Beer Across Texas

Even though Texas has a history of brewing as long as the state’s existence, it is a relative newcomer to the national craft beer movement currently in progress. Compared to other states like Colorado and Oregon, the number of Texas brewers is minor but growing. Nevertheless, some sort of guidebook for Texas breweries has been long overdue.

This story begins about two years ago with a casual correspondence between myself and my long-time friend, Travis Poling. Until recently a business reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, Travis’ typical beer-related conversation on one occurrence yielded this item: He was working on a guidebook for Texas breweries, and already had a publisher interested.

I responded by saying that I, too, was working on a book for Texas breweries, and thus a collaboration was born. The state was divided up and some tasty research was conducted, with the result finally to be released this week as Beer Across Texas: A Guide to the Brews and Brewmasters of the Lone Star State.

The “Golden Age” of modern Texas brewing occurred soon after brewpubs were legalized in 1993. With that new idea in the marketplace and the wealth generated by the emerging dot-com industries, we saw dozens of microbreweries and brewpubs pop up like weeds from entrepreneurs and enthusiasts flush with cash.

But craft brewing is not an easy business and (to be honest) not all those who jumped into the fad should have been there. Craft beer was a hard sell early on, especially in a state with two national breweries and a population that once considered Lone Star and Shiner “specialty” beers. Combined with the financial downturn of the late 1990s and early 2000s, a scant handful of those early brewers have survived until today.

Now that the adolescent batch of brewers has come and gone, we are currently experiencing a Renaissance in the Texas craft beer scene. Although not as numerous as the previous wave of brewers, today we have more active—and financially stable—brewers than at any time since 2001, some 9 microbreweries and about 23 independent brewpubs spread across the state. Even more are planned for 2010.

Mine and Travis’ hope is that Beer Across Texas can become the “official” guide for beer tourism in the State of Texas. Included in it are all details, descriptions, original photographs and contact information for all currently operational craft brewers and brewpubs in our state, as well as a few notable beer-centric locations. We also have a short history of Texas brewing and a guide to a few beer styles and commercial favorites brewed here.

Beer Across Texas is published by Maverick Publishing of San Antonio, who also publish a similar book for wines, The Wine Roads of Texas by Wes Marshall. Work is ongoing to keep this beer guide updated and current, so that subsequent editions can best reflect the growing craft brewing industry of Texas and this book can continue to be an effective travel guide and reference.

The book should be available this week at Amazon or at any commercial book store such as Borders or Barnes & Noble, with a list price of $12.95. It is suitable for both the casual craft beer drinker, reader and traveler as well as those who work in the craft brewing industry. You should buy two, because you might spill beer on one.

Beer Myths, Part 1

"Ales and lagers are the same thing."

Other than both are beer, nothing is further from the truth. What distinguishes an ale from a lager is the yeast strain used and the particular method used to ferment the beer, which again depends upon the particular yeast. This yeast is the only ingredient differentiating the two, but it is important enough to make all the difference.

Ale is brewed with a yeast family known as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a "top-fermenting" or "warm-fermenting" species, whereas lagers use species of the Saccharomyces carlsbergensis family, which prefer cooler temperatures and tend to cluster at the bottom of the tank. Although hundreds of variations exist on each, ales tend to be fuller in body and heartier, whereas lagers have a cleaner, lighter body and finish.

"Beer from a can tastes like a can."

Beer tastes like beer; cans taste like cans. One of the most prevalent problems with canned beer is drinking it directly from the opened can. With your lips and tongue in direct contact with the lid of the container, of course you are going to taste aluminum and steel. Pour it into a glass.

In the industrial past, canned beer did have a problem with the can material contributing to the flavor of the beverage it contained. However, modern beer cans are coated with a thin layer of food-grade plastic so that beer never comes into contact with metal at any point. Any contributing flavors detected are flaws in the beer itself, or else purely psychological.

"Bock is made from the leftover dregs of other beer."

