The Hunt

Deeper down the rabbit hole. Beer has or is becoming the baseball chase card. Limited run beers are hitting the shelves daily. With the number of breweries opening each day it is an unending chase to catch the newest beers available.
For me an average beer drinker I prefer to drink local. When I say local I prefer to drink beer brewed in Texas. Texas is quickly becoming the go to state for great beer. Brewers love beer and brewers love to experiment with beer thus the huge quantities of specials and one offs.
Now the chase begins. 156 breweries and counting with every one of them having a short run beer. My fridge is quickly filling up. 

Home Brew Everything

TEXAS BREWS BITTER SISTERS

 

I had a little fun today and finally got into Taps & Caps in Lewisville Tx.   I first met Rick several years ago in Lone Star Beverages in Carrollton Tx. At the time it was one of the best places to get the most complete selection of craft beers. I have no idea how but i found beers there I had only heard about. Truly the team involved with both locations has a finger on the pulse of whats happening with beer.

With over 50 beers on tap it is a great representation of what is can be done. From the first time I spoke with Rick I knew his knowledge of beer was excellent. It is a one of a kind experience. When you walk in you are greeted by one of the employees. All you see are the tables, a wall of taps and a wall of growlers sandwiched in between are 4 monitors. A live feed of everything on tap. The feed updated every thirty seconds.

Can you hear angels?

On my trip today I picked up Bitter Sisters Belgian Triple. 32 oz.

Bitter Sisters located in Addison Tx is a family owned brewery. The first brewery to open in Addison and the North Dallas Corridor. Matt Ehinger owner and Brewmaster is operating a 30 barrel brew system. Which  is a little over a thousand gallons of beer.

Thank You! is all I can Say. Their Belgian Triple is a great addition to their catalog of beers. It has a dry finish and a light golden color and low to medium hop bitterness. Higher in ABV than your average shelf beer @ 10 % ABV, but loaded with flavor. 2 pints and singing your favorite song on the radio. I can attest to that fact.

 

 

DFW will certainly be looking forward to more from Bitter Sisters.

Adelbert’s Brewery

Adelbert’s Brewery

Where do you begin when talking about Texas? Where do you begin when you talking about beer in Texas?  Well for now we will start at the beginning alphabetically.
Adelbert’s Brewery is located deep in the heart of Texas in Austin. Austin has a special relationship with beer, art, and youth.  Adelbert’s is a craft brewery that specializes in Belgian style ales.

What does that mean when you say Belgian Style Ales? Small lesson, first we have Abbey Ales; brews that are monastical or brewed by Monks. Not as available anymore, but as a style this is where it began. Dubbles,  Triples, Quadruples, and Dark Strong Ales.

Next there are Farmhouse Ales,  Saisons and Biere de garde. Saison means season in French and refers to those beers generally brewed out of necessity using what is on hand seasonally. Usually those are pale and highly carbonated. As for flavor, they can be very dry, citrus-y, floral, earthy, with an assertive peppery yeast character.  Biere De Garde translates to beer for keeping or storing. Biere de garde has a broader spectrum and in appearance be anywhere from light to dark; the difference being the alcohol by volume. The beer is fermented at a cooler temperature to limit the fruitiness and yeast driven flavors.

There are others such as Belgian Blonde, Belgian Strong, Belgian Dark  Strong, Witbier, Lambic, Gueuze, and Flanders Red and Brown.

Adelbert’s was started by Scott Hovey as a tribute to his brother George Hovey. Scott Hovey along with David Yancey, as head brewer, have one goal in mind, that goal is creating beer that people will seek out and share with others. Flavor is a priority with this team using noble hops and floor malted grains.

With his passions leaning toward barrel aged beers Brew Master Scott Hovey has created a line-up of Belgian Barrel aged beers for any discerning drinker.  The line up of beer is winning awards through-out the beer community .

Dancing Monks 7.2 % Dubble Ale

Travelin Man 7.0 % Belgian India Pale Ale

Naked Nun a 5.8% ABV Wit Ale

Philosophizer 7.8% Saison

Scratchin Hippo 6.9% Bie`re De Garde

Triple B 9.3 % Triple

Oaked Triple B same as Triple aged on oak spirals for several weeks

Flyin Monks 10 .9 % Quadruple Ale

Black Rhino

Sun Downer 12% ABV  Bie`r

Let’s not leave out the Vintage, Whimsical , and the special releases available. Adelbert’s is not only pushing the limits of what a small brewery can do, he is creatively testing drinker’s palates. Not limiting to barrel aging, but also using oak spirals normally used in wine making to attain oak flavor without a barrel. The result is special release beers such as the Whimsical release of Hibiscus Saison fermented with champagne yeast.

