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.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Here are some photos of the Fort Worth Beer Festival, hosted by the Saucer:

http://westandclear.com/2008/10/12/a-few-shots-from-the-fall-beer-festival/