Studs & Suds Microbrew Festival

The inaugural Studs & Suds Microbrew Festival was held on Monday at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie. Sponsored by Ben E. Keith, the event featured their portfolio of craft beers as well as a few from Andrews Distributing.

While the number of beers available was close to 100, no local brewers were invited. The event was held within the race track, so attendance was variable as people walked between the festival and the race activities.

Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 7

The 13th Annual Big Batch Brew Bash was held this past weekend. The style category this year was weizenbock, and the winner was Kerry Martin of the Austin Zealots homebrew club. As in years past, Saint Arnold will brew Martin's weizenbock recipe for their next edition in their Divine Reserve series (No. 7).

The Big Batch Brew Bash is the largest single-style homebrewing contest in the world, and is sponsored by the Kuykendahl Gran Brewers homebrew club and Saint Arnold. A total of 66 entries were entered for the competition this year.

Gordon Biersch Opens in Plano

The latest location of the California-based brewpub and restaurant chain Gordon Biersch opened yesterday at The Shops at Legacy in Plano.

Unlike the similar BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse franchise, Gordon Biersch will brew their own beers on-site. Following the German Reinheitsgebot purity law, Gordon Biersch plans six house beers, all German-style lagers.

Lovejoys Hires New Brewer

Lovejoys Tap Room & Brewery in downtown Austin recently hired a new brewer. Todd Henry, the new brewer, took over the duties from Russ Hall in March after a short apprenticeship.

BrewCrAzY Interviews Brian Hutchins

The online beer and brewing podcast show BrewCrAzY recently interviewed Brian Hutchins, brewer at Southern Star Brewery, as they tour the brewery operations on-site at Texas' newest craft brewery.

Other than an overview of the brewing process, Hutchins talks about Southern Star's next beer, their Dortmunder-style lager, specially designed around the local Conroe water.

The interview is included in BrewCrAzY's BrewCast Show 60, originally airing on May 11th. (The interview with Hutchins begins about 28 minutes into the podcast.)

Copper Thieves Hit Saint Arnold

Last week, thieves stripped open refrigeration and A/C systems on the roof of the Saint Arnold brewery in Houston and stole the copper elements inside. The thieves disabled the cooling systems and did about $75,000 worth of damage.

Production at the brewery was down for about five days, but no beer was lost.

Franconia Brewing Launches Website

The new McKinney brewery Franconia Brewing has launched their new website, including full details about the new location and operations.

Rahr & Sons Expansion

Rahr & Sons has just received three new 70-barrel fermentation tanks at their Fort Worth brewery. When fully installed, these new tanks will bring Rahr & Sons' annual brewing capacity up to about 6000 barrels.