Quick Hits - American Craft Beer Week edition

Happy American Craft Beer week everyone!  Starting today and running through next Sunday is the annual American Craft Beer week.  A time to honor great American beer, where bars and breweries around town are hosting special events, and tapping special beers all week long.  However, before I get to that, I do want to mention some pretty cool news.  Houston Beer guide, published my review of Clear Lake's newest craft beer grolwer spot Beers Looking At You.  Feel free to go over and checkout the article and leave a comment if you so wish.

Over on the right hand side of this blog is a calendar list of up coming events, including this weeks activities for ACBW.  If anyone sees something that I haven't listed please let me know and I'll add it to the list.  I do want to highlight a couple of cool things going on this week:

• Galveston Island Brewing will be having a bunch of different tappings, or special pricing on beers throughout this week.
• Thursday the great Nobi Pub will be hosting an Odell Brewery tap take over.  Expect some special beers to be available as well.
• Friday Nobi will be hosting another brewery, this type new to Texas New Holland Brewery.  This will be a good chance to try some beers that are new to the area.
• Also Friday, J. Henry's will be tapping a cask of Karbach's 3 Legged Lab with lactose.
• Saturday Dickinson's own Texas Beer Refinery will be celebrating their second anniversary.  Go out and celebrate their second birthday with some amazing beers, music and food.
• Finally, on Sunday, Nobi will be hosting another tap take over, this time for one of the original American craft breweries, Sierra Nevada.

Again, if anyone knows of ACBW events going on around the area please let me know and I'll post it on this google calendar.

First Look: Saloon Door Brewery

Anticipation.  That's what I've been feeling ever since I saw the first Facebook post for a new brewery in Webster.  Initially called Southern Draw, its since been changed to Saloon Door and it has softly, but not quietly (more on that in a moment) opened its doors and started serving some delicious brews.  I can not tell you how excited I was for the first brewery to open up on Webster, which is very close to where I live.

Saloon Door is nestled in a newly constructed area of warehouses near the end of the NASA bypass and I-45.  Recently they opened their doors on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays as they prepared for their upcoming Grand opening.  I've made two trips there recently.

 

The outside looks like a typical warehouse, except for the small patio with tables, chairs and umbrellas. Once inside I was impressed by how big and open the area is with projector screens showing the Astros, I can tell this is going to be a place to hang out on Sundays and watch football.  I made my way to the bar and looked up at the wall to see all the different plaques with their different beers.  They typically have about 10-11 beers on tap that range from two different cream ales, two different wheat ales, an amber, pale ale, IPA, to three different stouts.  Since I had brought someone with me I decided to do a tasting of all their beers.  What impressed me the most after tasting all of them was that there were no off flavors.  Many times with young breweries, you'll find a beer, maybe two that they offer, that just don't taste right.  This is usually indicative of someone that isn't used to brewing on bigger equipment, and/or that particular set up.  This was definitely not the case with Saloon Door.  All the beers I had were very solid, with a couple of standouts including their stouts (all three on nitro), their vanilla cream ale was very good too.  Overall I was impressed by what they were putting out considering they haven't even had their grand opening yet.  I feel as they dial things in a little more they will be producing some really good beers.  As we sat at our table moving through the tasting I saw the room fill up with fellow beer drinkers sitting at one of the mismatched tables that are scattered around.  All were smiling and talking amongst themselves enjoying the atmosphere and the good beer.  It is evident that even during this soft opening phase Saloon Door has become a good place to hang out.

The second time I went, I brought my daughter since it looked pretty kid friendly the first time I was there, plus I wanted to try some of the food they are providing, and I'd heard their double IPA was on tap, something that I had missed before.  Honestly the food was OK, brisket sandwich with potato salad and green beans.  The sandwich was fine, the potato salad was wonderfully mustard-y.  The DIPA was again very very solid.  A little tweaking and it could be wonderful.  Hoppy, resiny, and it hid the 9.5% very well.

The kid enjoyed the free wifi, and peanut butter pretzels as well as bites of my potato salad and green beans.  There are card and board games lined up along the side windows that are fun to play as well.

Overall, I think Saloon Door is doing an amazing job of positioning themselves as a place for families to hang out, watch sports on TV and drink some really good beer.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this weekend starting, April 29th is Saloon Door's grand opening.  There will be lots of beers on tap and food available as well so be sure to stop by and support them if you can.

