Thursday, October 30, 2008

More Texas Brewers in the News

Rounding out October's media coverage are a few more articles about Texas brewers. Patrick Beach covered Austin's Draught House anniversary in the Austin American-Stateman with "Draught House looking forward to another 40 years of pouring good beer." This month marked the Draught House's 40th year in operation as a beer bar at their current location, with brewing operations since 1995.

The Houston Press also ran a piece composed of responses to Robb Walsh's recent articles there, entitled simply "Texas Beer." Many readers came forward with informed comments, additional information and corrections to his original article, "Texas Wants Beer."

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Texas Brewers in the News

October is proving to be a rich month for media coverage of Texas brewers. Brad Buchholz provided a very insightful profile of Texas brewing legend Pierre Celis in his Austin American-Statesman piece, "Full circle: At 83, Belgian master brewer Pierre Celis shares his expertise with a new generation." The article follows Celis on a recent visit back to the Austin brewing scene, including his friendship with Kevin Brand and the start-up (512) Brewing.

Rob Walsh also provided a very good piece in the Houston Press entitled "Texas Wants Beer: Change This Law!" This article details the struggle Texas breweries have had with the TABC restrictions of simply selling beer on premises directly to the public. This was followed up with an opinion piece, "Texas Wants Beer: My Ten Top Texas Beers." Walsh also published a similar article in the Dallas Observer regarding the TABC restrictions on beer festivals with "Beer is good: Texas law stifles state's craft brewers."

Several stories were published about the recent Great American Beer Festival that included nods to Texas brewers. Saint Arnold received a mention in the Associated Press piece, "Finding God at a beer festival," due to their titular patron and inspiration (which also appeared in several local Texas newspapers). Uncle Billy's and Fredericksberg Brewing's gold medals even drew mention from as far away as the Philadelphia Daily News with "Texas comes up big at Great American Beer Festival."

The recent Flying Saucer Fall Beer Festival in Austin received some coverage in the Austin American-Statesman with "Less music, better beer -- that's my kind of festival." Oddly, the similar Flying Saucer festival in downtown Fort Worth received no media mention.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Texas Brewers at 2008 GABF

Several Texas brewers won medals at the 2008 Brewers Association Great American Beer Festival. The winners were announced October 11th at the conclusion of the annual event in Denver, Colorado.

Recognized Texas brewers include:
The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is the largest professional competition sponsored by the Brewers Association, the craft beer industry's professional organization. This year's competition included more than 2900 beers from 472 brewers with an overall attendance of 46,000.

Awards are given in 75 different style categories of beer plus pro-am categories, with the top three beers recognized with gold, silver and bronze medals.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Flying Saucer Fall Beer Festival

The third annual Fall Beer Festival was held on Saturday at Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth. Sponsored by the adjacent Flying Saucer, the event featured a variety of popular craft beers including Texas brewers, national brewers and imports.


Several cask-conditioned versions of local and other Texas beers were included, as well as Saint Arnold's latest Divine Reserve No. 7. Flying Saucer management estimates attendance at this event to be at least a third larger than the same event last year.



Also present by Flying Saucer invitation was the Arlington homebrew club Knights of the Brown Bottle with literature about homebrewing and live brewing demonstrations right on downtown's Main Street.


Monday, October 06, 2008

Shiner Holiday Cheer

Spoetzl has announced a new winter seasonal beer called Shiner Holiday Cheer. This beer is intended to replace their present seasonal (and award-winning) product Shiner Dunkelweizen, which will be discontinued.

The Shiner Holiday Cheer will also be a dunkelweizen style but with the addition of peach and pecan flavors, reflecting their Texas heritage. It will have an ABV of 5.4% and will be available November through January.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Texas Brewers in the News

A few more news items have appeared in various media sources regarding Texas brewers and the Texas beer scene. The online news source Bloomberg.com featured the success of native Texas craft breweries in their recent piece, "Texas Beer Drinkers Swap Cowboys' Longnecks for Fancy Lawnmower."

Rahr & Sons also received a little out-of-state attention from the Appleton Post-Crescent of Wisconsin with this columnist's profile of "Rahr stands out from other ambers." The Fort Worth-based Rahr family and brewing tradition are originally from Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

Although now a few weeks old, Patrick Beach of the Austin-American Statesman profiled Blanco's Real Ale in his piece, "Blanco brewery keeping it Real."

Various other minor news pieces have appeared recently regarding local Oktoberfest celebrations and special beers throughout the state but these all feature already familiar seasonal products and events.