The beer they recreated was the Richelieu, a dark lager brewed with black, 6-row, and caramel malt with either rice or corn, depending on the recipe you looked at, due to the availability of ingredients when the original brews were happening. For hops after some extensive research, ended up with saaz hops and a traditional bohemian lager yeast. The result was Richelieu Revisited, a 5% dark lager. The beer poured with a light tan head and a body the color of iced coffee. The aroma was a honey sweetness with a hint of toasted graham cracker bitterness. On my first sip, I was amazed at how balanced the beer was. Honey sweetness hit me up front, to be balanced out by a coffee roast and burnt toast bitterness. As it warmed up I tasted some slight phenols from the yeast, giving it a hint of banana. The mouthfeel was extremely light and sessionable. For the amount of sweetness, there was surprisingly no viscous mouthfeel. The aftertasted had a slight sweetness with some lingering bitterness making you want another sip.

Even if there wasn’t a cool story behind this beer, it would be one to go have before they run out. But if you are a Houston beer lover, and I assume you are if you are reading this, you need to go have this taste of Houston beer history while you can.

The post ‘Revisiting’ a historic beer at New Magnolia Brewing first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post ‘Revisiting’ a historic beer at New Magnolia Brewing appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

The beer came out a mahogany brown with a slightly tan head with an aroma that was milk chocolate with a hint of roastiness that balanced out the sweetness. On the first sip, I was blown away by how light the beer was. The weather was just warm enough for me to be sitting outside, but this beer is light enough it could have been 90 degrees and I would still have enjoyed drinking it outside. After I got past the lightness, I was struck by a slight citrus note that quickly gave way to the chocolate and roast I had picked up on the aroma. This finally led to a slight toasty spice, reminiscent of rye toast, that rounded out the whole beer. 

While I was visiting, I had to have what is one of my favorite lagers in the Houston area, Loggerbier. To make it even better, they had it on slow pour. I am typically hesitant to order a slow pour as sometimes bars and breweries don’t actually pour it slowly, just use a side pull tap but pour like a normal beer. Equal Parts does it right. The beer took about 8 minutes to pour as they layered the frothy, meringue like head with patience. When they handed it to me, the foam jiggled like a dollop of hand whipped whip cream. The beer itself was a clear hay color with a sweet white bread aroma with a hint of lemon. On my first sip, I got loads of water cracker maltiness with a hint of that lemon, finished with just a hint of minerality. The mouthfeel was super light. Every time I have a good slow pour, I am amazed at how much it changes the beer. I tend to get a little more of the hop aroma than is in the beer normally, while the bitterness is toned down. The lower carbonation in the beer doesn’t make the beer heavier though, if anything it is almost light on my palate. 

With how mercurial Houston winters are, it is tough to have a beer I would recommend as a perfect beer for the season. Neo-noir is just that beer, light enough for a warm day in shorts, roasty enough for a cold night around the firepit. My only complaint is that it is taproom only, so you are going to have to head over to their brewery and grab it while you can!

The post A perfect beer for a Houston Winter first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post A perfect beer for a Houston Winter appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

The beer itself poured a beautiful golden tan that was completely opaque. It had a fluffy white head that quickly dissipated. As I breathed in the aroma, notes of pineapple and peach were front and center with a hint of passion fruit to cut through the sweet fruit. On my first sip I was assaulted with a tropical fruit salad. It was tough to pick out any particular fruit until the beer warmed up a little more, when the pineapple really came through along with a slight stone fruit note. There was a hint of a bitter burn on the back end that I think will be gone in a couple days.

While the hop profile was delicious, the real star of this show with this beer was the mouthfeel. It was soft and pillowy without being heavy, creating the perfect carrier for the flavors from the complex hop build. Overall, the beer was delicious, and I am looking forward to working through the four-pack I bought on my way out. 

As a word of warning, Wakefield is under construction right now, so be prepared to navigate the narrower street or find parking a few blocks away and walk. That being said, this beer is worth any headache cause by the construction, so go give it a taste before #14 comes out!

Cheers, and Happy Drinking!

