texas craft brewers festival 2012 recap

Photo courtesy of Control Images

With 28 breweries in attendance this year, the Texas Craft Brewers Festival proved once again that supporting your local breweries is quite delicious. I was unable to attend this year unfortunately due to a much needed vacation. However, I had some great representatives in attendance and I was told it was an absolute blast. Check out their pictures and recaps below.

Jason Wallace
@jwall4
@NoBeerTwice2012This was my first time at the TCBF, as I was out of town for last year's event. I had heard great things. The day brought wonderful cooler temperatures which were perfect for a great bike ride to the festival. The VIP line was quite long when I arrived just before noon, but the organizers had everything under control and everyone was through the gate in no time.  The festival grounds are an ideal park setting with a big covered area holding plenty of tables for taking a rest.

My little project for 2012 is to not drink the same beer twice (@nobeertwice2012). As a result, I had already had quite a few of the beers pouring at the festival or I didn't want to limit myself to just 4 ounces of some of the great new beers on offer.  My plan going into the festival was to stick to the newer TX breweries that do not distribute to Austin. This plan led to some amazing discoveries and epic failures.

Revolver Brewing from Granbury had been open just a few weeks before showing up at the festival. The head brewer Grant Wood returned to TX after spending 16 years as senior brewing manager at Samuel Adams.  That experience really showed as all 4 beers on offer were really well done. Blood & Honey is a wheat beer with blood oranges. The blood oranges really set the beer apart from other wheat beers out there. Mother's Little Fracker Stout is a great robust stout just under the imperial line (around 8%).  Seek out beers from Revolver Brewing. They just had their grand opening celebration on October 20th.

I would hold off on seeking out Wicked Beaver Brewing beers out of Lubbock. I tried the Timber Ale which was described at their own table as an IPA. I was later convinced it was actually an amber. Either way, it was a mess. I heard similar thoughts on their other two beers. I don't think they have things quite under control at this brewery yet. Give them some time.

Two other newer breweries I tried were New Republic out of College Station and Lakewood out of the Dallas area. New Republic only brought two beers but the Dunkel was solid.  I tried Lakewood's Temptress (milk stout) and Hop Trapp (Belgian IPA) - both were good beers and I especially enjoyed the milk stout. I would be happy to see beers from both of these breweries on tap in the Austin area.

Photo courtesy of Jason Wallace

Shawn Marchese
lastofthezymelords.com

The event website boasted “at least four sours”. That’s a much smaller number than I would have predicted a year ago, when sours were seemingly the next big wave in craft brewing. But now it seems Texas brewers are looking elsewhere for innovation. Real Ale Scots Gone Wild and Austin Beerworks Einhorn Berliner Weisse were on tap along with some sours from Jester King, but I didn’t see anything on the menu that I hadn’t tried before. I made a beeline to the Jester King booth for what I thought was a new sour – the Viking-inspired Gotlandsdricka – and got a surprise. Jeff Stuffings informed me his Gotlandsdricka was intended to be a modern interpretation, not a historically accurate recreation of the ancient ale, and was clean-fermented with just Saccharomyces cerevisiae. I’m a sucker for anything Nordic, and I liked it a lot, but I’m still curious to taste the sour version they may release in a few months.

For a region so rich in German heritage, Texas brewers sure don’t know the meaning of Reinheitsgebot. Spices and fruits abounded. Rogness OST Porter with coffee and coconut and Yogi Amber with chai spice, Thirsty Planet ChiGoatle Amber with peppers, Revolver Blood & Honey Wheat with blood orange zest and spices, and Jester King Gotlandsdricka with sweet gale and juniper all made impressions on me. Even Reinheitsgebot champions Circle Brewing have jumped into the flavor fray with Smokin’ Beech, a refreshing Rauchbier with a bacony character from malt beechwood-smoked according to a traditional Bamberg process that Jud Mulherin described to me in reverent detail.

Tea is the new coffee. Coffee porters and stouts remain popular, but Texas brewers are starting to notice coffee’s hot stepsister from across the ocean, with very different takes on the concept. Live Oak poured an Oaktoberfest infused with lapsang souchong China black tea, lending a vegetal smokiness tailored for slow sipping. Jester King poured their kombucha farmhouse ale Buddha’s Brew. Rogness Yogi Amber doesn't actually have tea in it, but recreates the experience of chai tea in an amber beer with chai spices and unfermentable sugars. Diane Rogness called Yogi “her baby”, and she should be proud of it. I enjoyed drinking it and have thought about it a lot since Saturday.

Dallas-Fort Worth is an exciting, growing market. Lakewood Brewing and Revolver Brewing are two names from the Metroplex that seem to have made their Austin debut at the event, alongside DFW stalwarts Deep Ellum and Southern Star. I didn't get a chance to try Lakewood but Revolver’s Blood & Honey Wheat is a surprisingly complex lawnmower beer with blood orange zest and savory spices. Head brewer Grant Wood invited me to guess which spices he used. I guessed incorrectly, and when I pressed him for the correct answer, he said smiling, “ We've gotta have some secrets.”

TASTING NOTES:

Jester King Gotlandsdricka - Cleanly fermented, dry and light with a hint of mustiness from oak aging (no wild yeast/bacteria). A powerful start with a dry finish. Very tasty.
Hops & Grain Cabernet Sauvignon-barrel-aged Pale Dog - Very little hop presence, not surprising considering it's aged for 6 months in barrels. A tart vinous booziness from the wine barrel oak.
Live Oak Oaktoberfest with Lapsang Souchong tea - Smoky, tasty but needs to be sipped. Much drier than the Oktoberfest/Marzen base would suggest. Should be good in a tulip glass, but a pint would be a lot to drink..
Revolver Blood & Honey Wheat - A surprisingly complex wheat ale but a good lawnmower refresher. Honey contributes flavor, doesn't just lighten it. Berries and pepper on the back end with some spice character that's hard to identify. Enjoyable, and a great gateway beer for the craft brew neophyte.
Guadalupe Texas Honey Ale - A rich, dark honey ale with an Oktoberfest/Marzen quality.
Rogness Yogi Amber - No tea in this, but the spice and sugar profile was intended to recreate the experience of drinking chai tea. Peppery spice notes, while maltodextrin adds sweetness and creaminess that does evoke the character of chai tea as intended. Really tasty.
Rogness OST Porter with Coffee & Coconut - Good porter base with a strong coffee presence. Coconut is faintly detectable but mostly drowned out by the coffee. Cracked coffee beans and coconut toasted in-house were added to the beer via Randall, very cool experiment ... just wish there was more coconut.
(512) FOUR - Decent hop punch in a strong ESB-type base. Good hop aroma and flavor.
Circle Brewing Smokin' Beech - Oktoberfest/Marzen-style beer with a dry finish, lots of enjoyable bacony flavor from the Bamberg beechwood-smoked malt. Good beer for a warm Texas autumn, definitely my favorite beer from Circle to date.
Adelbert's Naked Nun with Peaches - Wit racked onto peaches, very dry and tart with a hint of fruity character.
Thirsty Planet ChiGoatle Amber with Peppers - Nice pepper aroma and flavor, more evocative of ancho than the rich roasty boldness of chipotle. Good, easy drinking amber. Another great gateway beer for craft brew newbies.

Photo courtesy of Control Images

Photo courtesy of Control Images

Photo courtesy of Control Images

Photo courtesy of Jeff Dykhuis

Photo courtesy of Jeff Dykhuis

Photo courtesy of Jeff Dykhuis