"Craft" beer recommendation

[txsr20de]

In my opinion the biggest story is that Bell's will finally be available in Texas next week. Taps and Caps is doing a release party on Monday, everyone should have it on Tuesday. Their Two Hearted Ale is fan freaking tastic, on par with the best IPAs I've had.

Dogfish Head finally has cans in DFW which means we are getting their Flesh and Blood.

Agreed that Bell's coming to Texas is great news.

We have been getting Flesh and Blood down here for a few months, I was pretty underwhelmed to be honest. It is very drinkable, but nothing to write home about. Too malty and not enough hops for me, which is par for the course for other DFH IPAs.

I hope we see more NE IPAs getting Texas distro, I have had some recently from Trillium, Tree House, etc. that are incredible.

[Pro88LX]

Their place is pretty cramped and always packed, but its definitely worth the trip. Budget at least an hour to stand in line waiting to get in(there is a separate line for to-go bottles that is way shorter if you don't plan on staying and drinking, but where is the fun in that?)

If you are in the area, hit up The Rare Barrel in Berkeley as well. They are in an old warehouse in an industrial area, and have way more room to seat people. Also tends to be far less crowded than RR. Their beers are phenomenal as well(if you like sours).

both are an hour from me and WELL worth the trek

[BradM]

I thought we all decided Miller Lite was the best craft beer.

[95DRGT]

Man this thread kind of died again.

So there has been some pretty big news recently in the beer world. In my opinion the biggest story is that Bell's will finally be available in Texas next week. Taps and Caps is doing a release party on Monday, everyone should have it on Tuesday. Their Two Hearted Ale is fan freaking tastic, on par with the best IPAs I've had.

Dogfish Head finally has cans in DFW which means we are getting their Flesh and Blood.

Also another big story is that Celis is opening back up in Austin. Pierre Celis pretty much invented the craft beer scene in Texas. He originally owned Hoegaarden which has a very interesting history. You've probably had their beer in some form and if not then you've certainly had one of the macro clones Shocktop or Blue Moon. Not only that but it started the ball rolling that brought us what AB Inbev is today.

He sold that brewery and opened Celis in Austin with his daughter, eventually selling it to Miller who promptly closed it down and never did anything with the name. His daughter has been producing various gypsy beers for quite some time and finally teamed up with Atwater Brewing and was able to get the rights to her family name back.

That brings us to today's Celis Brewing which will be producing the original recipe for Hoegaarden in Austin plus many other Belgian styles.

I have a buddy that has been at Celis for the past month doing all the plumbing for brewery. He said they have the original copper kettles from Celis that were sold off but then relocated and bought back by the daughter. They are going to put them in a museum next to brewery with many other original pieces.

[BP]

I hope we see more NE IPAs getting Texas distro, I have had some recently from Trillium, Tree House, etc. that are incredible.

Check out Turning Point in Bedford. They are tiny but just started distributing and that's pretty much what they specialize in. https://www.facebook.com/tpbeers/

I guess I haven't been in a decent liquor store lately regarding the Blood and Honey. Since Taps and Caps opened in Fort Worth I stopped going to Specs and Total Wine. Taps and Caps just got it a couple of weeks ago.

[txsr20de]

Check out Turning Point in Bedford. They are tiny but just started distributing and that's pretty much what they specialize in. https://www.facebook.com/tpbeers/

Interesting, I haven't heard of them but looks promising. Do they distribute, or is it brewery only? Wanna ship your boy a case?

[BP]

Interesting, I haven't heard of them but looks promising. Do they distribute, or is it brewery only? Wanna ship your boy a case?

They are still in their infancy, so far they've only done a few events. They definitely haven't started packaging for retail yet.

[Pro88LX]

I thought we all decided Miller Lite was the best craft beer.

you spelled crap wrong.

[BP]

So I've been in San Diego for the last couple of weeks and still have a few to go and I have to say that DFW is nowhere close to being saturated with breweries.

There are places like Coronado and Karl Strauss that are independent with multiple locations that are all constantly busy and then you have Stone and Ballast Point who clearly have more money to spend and they have multiple locations that are also constantly busy.

I believe at last count there are 130ish active breweries in the San Diego metro area and that's not counting anything across the border and for the most part they seem to be doing pretty well.

The current theme here seems to be either east coast style IPAs which seems kind of strange to me or making beers with unconventional hops. Stone is the big distributor and they set the trends.

