After two years in Anchorage, AK where I first discovered my love for craft beer some 20 years ago I'm moving back to Texas. I'm from Houston and familiar with most Houston craft brews. Karachi, Lone Pint, Buffalo Bayou, No Label and of course Saint Arnold. Some of these are great some are okay. I'll be traveling between Corpus Christi and Houston. Weekends I will be traveling the state looking for great craft beer. I'm coming from a World where beer is an art and a sport. The craft beer scene is different up here. Darker beers, Brandywines and IPAs are standard fair. ABVs under 7 are light beers. So my taste, I'm thinking, will change back home. Are there many Barlywines? What seems to be the most common style? IPA? What breweries do you recommend? (Anywhere in TX) Any beerfests worth while? Alaska is awesome especially for beer! My collection of 100+ beers from AK and PNW needs some TX additions. Let the fun begin.
Barleywines are far and few between but Saint Arnold's next Bishop Barrel is a barrel aged English Barleywine. YES! Most IPA's fall in to the resin and piney flavor. Except Yellow Rose, it is citrus delish. These are my experiences. I'm not in to the resiny flavors.
Yah, no Barleywines on the regular from Hou breweries I don't know if there is a most common style between them all, but I'd say probably IPA I recommend hitting up Lone Pint, Buff Brew, Karbach (new restaurant+brewery) For Beerfests, I try to keep this up to date: http://www.goodbeerhouston.com/festivals/ Firkin Fest is the best one there. The Katy and Tomball one are supposedly good too. Also, Houston Beer Fest had some problems to say the least, but they're under new management now ^And by no means am I plugging the site I created, I get nothing from it and its all for adding some grease to the Hou craft beer scene and saying F the InBevman
Oh yeah, and I can't go without saying that the stadiums and RODEO have craft now. Good Beer Houston retweeted SaintArnold @SaintArnold ยท 12h12 hours ago Tall boy of Lawnmower or Santo, anyone? #saintarnold #astros #santo #summertimebeer #BeerAndBaseball
Also Saint Arnold Divine Reserve 10 was an English style Barleywine. I'm sure there's a lot around. I still have a few myself. Deep Ellum Brewing company has Numb Comfort. It's a good BW beer, only available on occasion.
For barleywines, Real Ale Sisyphus is available year-round. Texas also gets plenty of non-local seasonals (Stone Old Guardian, Great Divide Old Ruffian, SN Bigfoot, not to mention all the more limited stuff like Sucaba). I don't think most of the Texas beer fests are worth it, primarily due to the fact that the alcohol laws here mean you'll primarily only see stuff that you could get at a bar or store anyway. They are a good way to quickly get up to speed on local breweries/beers though.
Sisyphus is year-round now and Rodeo Clown is basically a barleywine. Saint Arnold 20th Anniversary Barleywine might still be around a few places (hope they continue to make that). The only beerfest I have actually enjoyed in Houston has been the Firkin Fest. Saint Arnold seems to be doing an annual cellar tasting for their Anniversary Party now. Last year was a blast, and really well run. This year looks to be the same. I would recommend that over just about any beerfest in the city.
Flying saucer and Hay merchant anniversary parties are worthwhile same goes for Saint Arnold and Real Ale anniversary parties.