Home Brew Everything

Texas Beer Culture

Texas Beer Culture

Beer is the third most popular drink consumed in the world. Damn you water and tea. Pub crawls, beer festivals, pub games bar billiards all make up what is now beer culture. Our lives are inundated and bombarded by social media and infomercials daily. No longer is the bar or tavern the local hangout for the old and crotchety where we get our information or news. No longer is the bar a dimly lit smoke filled room. Now, taverns and pubs are both male and female friendly and sometimes family friendly establishments ready to serve up artisan foods and artisan beers. Pop art neon signs brightly proclaim come in sit down, have a few. No longer is beer your dads swill from 70’s. O no it isn’t.

Look at Sam Adams who is looking to release Utopias a very humble 28% ABV beer that will set you back $200.. In return you get to drink a beer built from beers aged over 20 years and blended together. For example, Art of The Brew, an Austin tradition that combines beer and art to create art that reflects their beer. The beer culture is driven by youth, and conservation, living green, living within your means, and being healthy.  Beer drinkers today are sometimes looking for the next big thing; the weekly trip to the beer store to grab the newest beer off the shelf. If you tend to follow specific breweries you look for newest one-off beer or specialty brew that has been aging in a barrel.

 Our beer culture was once actually a living thing but war and prohibition drove smaller breweries out of business. Up until the 1920’s there were over 2000 thousand breweries in the United States. Prohibition closed all but the most successful. By the time Prohibition was repealed in 1933 only a fraction could reopen.  Brewing and brewers have always been held in high regard. brewers were the wizards that made us feel better. They took handed down recipes and tools and created for us the drink of life. Many times gatherings would be held at the local brewery, pub, or similar establishment. A social network for people that thrived throughout the industrial revolution. However, while at its peek, the decline of the local brewery happened. Whether it was loss of popularity or brand popularity local brewing lost its foothold.

Texas as of November 11, 2015 is experiencing a resurgence in local brew. With well over 150 breweries in Texas, patrons across the state are clamoring for the next big beer. Drink local, support your community, cries throughout the state as people strive to make their breweries succeed. Texas is a big state and with over 26 million people making this state their home local goods and services means big money. Today with social media, self-promotion and marketing is a full time job in itself and many local brewers are hitting the ground running; often promoting their beer before it is even for sale.

With the growing population and the need for Texas to be self sustaining growers are adapting. Much of the grain used for malt was grown in Idaho, North Dakota, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming. For the local breweries however, their success depends upon attaining local ingredients. Black Lands Malt, located just outside Austin, Tx, has found its niche and is that provider for locally malted grain. For all the beer brewed in Texas how much of the grain was actually grown here in Texas? Many brewers will brew a beer with a specific malt in mind for flavor profile. Now the need to maximize profits a create a sustainable product from farm to table is necessary. Black Land Malt is at the forefront of an industry needed in Texas. Not only are cereal grains used for beer but they are the base on of many products on the market today. Wheat is one of the top ten cash crops in Texas with a little over three million acres harvested every year. Locally malted grains for brewing should be on the minds of every Texas Brewery.

Black Land Malt is where a sustainable beer culture begins and where I begin. In the next articles I will introduce or attempt to introduce every brewery in Texas, a major undertaking I think. I don’t want to merely collect all the information from the interweb, my goal is to photograph and document each location as historical information.

KCCO Keep Calm Chive On

KCCO

KEEP CALM CHIVE ON! A movement albeit obscure to me , but none the less a movement. It means stay the course no matter what. Chive On refers to the mutual understanding between Chivers on how to go about life, regardless of any who toss a wrench into your plan. Enjoy good times, family, friends no matter what.

Resignation Brewery or also known as Resignation Media is a social media giant with over 30 million monthly users 180 million page views, 11 million app downloads and that is just with The Chive. There is also The Berry, Chivetv, The Chivery,  and Chive Charities.You would be hard pressed to find the brewery. Resignation partners with Craft brew Alliance to brew the beer. However the recipe are solely from  the owners. The success is in the marketing because their beer is available in thousands of locations in the United States and Canada.

Resignation Brewery so far has four beers in the KCCO line A Gold Lager, Black lager, White Wheat, and coming soon an Amber Ale. Today the White Wheat an Ale brewed with spices. It is brewed with lemon and orange zest giving it a nice citrus flavor. It is the typical wheat beer with a yellow haze stemming from the use of wheat.

It has a nice tartness from the wheat with breadiness in the nose. It is a 5.0% ABV with 14 IBU’s ,. Easy drinking to wile away the summer days. I love wheat beers, not so much beers brewed with spices but this is so subtle as not to notice. The citrus flavor could easily have come from a generous hop addition. This beer is a winner in my book.