Texas Brewers at 2012 World Beer Cup

More Texas breweries won medals at the 2012 Brewers Association World Beer Cup. The winners were announced May 5th at the conclusion of the annual Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego, California.

Recognized Texas brewers include:

• Düsseldorf-style Altbier: Gold for Alt-eration from Hops & Grain
• Pumpkin Beer: Silver for Pumpkinator from Saint Arnold
• Imperial IPA: Silver for Endeavour from Saint Arnold
• Weizenbock: Silver for Primus from Live Oak
• American-style Dark Lager: Silver for Shiner Bock from Spoetzl
• American-style Dark Lager: Bronze for Santo from Saint Arnold

The World Beer Cup is a judged competition held every two years and sponsored by the Brewers Association, the craft beer industry's professional organization. This year's competition included more than 3900 beers from 799 brewers in 54 countries.

Awards are given in 95 different style categories of beer, with the top three beers recognized with gold, silver and bronze medals.

Shiner Wild Hare Pale Ale

SHINER - Spoetzl Brewery has received label approval for their next new beer called Shiner Wild Hare Pale Ale.

The pale ale style marks another rare departure from traditional German styles for Spoetzl. There are indications this beer may serve as the 103rd installment in their continued line of special anniversary beers.

Spoetzl Wins European Awards

SHINER - Spoetzl Brewery won a total of three medals at the European Beer Star Awards held this past October at the Doemens Academy in Munich.

The winning beers and respective categories were:

• German-Style Märzen: Silver for Shiner Oktoberfest
• Bohemian-Style Schwarzbier: Bronze for Shiner Bohemian Black Lager
• Düsseldorf-Style Altbier: Bronze for Shiner Old Time Alt

Organized by the Association of Private Breweries in Germany, this is the eighth year for the European Beer Star Awards, which included 1113 entries in 49 categories. This is the second consecutive year for Spoetzl to medal at this international competition.

Shiner Ryes & Shine Rye Lager

SHINER - Spoetzl Brewery plans to release the Shiner Ryes & Shine Rye Lager, a dark brown lager that is their interpretation of the German rye beer style.

This beer will be the second in the Brewer's Pride series from Spoetzl, the first being their Shiner Old-Time Alt. Both are sold bundled in their "Family Reunion" multi-packs, and should be available by December.

Shiner Ruby Redbird

SHINER - Spoetzl is introducing a new summer seasonal this year, the Shiner Ruby Redbird, a beer brewed with Texas Ruby Red grapefruit and ginger.

Bocklove.com

SHINER - Spoetzl has launched a new consumer website called bocklove.com. This site highlights more interactive features, videos and photos for fans of Shiner beers and the Spoetzl brewery.

Shiner101.com

SHINER - To celebrate and promote its newest anniversary beer, Spoetzl has created the website Shiner101.com with text largely in Czech to correspond with the Shiner 101 Czech-Style Pilsner.

The Shiner 101 will most likely be made available on February 1st.

Shiner 101

SHINER - Spoetzl will continue its anniversary series of beers past its centennial, with the next beer being a Czech-style pilsner designated Shiner 101. This new Shiner beer will be available in January 2010.

Shiner Fröst

SHINER - Spoetzl's newest seasonal product will be the Shiner Fröst, a Dortmunder-style lager. It will be available January through March of 2010 and follow the Shiner Holiday Cheer as an annual offering.

Spoetzl Celebrates Centennial

BREWERS IN THE NEWS

This month, the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner celebrates its centennial year in operation. A recent news release detailing a short history of the brewery, picked up by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as "Spoetzl Brewery, once close to last call, marks its 100th birthday", is making the AP rounds in news sources to date as far as Houston, Denver, and Toledo, Ohio.

Update: The same story has also appeared recently in the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Examiner.

Shiner Smokehaus

Spoetzl finally announced the release of their newest beer, Shiner Smokehaus, via their Facebook page on Monday, May 4th. The Smokehaus will be a German helles style brewed with mesquite-smoked malt.

Shiner Smokehaus should be available as a summer seasonal in six-packs starting June 1st.

Shiner 100 in New Jersey Media

BREWERS IN THE NEWS

Spoetzl's 100th anniversary beer, Commemorator, received a review yesterday in a New Jersey online news source, the Asbury Park Press. The piece is entitled "Commemorator is worthy of a 100th anniversary."

Texas Brewers in the News

March brought a lot of coverage for Texas brewers, with most focused on the direct sales bills pending before the State legislature:

• "Tiny brewers thinking big: Move would allow them to sell beverages at their plants," Houston Chronicle
• "Microbreweries want consumers to be able to buy beer at breweries" (also appearing as "Heads up: Microbreweries want Legislature to clear the way for sales on site"), Fort Worth Star-Telegram, along with the accompanying video piece, "Brewers want to sell beer at the brewery"
• "Beer drinkers could purchase direct from local breweries under compromise plan," TexasWatchdog.org
• "Regulation, legislation and fun you can't have with Texas beer," Austin American-Statesman
• "Souvenir beer: We'll drink to this bill!" Houston Chronicle editorial
  

In other news, Lee Nichols featured an interview with Mike Renfro and his book, Shine On: 100 Years of Shiner Beer, in the Austin Chronicle piece, "Shiner at 100: Spoetzl Brewery."

