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.

Saint Arnold Sailing Santa

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold has just received label approval for a new beer named Sailing Santa, described as "[a] perfect blend of our Elissa IPA and Christmas Ale."

No word yet on when this beer will be released, or how widely it will be available.

Saint Arnold Dumps 11,000 Gallons

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold announced it had to dump 11,000 gallons of its first batch of the new Santo beer, delaying its release from the initially scheduled date of September 1st.

According to a press release: "After filtering a batch this week and getting it ready for packaging we tasted it. It was good, but it was missing that spark that separates a good beer from a great beer." Rather than proceed with bottling and distribution, owner and founder Brock Wagner decided to dispose of the entire initial batch and start again with a few recipe modifications.

No official rescheduled release date has been announced but a first batch should be available by October.

Divine Reserve No. 11 Year-Round

HOUSTON - In a brief Twitter announcement, Saint Arnold owner Brock Wagner confirmed that the Divine Reserve No. 11 will be produced as a year-round beer sometime next year.

A name for the new beer, a double IPA and the most recent of the Divine Reserve series, has not yet been determined.

Saint Arnold Centenni-Ale

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold has received label approval for two new beers of a seemingly limited edition series named Centenni-Ale to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Rice University.

No word yet on intended styles for these beers, named simply Centenni-Ale Blonde Ale and Centenni-Ale Dark Ale, nor when or how widely these beers will be available.

Saint Arnold Pumpkinator

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold has announced it will rebrand their popular Divine Reserve No. 9, the imperial pumpkin stout, and release it as a fall seasonal beer named Pumpkinator.

Saint Arnold Santo

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold will release a new beer, Santo, on September 1st as reported recently by Craft Austin. This beer will be a limited-run dark koelsch-style ale around 4.9% ABV.

Rumors suggest this may be the beginning of a new series of limited-release beers by Saint Arnold, but no official word has yet been released.

Saint Arnold Weedwacker in Bottles

HOUSTON - Part of its recent Moveable Yeast series of experimental beers, Saint Arnold's Weedwacker has proven so popular that it will be bottled as a year-round offering.

The Weedwacker is a version of Saint Arnold's Fancy Lawnmower kölsch fermented with a Bavarian hefeweizen yeast strain. It will take the place of the retiring Texas Wheat in the brewery's current lineup.

Saint Arnold Growth in 2010

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold grew by 22% in 2010 despite a lagging economy, as reported by Ronnie Crocker in the Houston Chronicle piece, "Saint Arnold thrives during lukewarm times."

Also included in this piece are a few other interesting items regarding the brewery:

• The Divine Reserve No. 9, an imperial pumpkin stout, will become an annual fall seasonal named The Pumpkinator.
• Capacity for 22-oz bottles will be added this year for special releases.
• Expect two or three releases of the Divine Reserve series in 2011.

Brock Wagner on Forbes Blog

Saint Arnold owner Brock Wagner was featured in a short interview with Forbes contributor Christopher Helman on his Southwest Bureau blog.

Divine Reserve as Fall Seasonal

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold's Divine Reserve No. 9, their imperial stout pumpkin ale of last fall, will be the first of this series to become a regular fall seasonal release beginning next year, as reported by Houston's Barley Vine.

Divine Reserve No. 10

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold has announced the next beer in their Divine Reserve series (No. 10) will be released on Tuesday, November 2nd.

This edition of the series is a new English barleywine based on homebrewer Chris Landis' recipe as winner of the Big Batch Brew Bash competition this past spring.

Saint Arnold Expands Again

HOUSTON - Settled in their new downtown location, Saint Arnold is again expanding its capacity with the addition of four new 240-barrel fermentation vessels. The new fermentors should be installed and in normal brewing operations by the end of October.

The addition of this new equipment raises the annual capacity of Saint Arnold from 35,000 to around 50,000 barrels, nearly doubling their total capacity from only a year ago.

Texas Brewers at 2010 GABF

DENVER, CO - Winners were announced over the weekend at the 2010 Great American Beer Festival, and again three familiar Texas brewers brought home medals.

