Southern Star News

Call me an equal opporunity poster. After posting on local brewer Saint Arnold's yesterday, I wanted to give fare share to out other local brewer Southern Star from Conroe. In their most recent newsletter there were two particular topics that got me curious enough to ask some questions.
The first announcement is that Southern Star will be having a Homebrew contest. The winning recipe will be entered into the GABF Pro-Am competition. In addition the recipe will be used as the Southern Star's fall beer. Ahh now this is what got me questioning. I said to myself doesn't Southern Star already have a Fall release? The wonderful and unique Rauchbier? Well I dropped head brewery an email who replied with the following:

I think that we are going to rotate the Fall seasonal. I love the rauch, but it just isn't selling, so no, we won't be making that for the fall next year.

Well this is disappointing. I loved their Rauchbier and really felt it was a welcome addition to the Texas line up of beers. I'm hoping that since their Fall seasonal will rotate that they will find room for this style.
The second issue that got me asking questions was the news that Southern Star would be expanding their distribution outside of Texas, to Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and North Carolina. I'm very torn about this news. On one hand I think its pretty cool that there is enough demand that SS can take their beers outside of Texas, and in doing so will be the first brewery other than Shiner to do so. On the other hand I worry because SS hasn't entered all the Texas markets, so there is a little bit of "What about me?" going on. I specifically asked Dave about when they were coming to South of Houston (Clear Lake Area). I can get their canned beer at my local Spec's of course, but nothing on tap, not even in the great Boondoggles. Dave's reply is that they are working on it. I hope so.