Colorado Brewery Tours

Back in December I was in Denver visiting my in-laws. While there I did what any beer lover would do: visit some breweries. We spent one day up in Fort Collin, CO, home to New Belgium, Odell Brewery, and Fort Collins Brewery. It's two of these that I really want to talk about today.
The day we went up to Fort Collins, the first brewery we hit was New Belgium. I had been to this brewery about 5 or 6 years ago, but was excited to see it since I knew they had done some expansion in that time. New Belgium not only makes good beer, they are also a good company. We started the tour in the tasting room, before heading up stairs to see their mash tun, lauter tun, Pre-Run Vessel, and kettle. While here and sipping some Le Fleur Misseur the tour guide talked about the company. After working there for a year each employee gets a bike that they can ride to work (even though it was pretty cold this day, there were a lot of bikes out front), after 2 years they are offered ownership within the company. This last part is huge in developing a company that truly cares about the product. Secondly NB is one of the first (if not the first) to be significantly operated by Alternate Energy, whether solar, or wind powered. They have also developed complex system as part of their brewing process that reuses materials, or energy created in previous steps of the brewing process to help power later steps. To pay for the equipment it took to put this process together the employees agreed to forgo a couple of years of profit sharing which to me shows how much the company and its people care not only about what they are doing, but how they are doing it.
Its not all about the environment, its also about their growth. They are currently in 26 states, and they've got a new bottling line (the old one went to New Glaurus) that allows them to fill 700 bottles/min. Not only is NB bottling of course, they are also canning. I found out something interesting about the canning process of the ubiquitous Fat Tire. Unlike the bottled version, the canned version is "canned condition" which leads to a fuller taste. Unfortunately I have not done a side by side comparison to find out how they differ in taste, has anyone else?

From New Belgium we headed to a brewery that I had not only never visited I had never had any of their beer: Fort Collins Brewery. I had seen their beers in the Denver Stores, things like Kidd Lager, Z Lager, and 1900 Amber. None of these really ever excited me, and frankly their labels were pretty weak looking. Well I learned never to judge a book by its cover. The Kidd Lager is a delicous Schwarzbier, Z lager? A rauchbier, and a very good one at that. The IPA was very good as well. All of these surprised me in their depth of flavor and drinkability. FCB actually has a pretty good even unusual line up of standard beers (a raucbier and black lager standard who else does that?). They also had some brews on tap that were special. My favorite and the most unusual was a steinbier. Whats a stienbier you ask? The beer is brewed using heated stones placed into the boiling kettle. The addition of these stones heated the wort to boiling. In addition these stones acquire a layer of caramelized malts which when placed into a second vessel helps stimulate additional fermentation. Its an unusual process that created a beer unlike one I had ever had. It was a basic lager, but with some unusual undertones in the flavor. Caramel yes, but also stoney and minerally, very good, delicious. All in all my trip to FCB was one of my favorite, not because all the beers were amazing, but because it opened my eyes up to a brewery I had not tried. That right there is one of my favorite reasons to go to brewery tours: the opportunity to try and be surprised by something you otherwise wouldn't have.

Dry Dock Brewing

One of my favorite things to do when on vacation is to try and visit a local brewery, this is no problem whenever I am in Denver since they are everywhere. I've visited many of them during my visits there, but I was pretty excited when my brother-in-law told me about this brewery in Aurora a suburb of Denver. Dry Dock Brewing has been around since 2005. It was started next door to a homebrew shop by the owner of said shop. The brewer came over from a "local brewpub chain" (I think CB Potts). The brewery has gained some recognition lately when it won Small Brewery of the Year at the latest GABF along with a couple of other medals for their brews.
When we drove up we didn't know what to expect as the brewery is in the middle of a shopping center. When we walked in we were somewhat surprised by the nautical theme, but I guess with the name dry dock we shouldn't have been. The set up is pretty small with just a handful of small fermenters. They have limited bottling and are mainly set up as draft only operation. As with most times I go to a brewery I picked up a sampler tray (see pic to the right):
7 Seas Double IPA - 7 hop varieties (each start with the letter C) 8.5% and 90 IBU's. This one was incredibly hoppy, tons of grapefruit peel, marmalade, chewyness, toasty biscuits, very well made DIPA.
Three Heavy - Wee Heavy weighing in at 9.5%. Very rich malty brew, with notes of figs, and raisins, dark fruity, sweet and malty, but not cloyingly so. Another solid brew.
Barnacle Brown - Brown ale, smooth, mellow, some coco notes, but not a lot going on here, was hoping for a little bit more complexity.
HMS Victory ESB - 5.8%, 49 IBU. A little nutty, caramel notes, with some nice earthy hop notes, coppery, malty, a very nice English style ale.
U-Boat Hefeweizen - Silver medal winner at GABF. This one was a great beer, bannana, cloves, bubble gum, full creamy mouthfeel. A really wonderful hefeweizen.
HMS Bounty Old Ale - Another award winner from World Beer Festival, some nice malty caramel notes along with raisins, figs, maltyness, port like, but again felt it was lacking depth.
I also tasted their pale ale that my brother in law had, that we both felt was incredibly lacking in flavor and depth, tasted really one dimensional.
After the sampling platter I did get a snifter of their Naked Vixen which is a 9.5% Belgian Golden Ale. This was a pretty good beer golden colored with a thick pillowy white head, notes of pineapple, white pepper, yeasty notes, fruity, very nice.