Recognized Texas brewers include:

• Saint Arnold: Gold for Fancy Lawnmower as a German-Style Kölsch
• Real Ale Brewing: Gold for Rio Blanco Pale Ale as an Ordinary or Special Bitter
• Saint Arnold: Silver for Elissa IPA as an Extra Special Bitter
• Saint Arnold: Silver for Oktoberfest as a Scottish-Style Ale
• The Covey Restaurant & Brewery: Bronze for Cowboy Lager as a Munich-Style Helles

The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is an annual event sponsored by the Brewers Association, the professional organization for the craft brewing industry. This year's competition included 3523 entries from 522 brewers with a total festival attendance of more than 49,000.

Gold, silver and bronze medals are awarded for beers in 79 different style categories plus a separate pro-am competition.

Saint Arnold Moveable Yeast Series

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold announced today a new series of limited-edition beers to be named Moveable Yeast, each featuring their standard production beers but using contrasting yeast strains.

The quarterly releases will be:

• Weedwacker, the Fancy Lawnmower fermented with a Bavarian hefeweizen yeast;
• Altared Amber, the Amber Ale fermented with Belgian Trappist yeast;
• Bitter Belgian, the Elissa IPA also fermented with Trappist yeast; and
• Brown Bitter, the Brown Ale fermented with German alt yeast.

All these beers will be offered only on tap and in limited batches of 60 barrels each. The first release of Weedwacker is scheduled for release this August.

Saint Arnold Celebrates 16 Years

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold Brewing Company celebrated its 16th anniversary this weekend with events both at their newly occupied facilities as well as corresponding events in other cities.

The celebrations include the third annual Saint Arnold Olympics at the Houston brewery location as well as a downtown Austin pub crawl on June 19th and special keg tappings all week at select locations in Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth.

Saint Arnold Releases 2009 Production Data

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold today reported that it sold almost 27,000 barrels in 2009, a 13% increase over the previous year. Houston's only craft brewery outpaced both the national rate for craft beer (up 5% in early 2009) and the overall US beer sales (down 1.3% in early 2009).

Year	Production	Growth
2009	25,710 barrels	13%
2008	22,749 barrels	28%
2007	17,811 barrels	30%
2006	13,638 barrels	25%
2005	10,946 barrels	20%

“All growth in 2009 was in existing markets, which is very satisfying for us,” said Brock Wagner, founder of Saint Arnold. “We have not added any new territories as we continue to focus on brewing for our local markets and communities. We would love to attain all of our production goals without ever shipping outside of Texas. We also benefited from our distributor switch in 2009.”

Production has not yet begun at Saint Arnold's new facility north of downtown. Once brewing begins, the initial capacity of 40,000 barrels can be expanded up to 120,000 barrels per year.

Saint Arnold Resumes Tours

HOUSTON - City permits were finally obtained this past week for the new Saint Arnold location north of downtown Houston, allowing the brewery to resume their Saturday tours after occupying the building in late October.

Weekly tours will be held each Saturday from 11am to 2pm and will cost $7. Weekday tours will start on December 28th from 3pm to 3:30pm, but this weekday schedule will be subject to changes depending on how it progresses.

Divine Reserve Release Date

HOUSTON - Saint Arnold has announced that the official release date for the next beer in their Divine Reserve series, No. 9, will be December 1st.

Saint Arnold's New Brewery

BREWERS IN THE NEWS

HOUSTON - With a small amount of ceremony, Saint Arnold officially opened their new brewing facility north of downtown Houston with a ribbon-cutting on Wednesday. Ronnie Crocker covered the event at the new brewery for the Houston Chronicle with "End of a drought: A brewery is back in city center." Photos of the event are also available from the Chronicle online at "A New Home for Saint Arnold."

Houston Mayor Bill White presented Saint Arnold with an formal proclamation declaring Wednesday, October 28, 2009, Saint Arnold Brewing Company Day in Houston.

Due to occupancy permits, Saturday tours at the new brewery are canceled until the matter can be resolved with city inspectors.