The origins of this myth are puzzling but they may be attributed to the seasons of the year in which the style of bock beer itself was consumed. Bock was typically brewed in the spring for fall consumption, with a long and quiet lagering time unlike the relatively quick-fermenting ales produced year-round.

The darker color and stronger flavors of bock may have led some to believe it was manufactured from the remnants of other ales brewed in the meantime. But bock is brewed no differently than any other beer, with an initial ingredient list of malts and hops and a specialized lager strain of yeast.

"Dark beer is stronger and heavier than lighter beer."

This myth is most likely traceable to the many decades-long Guinness marketing campaigns that claim "Guinness gives you strength" or it is "A meal in a glass." While it may be true that Guinness is more full-bodied than most commercially popular light lagers today, it is by far neither stronger nor heavier.

The color of a beer is wholly a function of the initial roast of the grains used in the mash. As in coffee, darker roasts produce a darker color in the final product, and the use of adjuncts such as rice can significant lighten the final color. But neither of these has any connection to body or final alcoholic strength.

"Craft brewing is just a fad."

Modern American craft brewing has been around since the 1970s, and is presently enjoying a healthy growth curve. More to the point, what we today consider "craft brewing" or boutique products are simply what has been standard practice for centuries of local and artesianal brewing operations.

The Brewers Association tracks such growth annually, and the craft beer industry is relishing a healthier growth than their large corporate counterparts. Our sincere hope is that someday the specialty market of "craft beer" will indeed disappear, and that such quality brewing will simply be referred to as the norm.

American Craft Beer Week

The craft brewing industry is currently enjoying its most robust and healthy period since all but disappearing during Prohibition. So healthy are the craft brewers of the US that a couple of years ago, Congress established American Craft Beer Week, May 12th through the 18th. The big event is being called SAVOR: An American Craft Beer and Food Experience, a multi-brewery exposition of food and beer to be held in Washington, DC. Let us examine the current state of the US craft beer industry using the language of the congressional record itself, House Resolution 753 of the 109th Congress.

Whereas American craft brewers are a vibrant affirmation and expression of American entrepreneurial traditions. Craft breweries are models of the values of American small business. Very few are publicly owned, with most owned by individuals who are usually also elbow-deep in the work and sweat themselves.

Whereas the United States has craft brewers in every State and more than 1300 craft breweries nationwide. At the turn of the 20th century, it is estimated that the US had somewhere around 2000 independent breweries nationwide. Prohibition essentially destroyed the industry, with the only brewers surviving being those with the deepest pockets. But the industry has been rebounding ever since, especially in the past few decades.

Whereas American craft brewers support American agriculture by purchasing barley, malt, and hops grown, processed and distributed in the United States. Craft breweries are often a farmer’s best friend. Not only are they constant purchasers of domestic grains and hops, the spent grain — the used byproduct of the brewing process — is often sold or donated for livestock feed.

Whereas American craft brewers promote the Nation’s spirit of independence through a renaissance in hand-crafted beers like those first brought to colonial shores. Craft brewers are often amateur historians, at least with regard to the brewing industry, and microbreweries are miniature museums of local and regional history dotted around the country.

Whereas American craft brewers strive to educate legal drinking-age Americans. Just as they preserve their industry’s heritage with their work, craft brewers are eager ambassadors and teachers of beer’s flavors, qualities, ingredients and alcohol issues.

Whereas American craft brewers champion the message of responsible enjoyment to their customers. Ironically, craft brewers should never face the opposition they do from anti-alcohol groups, as they are among the firmest supporters of responsible consumption, and are quick to police themselves and the behavior of their fans.

Whereas American craft brewers produce more than 100 distinct styles of flavorful beers, the quality and diversity of which have made the United States the envy of every beer-drinking nation in the world. The varied and adventurous tastes of the American consumer has today created the most diverse beer market in the history of the brewing industry. ‘Nuff said.