Also, Saint Arnold's North Texas sales rep Kendra Harrell was briefly profiled in the Dallas Observer food blog "City of Ate" as "10 Questions: Kendra Harrell."

Texas Brewers in the News

A busy month for media coverage of Texas brewing. An op-ed piece appeared in UNT's North Texas Daily as a local guide to the best of Denton's liquor stores and other retailers entitled, "Beer Snob's guide to Denton booze shops."

J.R. Labbe of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram mentions Rahr & Sons in an editorial about HB 1062 in another op-ed piece entitled, "Easing restrictions on microbreweries."HB 1062 is current legislation in Austin known as the Texas Brewers Parity Amendment that would allow Texas brewers to sell their product direct to the public.

The Covey's brewmaster Jamie Fulton and Head Chef Sean Merchant again appeared on the cooking portion of the Dallas morning show, WFAA's "Good Morning, Texas." They appeared in a segment called "Valentine's Day Dishes with The Covey," promoting their Valentine's Day specials for both food and beer.

Austin's breweries also received some national media attention with a piece on National Public Radio (NPR) concerning the economic effects within the brewing business entitled, "Brewery Business Hopping Despite Tanking Economy." Featured in this story were Josh Wilson of the Draught House and Kevin Brand of (512) Brewing.

Barry Schlacter of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram posted a review of Spoetzl's Shiner 100 entitled, "Flavorful beer marks Spoetzl's centennial." And Patrick Beach provides a suitable tribute in the Austin American-Statesman to Austin's relocating Ginger Man with his homage, "There's a tear in my beer - the Ginger Man is moving."

Texas Brewers in the News

The Rare Breed line of beers from Rahr & Sons was featured by the Houston Community Newspapers, appearing in various forms as The Sun. The article entitled "Beer with benefits: Texas brewery’s sales help endangered species" covers Rahr's work with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation.

Spoetzl received a mention in a short article by Charlie Papazian about heritage brewers at the online source Examiner entitled, "America’s small heritage breweries making beer for over 100 years."

Patrick Beach's "This on the final: Check out beer classes at NXNW" article at the Austin American-Statesman touched on a number of Austin events, including beer and cheese classes at North by Northwest, beer dinners at the Alamo Drafthouse and Flying Saucer, and the results of Saint Arnold's Divine Reserve charity auction on eBay.

More details about the impending Saint Arnold move to a new location in downtown Houston were covered in the Houston Chronicle with the article, "Heights-based brewery enjoys growing pains."

Spoetzl Brings Back Kosmos Reserve

According to sources at the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), Spoetzl Brewery has just acquired label approval for a beer named Kosmos Reserve.

Assuming this is the same beer discontinued several years ago, Kosmos Reserve was a once-popular all-malt lager first introduced in 1994. It was named after and brewed as a tribute to Kosmos Spoetzl, one of the original brewers and later owner of the Spoetzl Brewery.

Texas Brewers in the News

Once again, the media ran another story about the rising costs of hops and grain. Not exactly breaking news any more, but at least Dallas-Fort Worth's NBC affiliate Channel 5 gave some brief prime air time to Rahr & Sons with the video, "Beer Prices Rise Over Hops Shortage."

A number of sources have published news or reviews of the new Spoetzl history, Shine On: 100 Years of Shiner Beer by Mike Renfro. These include the Bryan/College Station Eagle with "Book tells story of Shiner Beer's first century."

Not specific to any particular Texas brewer, the National Beer Wholesalers Organization released a story across the news wire celebrating "Texas Beer Distributors Recognize 75th Anniversary of Repeal of Prohibition." Texas became the 32nd state to ratify the 21st Amendment on November 24th, 1933.

Travis Poling's own story about the upcoming Commemorator doppelbock from Spoetzl was picked up by the Dallas Morning News as "Shiner brewery reveals new beer for 100th anniversary." The same story was also echoed on Draft Magazine's website as "Spoetzl Brewery's 100th anniversary beer."

Poling also covered Freetail Brewing's opening the day after Thanksgiving with his piece in the San Antonio Express-News, "Freetail brewing up taste of Texas."

Shiner 100: Commemorator

According to sources at the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), the Spoetzl Brewery has just filed legal label information for the final beer in their series leading to their centennial in 2009. Named Commemorator, or Shiner 100, the beer will be a traditional doppelbock style with an ABV of 6.7%.

Text included on the label reads in part,

Commemorator, our centennial offering, is brewed in the robust classic German "stark" style...

a reference to the stronger stark beer style and related beerfests of Münich. The name is also traditional, maintaining the -ator suffix for the doppelbock style as homage to its originator, Paulaner Salvator.

No release date has been indicated but annual beers in this series generally appear in the February-March timeframe.

Shiner Book Published

A new book has been published about the history of the Spoetzl Brewery. Shine On: 100 Years of Shiner Beer, written by Mike Renfro, details the history of the brewery in Shiner, Texas, as they enter their centennial year of operation. The book includes historic photographs as well as Shiner's discovery, reception and place in the Texas subculture.

A brief review of this book recently appeared in the Austin Chronicle. Shine On: 100 Years of Shiner Beer is published this month by the Houston-based publisher Bright Sky Press.

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.