnt canned/bottled, especially the house beers at Black Star and Flix, as well as some of the tasting room beers from Thirsty Planet (Fat Bat was spectacular) I dont know how big they are in Dallas, but everything I've had from Deep Ellum has been good, although we don't seem to get much of them down here.
Dallas has Deep Ellum and Peticolas up and running with others on the way. From Deep Ellum I suggest Darkest Hour stout, DE IPA and DE Wit, Darkest Hour being my personal favorite. From Peticolas I suggest Velvet Hammer and Royal Scandal.
Twisted X, Circle, and Rogness come to mind for Austin. Those do not make it out of the city limits as far as I've seen... and they're only on tap.
Velvet hammer is my favorite beer brewed in DFW. I think it's worth trading for if anyone can find a growler.
Top Beer by Brewery (no order) - Karbach Weisse, SA Endeavour, (512) Pecan Porter, Deep Ellum IPA, Real Ale Hans Pils, Rhar Pecker Wrecker, JK Thrash Metal, Live Oak Liberation, Franconia Dunkel, Peticolas Velvet Hammer. Went back to check my picks to the Tops list....I wasn't too far from the norm. Another thing came to me, there were few repeats on style. Nice to see Texas treating my taste buds to a bunch of different stuff. Sure wish I could get some of the sweet nectar coming out of San Antonio that is clogging up our regional Top's list.
I'm running low on Freetail stuff; just two Anankes and three Old Bat Rastards left. I have to say, their beer is really outstanding stuff.
For the Austin area: Austin Beerworks Einhorn (actually, all their other seasonals), Black Star's Irrational Series, Uncle Billy's Axe Handle & rotating taps, Twisted X. I'm looking forward to Whip-In's beers as well.
Went down there last weekend and grabbed some and some rye on rye that still had in the cooler. They were out of anaky though
Yeah, I knew I should've gotten more than the case I bought. It's so good and people are actually willing to part ways with some awesome stuff for it; I traded an Ananke for a Beat b5, there was more to the trade than that, but throwing in the Ananke secured another Beat.
A few from Austin: Vulcan Rye IPA at Black Star Coop. Darkside IPA at NxNW (seasonal). Lupulust Triple from Independence. And I second Velvet Hammer from Peticolas in Dallas.
Darkside Fermentation was making some really cool beers in San Marcos before closing up shop earlier this year. I guess it may be a little while before seeing him again.
Ill add Uncle Billy's Insomniac Stout, when they make it, easily my favorite stout in the area.(Austin)
according to the dude at karbach yesterday, they're planning to release hellfighter in bottle form in a couple of months, with BB hellfighter to follow a few months after that. not sure if this will increase their distro range, but i'm excited about being able to get this outside of growler fills.
bride of hop zombie- uncle billys was bad ass. pearl snap is amazing (when its right had a few cans that were off), original wytchmaker was barnone awesome, ranger creek original OPA was off the hook, I wished southern star would go back to their original pinebelt (the one before release) or at least make it a special texas edition. old treehugger from live oak, flix stuff is great as well. Oh and the 512 IPA!!!!!!!! it takes them a while when the new hop harvest comes in to dial it in, but man usually by summertime its bad ass.
I recall talking to Eric when the BBA Hellfighter was first released and he said this. I believe he said 22oz format, but this was also about three months ago? Lots of things can change in that span of time. Either way, that is definitely exciting news. Also, I heard that Silver Eagle is set to distribute their beer?