The post A Great IPA from Great Heights first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post A Great IPA from Great Heights appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

I have been meaning to write about Urban South HTX for a while now, and finally had the chance to go and do just that. Anyone who knows the pedigree of their brew staff knows to expect hazy IPAs, fruity sours, and big stouts. Judging by the glassware I saw while I was there, the fruited sours were the most popular. The only full size pour I saw of anything else was the pilsner I started with. To that point though, at least half of their menu was different fruited sours, each with different themes, from tiki drink inspired, to soda inspired, to the one I tried, a PB and J sandwich inspired one. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I started with one of their two slow pours, their Oak Aged Timepiece, a tasty helles whose un-oaked version I have had many times. One of my favorite things happening in the Houston beer scene right now is the prevalence of slow pour lagers, which deserves its own post, but this one was great. It had a soft mouthfeel with a slightly sweet malty body. There was a slight lingering bitterness from the hops at first that transformed into candy strawberry as the beer warmed up. I would have been happy just having a couple of these, but I needed to try some other beers as well.

Next up I was going to move to some heavy hitters so I went with a flight. I started with the aforementioned fruited sour. This was in their Spilled Series, and was the grape, strawberry, masthmellow, and peanut butter version. It drank with the mouthfeel of a smoothie, coating my mouth with fruity sweetness. This was very jammy fruit forward with the peanut butter and marshmallow complex sugars on the aftertaste. My biggest complaint with these styles of beer usually is that it loses anything that resembles beer. This one still had that slight sour beer flavor on the end that worked to cut through all the sweetness from the rest of the ingredients, and was much more enjoyable than I was expecting.

I then moved to IPAs, Getting a single, a double, and a triple. The single IPA I got was I Want to Ride My Bicycle. I mainly got it because of the name, but also because it was described as an American IPA vs NEIPA. It came hazier than I was expecting, it is the far right one in the picture above. The aroma was all grapefruit which carried over to the flavor, along with hints of guava. There was a slight bitterness that accompanied a very nice mouthfeel, somewhere in between a west coast IPA and a NEIPA. This was followed by the DIPA, Combo Plate #11. I was slightly disappointed with this one. While I could tell it was slightly older, it was still enjoyable. After that grapefruit bomb I just had though, it felt a little lacking. If I just had a glass of it by itself, it would have been great. I finished my flight with Chromatic, a 10.4% Triple IPA. This beer was the dankest beer I have ever had. The smell was all dank passionfruit that carried over to the super creamy mouthfeel. If you had told me it was 7% abv, I would have believed you and could really hurt myself on this smooth drinking, super tasty beer. As it warmed up, the dank stuck around, but the passionfruit started giving way to more orange and mango. 

Next time you find yourself by Total Wine on I-10, shoot behind them and go hit up Urban South HTX. The sheer variety of what they have makes it an adventure every time, and it is always fun trying their newest flavor combinations.

Cheers, and Happy Drinking.

The post Variety is the Spice of Life at Urban South HTX first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Variety is the Spice of Life at Urban South HTX appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

It pours fairly clear with a golden hay hue. The fluffy white head lingers a little bit, but not as long as I was hoping, leading me to think it will have a slightly less hoppy backbone than most craft pilsners.The aroma is bready with a hint of herbal hoppyness which leads into the malty flavor with that same herbal note on the back end.The beer leaves a little sweetness in the aftertaste, but isn’t cloying. A light and refreshing mouthfeel rounds out this beer, making that sweet aftertaste enjoyable instead of off-putting. 

I will put a little disclaimer that this is the tail end of this seasonal, with their oktoberfest hitting the market soon, so the lack of bitterness and hops was probably present when the beer was fresh. That being said, I did not find it lacking, and in fact the beer was a perfect pilsner for our hot nights, so don’t be afraid to grab it up!

Cheers and Happy Drinking!

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The post A Crispy Lil’ Snack from 11 Below Brewing appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

The six pilsners in question are Dollar Pils Y’all, Czech my Phone, Czech it Twice, Patio Daddy-O, Foux DU Fafa, and Bravissimo. Coming into the flight, I have had half of these, but for science I knew I had to have them again.

I started with Dollar Pils Y’all, a 5.4% ABV german pilsner that I have had many times. This is one of my favorite beers Holler does, and one of my favorite lagers in town. The nose had slight bready notes that led to a herbal brightness on the palate. It rounded out with a nice light bitterness making a crisp and easy drinking pilsner. 

Next I had the Bravissimo, a 5.3% ABV pilsner made with Italian pilsner malt and Hallertau Saphir hops. This was a sweeter malt note on the nose with hints of lemony herbs. The palate was very balanced leading to a slight bitterness on the aftertaste.

I decided to stick with European for the next lager and had the French style pilsner, Foux du Fafa. This 5.7% tall glass of lager features Barbe Rouge hops and French pilsner malt. Like the previous two, this one also had a slight grainy sweetness on the nose, though here, that sweetness carried through to the taste. There was enough bitterness from the hops to keep the aftertaste dry, but not enough to leave any bitterness. 