Other beers that our party had was a porter that we all found somewhat wanting as well as their Vanilla porter which was not surprisingly a bit sweet. Overall I found Dry Dock to be a very solid brewery, but left somewhat disapointed due to its winning Small Brewery of the Year.

An Update on Southern Star Brewing

I wrote about the Texas's newest brewery Souther Star Brewing out of Conroe, Texas a few months ago. Since that time, the brewery has made a couple of announcements:
The first is that they announced their first beer is Pine Belt Pale, and American Pale Ale. The bigger news is that it's going to be packaged in cans! Now I really like this idea. There is definitely not enough craft brewers packaging in this manor, in fact the only one that comes to mind is Oskar Blues out of Colorado.
They've also announced that their second beer will be a Dortmunder Style Lager, but will be available only in draft in select locations. Hopefully I'll be able to go over to Gingerman's or Houston's Flying Saucer to have a taste. So far I really like what this new brewery is doing. I can't wait to taste their beers. Be sure that as soon as I do, I'll post my thoughts on Texas's newest brewery.

Another Texas Craft Beer

Yes sir, may I have another!
Thanks to Josquin for this bit of news, a new craft brewery is opening, in nearby Conroe Texas no less. Called Southern Star Brewing Company, it looks like they some time before they are open. From the website, they plan on being open by January 2008. No report yet on the styles of beer's they will be brewing, but one would hope they would continue the strong tradition of brewing standard brews such as Saint Arnold's Amber and Brown, Rahr's Red, and Real Ale's Pale Ale. However in addition I'd love to see them mix it up some more, provide more stouts and porters (Something few Texas breweries are doing), oak aged beers, and other less locally brewed beers. All done with a Texas take of course. This is exciting times for craft beer lovers in Texas. Stay tuned, I'll try to keep you all posted on the happenings of this brewery.

Saint Arnold's

Thats right, its Saint Arnold of Metz, one of the Patron Saints of Brewing. While considered by many as the 'Real' Patron Saint of Brewing he is actually NOT recognized as such by the Church. However he was known to extol the healthy virtues of drinking beer instead of water. His famous saying is: "From man's sweat and God's love, beer came into the world." He also gave his congregation FREE BEER! His miracles came after his death. His body was being moved from Metz where he was Bishop to the location of his first Diocese. One of the bearers was overcome by exhaustion he prayed to God for beer to slake his thirst. No sooner than the prayer had been uttered when fresh beer poured forth from Saint Arnold's Casket.
The reason that Saint Arnold's has a special place for me is that it is the namesake of Saint Arnold's Brewery in Houston, one of my favorite breweries and by far my favorite in Texas. So when I visited Brussels recently and saw this statue I had to take a picture.

They fought the law and the law.....