Another thing that I find almost crazy is what kind of stuff they have on their shelves. We went to a random liquor store in Coronado last night and they had 4 packs of 120 minute and a 2016 Bourbon County Stout. They were pricey but man I have never seen a 4 pack of 120 minute for sale and I've been to Rehoboth Beach. On Sunday I went to Whole Foods and they just sold out of Pliny The Elder but had all the 120 minute, this years KBS and Parabola you could want. KBS was $5.99 a bottle btw.

I still haven't gone to an actual bottle shop. We did go to a Bevmo and it was impressive but I know there are better stores around town.

As for breweries I've been to all of the Stone locations outside of Escondido. Amplified Ale Works, the Ballast Point in Little Italy, Bolt Brewing, two Karl Strauss and Coronado locations, Border X and a little place called Knotty Brewing. We plan on hitting Alesmith and Mikkeller this weekend and maybe the Ballast Point production brewery since it's not too far off.

The Stone location at Liberty Station is probably the nicest facility I've ever visited. They spent millions of dollars building that place and it shows. I've had the best time at Border X though. It's more like a dive bar but with a brewery. They play Loteria and have 4 tacos for $5 tonight. It is definitely in a rough part of town though but I wasn't too nervous walking around.

The best beers I've had were also at Liberty Station. Stone has a single hop series IPA they call Lupulin Loop. Every batch has the same brewing process and malt bill but they change the hop. The Simcoe hopped version was fantastic and it was just kegged that day. They also do a black witbier they call the Witty Moron and it was fantastic.

[cool cat]

Next Sunday is the Craft Beer Chili Cook-off, at Trinity Groves in South Dallas. $10 gets you 10 chili samples . Pretty much every North Texas micro brewery will be there, so plenty of choices for beer, and from what I remember from last year, most of the chili was good.

[BP]

Next Sunday is the Craft Beer Chili Cook-off, at Trinity Groves in South Dallas. $10 gets you 10 chili samples . Pretty much every North Texas micro brewery will be there, so plenty of choices for beer, and from what I remember from last year, most of the chili was good.

Sweet! We are having a tamale party at the Rodeo Goat or I'd be in. Thanks for reviving this thread.

The wife and I went to Austin this weekend and I probably found my new favorite joint there. ABGB is badass. We also made it to Family Business Brewing and they make a few decent beers but the real attraction for me at least was Jep and Jessica Robertson's food trailer. She runs the register and he runs the kitchen while their kids are food runners. The brewery is owned by Jensen Ackles, I think he's some kind of sparkly vampire on TV. Chicks seem to love him.

Anyway their food truck is cool http://jepssouthernroots.com/ and the brewery is pretty damned nice. They have a huge playground for kids and a bunch of picnic tables to sit at. It's like going to Revolver regarding the layout but with tons of live oak trees for shade. Definitely hit them up after a Jester King trip.

[txsr20de]

The UPS man brought me some more goodies last week

[BP]

There are a few good events coming up this month.

The Blue Bonnet Brew Off is 3/23-3/24 http://bbbrewoff.com/bluebonnetbrewoff/

And the Big Texas Beer Fest is the weekend after

https://www.bigtexasbeerfest.com/home/

[BP]

This thread has been dead for a while so I figured I'd post some local news.

Deep Ellum as some of you may know signed a deal with a venture capital firm a couple of years ago which funded their expansion. There were lawyers involved and that deal went away. Well last month they sold the entire business to Canarchy. This is the firm that also runs Oskar Blues, Squatters and Wasatch. So expect to see a crap ton more Deep Ellum stuff since the Oskar Blues plant in Austin can start making it. They opened their doors with a 100k per year barrel capacity. Jeff Reardon still solely owns the distillery since it wasn't part of the deal.

And more recently Four Corners sold their entire operation to Constellation Brands. I'm not really sure what their plans are with them. It gives them a foot print in north Texas obviously and Four Corners has one of the nicest facilities in town. I'm hoping they'll start opening Four Corners branded brew pubs around town.

So Revolver is now owned by Miller, Deep Ellum by Canarchy and Four Corners by Ballast Point. Inbev owns Karbach in Houston already but they haven't bought anything in North Texas yet. I'm sure they are shopping though.

[BP]

Oh yeah in positive news Peticolas was named as the grand champion at the US Open Beer Championship. This is one of the biggest competitions out there and it also allows home brewer entries.