Whereas American craft brewers are vested in the future, health, and welfare of their communities as employers providing a diverse array of quality local jobs. One aspect of local breweries that is often overlooked is that they are not only good employers and municipal friends, they also support a myriad of associated business and local merchants that depend on their product for their own business.

So, how will you celebrate American Craft Beer Week? Hopefully, the same way you celebrate every week, with a fine American-made craft beer in hand.

Defining Craft Beer

The phrase craft beer is thrown about quite a lot in beer-centric publications, as if the audience naturally knows and understands precisely what this means. To fans of craft beer, the phrase is inherently understood and adopted as lingo within the subculture. Actually, the phrase is not as easy to define as it would seem, especially to those consumers “outside” the craft beer movement.

Let us start with some public and objective definitions, courtesy of the Brewers Association. Craft breweries are often also called microbreweries, or defined as a brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels of product annually. (A barrel of beer is about 31 gallons.) The next step up from there is the regional brewery, defined as a brewery that produces between 15,000 and 2 million barrels of beer annually. Altogether, these micro- and regional breweries currently account for somewhere around 7% of total beer sales in the United States.

Any brewery that produces in excess of 2 million barrels of beer annually leaves only the major national brewers, namely, Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors in the US. Collectively, these brewers are called macros (in opposition to “micros”) by the craft beer community, and are generally regarded as cold corporations more concerned with balancing budget sheets on the backs of an inferior product than actually brewing something tasty for the consumer.

At this point, the lines begin to blur and definitions start to bend and morph as we enter a much more subjective arena. To craft beer fans, macros are the enemy (by definition), somehow having gained market dominance by foisting insipid and flavorless lager variations upon the consumer. Macro beers are not just to be avoided but completely resisted in favor of the “higher quality” of the independent small craft brewers across the country.

I place the term “higher quality” in quotation marks because at this point, definitions of what is and is not a craft beer enter a grey area. Craft beer fans regard their favorite beverages superior in all ways, thus painting the macro products as somehow inferior and flawed or, dare we say, impure. Surely, with their robust flavors and heady aromas, craft beers must embody all that is good and pure with American industry and idealism.

It becomes very difficult to delineate craft beer in terms of quality. Macro brewers have built very technologically advanced brewing and delivery systems and are near-obsessive about monitoring quality and consistency of product. They manage not only ingredient sources but also international distribution chains to ensure the highest quality at all levels of production. Telling an employee of a macro brewing corporation that they have no regard for the quality of the product they produce can be personally hurtful to many.

One can argue against macro quality by their use of adjuncts, or additive products besides malted grains (such as rice or corn) used to enhance the beer’s body or clarity. Adjuncts are generally regarded by the consuming public as somehow “cheating” in the brewing process. But the fact is that craft brewers often use adjuncts — where called for in a recipe — in some of their beers as well. Either way, the use of adjuncts should not be regarded as somehow related to the lessening of a beer’s overall quality. It is simply another brewing tool, nothing more.

Indeed, some macro brewers have taken note of the growing popularity of the craft beer movement and have spawned their own subdivisions devoted to producing more craft-like beers specifically tailored for that market. Some have gone as far as setting up mock-craft enterprises, branded and marketed as a small brewery but wholly owned and manufactured at the macro establishments. More than anything else, these macro/crafts have blurred the line in the argument of what defines a craft beer.

Perhaps one of the best ways to obtain a meaningful definition of craft beer is to correlate it with the Slow Food movement. Craft beers are artisanal products, much like meat that is produced by a small farm and butchered locally, or confections from a local independent bakery, or vegetables grown and sold at a local farmer’s market instead of trucked nationally from a single valley in California. Craft beers should be produced locally, marketed locally with local personalities, and reflect the local preferences of that consumer region.

It should be noted here that this blog is wholly in support of the independent craft brewers in the United States and abroad. That said, no hostility is directed nor intended here toward the macro brewers, and macro brewers and their products should not be weighed with a moral component. They are simply recognized as another valid consumer choice… just not this consumer’s choice.