This is the latest installment on Saint Arnold's mission to change Texas Alcohol Code. Last night owner and CEO held a Teleconference and asked certain bloggers to attend. I was invited, however due to the time difference and the fact that I can't dial 1-888 numbers from Germany I was unable to attend. However, I was able to secure some notes from the conference from one of the participants in the conference, Saint Arnold's own Evan.
The first part of the post covers the change in language that Brock is fighting for:

To the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code, Chapter 12. Brewer's Permit, add in Sec. 12.05 the following:

Such a brewer may also sell ale and malt liquor to ultimate consumers for consumption on the brewery premises or in unbroken packages for off-premises consumption in an amount not to exceed, together with the annual sales of beer to the ultimate consumer by the holder of a manufacturer's license acting under the authority of Section 62.12 of this code at the same premises, 5,000 barrels annually;

and

To the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code, Chapter 62. Manufacturer's License add in Sec. 62.12 (a) the following:

Such a manufacturer may also sell beer to ultimate consumers for consumption on the manufacturer's premises or in unbroken packages for off-premises consumption in an amount not to exceed, together with the annual sales of ale and malt liquor to the ultimate consumer by the holder of a brewer's permit acting under the authority of Section 12.05 of this code at the same premises, 5,000 barrels annually.

The next part are the notes from the Teleconference that gives some more details into the above wording:

1. SA History

Brock opened by talking about Saint Arnold, and how it was founded 12.5 years ago. It is now the oldest microbrewery in Texas, because 14 out of 19 have failed. I believe he said it's older than any brew pub as well. He then talked a little bit between the difference in a brewery license and a brewpub license.

2. Brewery license

Breweries right now can only sell to distributors. They can never sell directly to customers, however breweries under 75K barrels/year can sell to retailers as well (known as the Shiner law, because Shiner is the one who pushed it through the legislature way back when). However, this doesn't have a very large effect on their business.

3. What the legislation is that we're pushing for (will send under separate cover)

Breweries under 75K barrels/year can sell up to 5K barrels per year for on-premises consumption [sell a pint in the brewery] or for off-premises consumption [a 6 pack of a keg].

The 75K/year is based on the Shiner law, while the 5K per year is based on the brew pub license. So both these figures have precedents.

Brock noted that just Annheuser Busch brewed 14 million barrels last year, while Saint Arnold (the largest microbrewer in the state) will brew 14 thousand. In fact if you add the 5 microbrewers together (Rahr, Independence, Live Oak, Real Ale, SA), and they all did 5K/yr directly to retailers (frankly, all the breweries together are unlikely to do 5K barrels/year cumulative in the short term). Even if the 5 microbrewers were all to sell 5K directly to consumers, it would be less than .1% of the entire beer market in the state.

4. Wineries can do what we want to do.

Because the Texas legislature has recognized that wineries (all of whom are pretty much micro-wineries) in Texas needed commonsense beverage laws, HB2593 in 2003 allowed similar changes for the wine industry.

5. This change will help microbreweries in Texas immensely by helping them compete against non-Texas microbrewers.

* Used an example of a mid-Atlantic microbrewery: for years, their beach-area brewpub subsidized their unprofitable out-of-state distribution network. Eventually their distribution became profitable, but essentially Texas microbrewers are competing against microbrewers that have more favorable laws.

* Essentially, for microbreweries, it will allow them to sell a 6 pack to people after the Saturday tour (which draws about 250 people each week). It will allow them to sell pints at events at the brewery.

* Most of all, it will allow them to sell kegs. This is huge, because people call the brewery all the time asking to buy a keg. The distributor generally only carries Amber. Thus, it's difficult to get St. Arnold's other beers on tap for parties.

Brock emphasized that these small changes will have an enormous impact in the economics of opening and running a brewery.

It's a win-win:

* Distributors benefit (microbrews are better profit, and they will have more microbrews to distribute)

* Microbrewers benefit (profit margin is higher when they sell it themself. It helps make brewers profitable). They can compete on a level playing field against non-Texas microbrews.

* Most of all, consumers benefit by having more choices. Texas beer-lovers get to drink Texas microbrews.

* Will allows microbrewers to buy more equipment, create more jobs, and even generate a little more tax revenue.

As for who won? Saint Arnolds or the Law? Stay tuned.......

More on the quest of Saint Arnold's

As a I posted a couple of days ago Saint Arnold's is going to Austin to help change the laws of the Great State of Texas. Well I am happy to report that this quest has not gone unnoticed. People, not just in Texas are taking notice and are writing about it. Here are just a few links to some write-ups, from Newspapers and blogs.

The Brookston Beer blog posts a short write up.
Over at Appellation beer they reference the Jimmy Stewart aspect of the story, and talk in a little more detail about Texas Beer law.
Barry Schlacter at the Star-Telegram has a write up in his weekly Beer column.
Finally Saint Arnold's themselves have written up a list of places that have mentioned their quest (including yours truly!)