After having a few European styles, I had the pilsner I was most excited to try, the Patio Daddy-O. This 5.4% bad boy is dry hopped and brewed with Nelson Sauvin hops, that lend the light beer a great passion fruit nose. That flavor was also prominent in the taste, but was balanced by the malt. For the amount of times I’ve had an IPA that was smothered in those hops, it was refreshing to encounter them used tastefully and with a balanced approach. This is your modern Juice Bomb IPA drinking beer drinker’s Pilsner.

I finished with the Czech my Phone and Czech it Twice. Czeck my Phone is a 5.6% Czech style lager and Czech it Twice is that with even more hops. I have had Czech my Phone before and it was what I was expecting, a nice amount of breadiness balanced by a little bitterness and herbal hops. A great example of the style and I would have told you it wasn’t missing anything. Then I had Czech it Twice. With the same grain nose as the OG, but accompanied by much stronger herbal and grassy notes and a more pronounced bitterness, it scratched all the itches that I didn’t know I was missing in Czech my Phone.

You might think that having six Pilsners in a flight would be boring, and if they were not as well done, I would agree with you. The team at Holler have proved that wrong though, where you can taste the subtle differences between each of the 6 lagers side by side. Oh and to make it even more fun, Dollar Pils and Bravissimo are also available as slow pour pints to add even more variety. So please go in and give Holler all your money so they keep making these amazing lagers for us all to enjoy! 

Cheers, and Happy Drinking.

The post Holler at this Flight of Pilsners first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Holler at this Flight of Pilsners appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

I was there with my brother, so we got to try quite a few of their different offerings. The stand outs for us were their two pilsners on tap and the English Summer Ale. I started with the Ennio Pils, an Italian-style pilsner. It was extremely light and refreshing, great for an afternoon sip. Next was the Hella Pils, what they dub as a west coast pilsner. This was one of the best american Pilsners I have ever had. Great hop character, with just enough malt to give it a little mouthfeel without it losing its light crispness you want in a pilsner. 

The final beer of the visit was the English Summer Ale, and we definitely saved the best for last (I was so excited after smelling it that I forgot to take a picture with the full glass). They offer it in two different versions, one on nitro and one on cask. For science, we got one of each. This pale English bitter was the perfect summer beer. At 5.5% ABV, it wasn’t too big to rule out multiple pints, but had enough flavor to stand up to food. It started with a cracker maltiness that was accompanied by a nice light bitterness from the english hops. Both the nitro and the cask were great, with the cask having just a hint more carbonation versus the creamier nitro. Other beers i can’t wait to try out next time I go are their collaboration with True Anomaly, a tart saison called First Bloom and their Brett Saison, Provisional. Another thing to watch out for is their Brew Club Beers, where members of the green level of their brew club get to brew a batch on their pilot system and have it on the tap wall. 

When they opened in November of 2019, I was slightly worried about their longevity. While everything I had then was good, there was nothing special about their beers to make them stand out from the rest of the Houston beer crowd. Fortunately for everyone, they have started finding their niche. With the Heights Light starting to show up on tap lists at restaurants, cans of their Dry Hopped Kolsch, Fruited Splitz, and Redwood IPA on the shelves at grocery stores around town, and their approachable tap room, they have done a great job carving out a spot for themselves, and I know they will continue to knock out great beers. If you find yourself over in their neighborhood, do yourself a favor and check them out. You can thank me later.

Cheers, and happy drinking!

The post A Hangout in the Heights first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post A Hangout in the Heights appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Wholistic Hazy IPA is a Hazy IPA (obviously)  that runs 6.66% abv and features Citra and Enigma hops. It was much hazier and lighter in color than the DL I reviewed a couple months ago, with a bright white head that had great retention. As soon as I opened the can I was hit in the face with bright pineapple that only intensified as I poured it. There was also some mango and a slight grapefruit tartness to support that pineapple. 

On my first sip, I got a lot of mango with hints of strawberry all riding on a slight cracker note from the malt that was very much the supporting character to the hops. As it warmed up, the strawberry became more prominent along with a slight creamy coconut that was reminiscent of a pina colada. It did have a slight hop burn that I think will be gone by the next can I open, as it was about a day old when I reviewed it. There was also a slight bitterness that paired well with the fruity juice flavors, making me want to keep drinking. The mouthfeel was right on point, a creamy velvet that flowed over my tongue without coating. 