Lastly just let me opine a bit more on Brock's quest and how important it is to Texas and beer drinkers in general. A few years back Texas passed a law that would allow Texas Wineries to sell small amounts of their own wine in their tasting rooms. The result was not lawlessness, or drunkenness, but higher profits for the wineries and an increase in tourism to Texas wine country (Hill country). To me this should be a slam dunk issue. Letting breweries sell some cases of their own would not only help small business profits, but as places like Colorado, and California can attest will increase tourism as people come from not only within Texas, but outside to taste some of the great beers that Texas has to offer. Texas should be about the small business, those people that are willing to take a chance, start something from nothing and being a bit of a maverick. Isn't that what Texas is all about?d
Let me close, by saying, if your reading this blog and support local Texas beer, try and support the quest of Saint Arnold's in any way you can. Whether that's by doing the simple thing of buying a six pack of Lawnmower or writing a letter to you State Representative, do what you can.

New's From Saint Arnold's

Even way over here in Europe I am trying to stay in touch with the local Houston beer scene, and I have noticed a couple of newsy items regarding Houston's own Saint Arnold's Brewery.
First they have an all new redesigned website, so go check it out.
The second news worthy item is much more important not only to Saint Arnold's, but to craft brewers all over Texas. Saint Arnold's Owner Brock Wagner, along with some of the other Craft brewer's are heading to Austin to help change some of the ridiculous alcohol laws that Texas has.
1) They want to be able to sell their own beer - this means being able to sell at the brewery! (would be nice at Saint Arnold's after a Saturday afternoon of tasting to grab a six pack or two or three)
2) Make it easier for Craft Breweries to open. In the great big state of Texas there are only a handful of Craft breweries and even less Brew pub's, to me this just isn't acceptable, Texans LOVE good beer.
Here is a link to Saint Arnold's Going to Austin blog. Check it out and try and support them in anyway you can.

Saint Arnold's new Business

The other day I came across this article in the Ft. Worth Star-telegram detailing a new business arrangement between Houston's own Saint Arnold's Brewery and the restaurant/brewery chain BJ's Restaurant. Traditionally when BJ's moves into a new state they build a large restaurant brewery and use that as a distribution point to the other units within the state. However, that is illegal here in Texas (Texas has a few arcane beer laws). So to get around this they basically have to have their beer contract brewed. This is where Saint Arnold's comes in. Owner Brock Wagner has a contract with BJ's to brew their beer and get it distributed to the restaurants. They can actually distributed it anywhere they want, but due to lack of advertising the only requests come from BJ's itself. In the long run, this is actually going to really help out Saint Arnold's. Including the BJ's beer means they are increasing production and it let's Brock buy new and better equipment long before he might have if he was just brewing Saint Arnold's. This can help with better beer, better consistency, and help in expansion. I say good business deal for Brock.

Rahr & Sons Brewery

I have stated before that one of the reasons I like drinking craft beer is that it gives me the opportunity to support local businesses, that have interests in the community. So I thought I would take some time today to discuss a somewhat local craft brewery (its in Texas), Rahr and Sons. Texas only has about a half dozen breweries and maybe a couple more brew pubs, which is disappointing in a state this big. Rahr is the newest having started just over 2 years ago so it was nice to see this very well written article in the Fort Worth Business Press. Rahr is of course based out of Ft. Worth and is located in the downtown area. The brewery is owned, operated and marketed by Fritz Rahr. He has an interesting story in that his family founded the Rahr Malting Co. on Lake Michigan (its where he still gets his malt from). He began as so many Craft brewers do. He loved to make beer, and didn't like his current job, so one day his wife asks him what he wants to do, his reply? "I want to make beer" and the rest is as they say history. Rahr and Sons is a pretty small brewery, it brew about 2000 barrels this year having grown from 1600 in 2005 which was its first full year in existence. The brew's mostly reflect Rahr's German heritage, German lager's and a new German wheat beer that is their summer seasonal. They are growing in esteem as well, this year they were named by Zymurgy as the fifth best commercial brewery in the US and 4 of their beers made the lists top 50 beers, which is pretty impressive for this new brewery. Its exciting to hear Mr. Rahr's dedication and passion about brewing beer. I can't wait to watch this Texas Brewer grow.