A new point of excitement is, unlike the DL double, these cans are dated which is a huge must for this style of beer. Overall, this is a great first new recipe from Whole Foods Brewing, making me looking forward to more from them. These are currently available at the Post Oak location and will be seen around town within the next couple weeks. 

The post A Whole (Foods) New Brew first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post A Whole (Foods) New Brew appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

With their official grand opening February 28th last year, Local Group Brewing has had a difficult first year in business. I fortunately got to check them out then and was looking forward to trying more of their beers and food. Then the pandemic and ensuing shut down went into effect, and ended all plans. I have been waiting with anticipation to try them again, and finally got to try them out and let you know how great they are. 

I started with a flight of four of their beers, Gravity Dancer, Magic Flip, Hop School 1, and Loud FX. These are styles that I feel a brewery should have on tap and knock out of the park, and Local Group didn’t disappoint.

Gravity Dancer is a 4.9% ABV oatmeal stout that was roasty with a great mouthfeel, and just enough bitterness to go with the food.

The Magic Flip is a 5.2% ABV dry hopped lager that was a perfect warm afternoon beer. Light and refreshing with a hint of hop character to make it interesting.

Loud FX is a pleasantly bitter amber that was made delightful by being served on nitro, giving it a little more mouthfeel than you typically get with an amber.

The last beer was Hop School 1, a hazy pale ale. Usually I am not a fan of hazy pale ales, as I feel they are just watered down hazy ipas without the mouthfeel you want in that style. This beer showed me how they should be done. It had a creamy mouthfeel with great tropical fruit and citrus.

I finished with their 6.3% hazy/juicy IPA Cloudy Eyes. While it wasn’t as hazy as you would expect with the style, it tasted great, like what I think of as a central coast beer – a great juicy hop character with just a hint of bitterness to clean that palate and make it great with food.

My brother had their collaboration with Holler Beer, Diamond Hands. It is an American brown ale and made me remember how much I love that style, a hint of bitterness with the roasty and chocolatey malt was amazing. If I wasn’t there for lunch, I would probably have had another flight as there are that many more beers I can’t wait to try, including a west coast IPA and a fruited sour.

As for food, we each got the March burger of the month, the Hot Mess Express. I implore you sometime this month to have this burger. It is their in-house made bun with a 6oz 44 farms patty topped with the chili they make in house, crushed fritos, buttermilk ranch, fresno peppers, and spicy mayo. With the name, I ordered this burger expecting a mess and it to fall apart. To my happiness it held together. There was the perfect amount of chili that played alongside the peppers perfectly with the patty and sauces, my stomach is rumbling just thinking about it. The other stand out on the menu are their poutines. They have three versions, one with duck confit gravy and cheese curds, one with the chili and queso and curds, and one vegetarian one with goat cheese, black truffle butter sauce, and a fried egg. My brother and I split the duck confit version and it was amazing, easily enough food for a meal in itself. 

The atmosphere was amazing as well, with great homages to space exploration, which is where they get their name, coupled with a great view of downtown. My only real complaint of the whole thing was how few people were there. The great food and wide variety of styles makes this a great option for lunch or dinner.

If you find yourself inside the loop looking for a beer and food, look no further. With a wide range of beer options and a great food menu, Local Group has touched down in the Houston beer scene as a brewpub worth visiting.

Cheers, and happy drinking!

The post Great Beers and Food Make Local Group Out of This World first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Great Beers and Food Make Local Group Out of This World appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

The beer is a Double IPA, clocking in at a clean 8.2% abv. Since I was working behind the bar when the beer first came out, this is not a virgin tasting. Going from my memory of 2 brewers and many years ago, I’m expecting a dreamsicle orange color with white head. The aroma was mango and peach, followed by a bit of piney resin and citrus pith flavor. It finished with a soft mouthfeel and little to no bitterness.

When poured from the can, the appearance was a darker, almost burnt orange with a white pillowy head and a hazy body. The aroma was lots of candied orange and peach, with just a hint of mango. On my first sip I got much more of the mango then came across on the nose, with a hint of grapefruit peel. On the retrohale, I had lemon and candied orange, followed by pine resin and a nice bitterness lingering on the palate. As the beer warmed up a little cantaloupe started coming out. The mouthfeel was not quite as soft as my rose colored glasses remembered, but was still very appropriate for a hazy DIPA.

Overall, this beer was a great walk down memory lane, and I can’t wait for the next cans.

Cheers, and Happy Drinking!

The post Whole Foods Market DL Double IPA Fresh From the Can! first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Whole Foods Market DL Double IPA Fresh From the Can! appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.