2017 was a transformative year for craft beer in Houston.

• We saw the rise of the NEIPA (thanks in large part to Larry’s “Who will be Houston’s Tree House or Trillium?” essay) with 8th Wonder, 11 Below, B-52, Baa Baa, Copperhead, No Label, Spindletap, Texian, Whole Foods Market, and others trying their hand at the style.
• Saint Arnold celebrated their 23rd anniversary and 5 local breweries made their own versions of classic Saint Arnold beers.
• We saw Texian and 160ft Beerworks close up shop. Texian plans to return.
• Baileson, Bearded Fox, Great Heights, Texas Leaguer, Vallensons’, and Wicked Boxer opened their doors to the public.
• Both Buffalo Bayou and Saint Arnold are (still) offering Free Beer For Life.
• Chris complained about the lack of on-demand craft beer delivery, and HopDrop delivered in response.
• And in the wake of Hurricane Harvey our city came together, reached out to one another, and got to work helping each other recover. Just about every brewery stepped up in a variety of ways. 8th Wonder used their high clearance vehicles for water rescues. Eureka Heights, Saloon Door, and countless others became donation centers. Saint Arnold spearheaded #ReliefBeers, and breweries from around the country donated $1 per beer sold to the Houston Food Bank, raising $35,000. Spindletap became a local distribution center, even attracting the superstar of Harvey relief – JJ Watt – into the tap room to sort and load supplies on to trucks. Hurricane Harvey will be a rallying point for our community for years to come.

Our Favorite Beers

We like to wrap the year up by sharing our the best local and non-local beer we had in the last year. It’s not an original idea, but it’s fun. We’d love to hear your picks as well!

Chris White

Eureka Heights ‘Mini Boss’ – To think, there was a time I didn’t think much of Eureka Heights’ beers. Dumb names, I said. Boring styles, I said. I was wrong, and Mini Boss represents everything I was wrong about. This beer explodes with citrus, finishes with a balanced bitterness and is enjoyable all the way through. Eureka took the megatrend of 2017 – hopping late with Mosaic and other big flavorful hops (in this case Citra) and hit it out of the park. It’s become a beer I seek whenever a new batch is released.

Listermann Brewing Company ‘Tricky’ (Cincinnati, OH) – I love all of Listermann’s series of NE-style IPAs with old school rap names, but I think Tricky has become the single example by which I have come to judge all comers in this style. Blending the aromatic elements of Mosaic with the pineapple/tropical flavors of Galaxy, it brings hop flavor and aroma from first pop of the 16 oz can and has very little perceptible bitterness – just a soft, clean, juicy finish. Listermann has a special place in my heart because 2017 was also the year I established a beer trading partner in the Cincinnati area (THANKS SAM), and so have been fortunate enough to get my hands on these delicious goodies.

Honorable mention: Galveston Island Brewing DIPA #7, MIA Brewing MEGA MIX Pale Ale, Urban Artifact Gaslight, Societe The Swindler, Odell Rupture Pale Ale, Grand Teton Brewing Teton Range IPA

Tim Spies

Saint Arnold Brewing ‘Icon Red Märzen’ – I am always excited to try a modern take on a classic style. And while there are many misses in the world of beer, Saint Arnold Brewing has proven more than capable in the handling of such styles. So as I expressed in my review of Icon Red Märzen, I was more than pleased with the results. A great representation of the style, and one that I hope will return with their regular fall lineup every year.

The Answer Brewpub ‘I Like Turtles’ (Richmond, VA) – Maybe it’s just me, but rarely do collaborations work out as well as I hope or expect. Two great breweries combining must always produce great outcomes, right? But sadly, seldom do such high expectations equal results. I Like Turtles is an extraordinary gem that greatly exceeds such desires. This collaboration between The Answer Brewpub and Bottle Logic Brewing is a delightful stout with caramel and southern pecan coffee and toasted coconut. This beer sets a deliciously high standard I hope more collaborations can meet.

Alice Hicks

Eureka Heights ‘Mini Boss’ – In short: liquid gold. I should not be surprised how good Mini Boss is given the strength of Eureka Heights’s output so far, but I was struck by its deliciousness at first sip. A grapefruit nose gave way to crisp, clean citrus and tropical flavors dancing on my tongue. At 6.8% ABV I am glad I don’t have to worry much about crushing too many of this double dry-hopped wonder, but it’s still dangerously drinkable.

Great Notion ‘Double Stack’ (Portland, OR) – I confess I had never heard of Great Notion Brewing before a friend mentioned it, which is actually a bit of a surprise since I visit Portland, Oregon and the surrounding area every other year. But with 70 breweries in Portland proper alone, it’s not hard to miss one. Now I know where I am going next time as soon as my plane hits the tarmac! Double Stack is a decadent treat. An imperial breakfast stout brewed with Portland’s Clutch coffee and Vermont maple syrup, Great Notion nails the flavor: the brew makes me feel as if I have been transported back to childhood and stuffed myself with stacks of syrup-doused pancakes.

Nathan Miller

B-52 ‘A Tart Frenchie – Peach & Apricot’ – Admittedly, I didn’t get to try as many new Houston beers this year as I’d like, but most of the ones I did try in my few trips back home or from boxes sent to me were very good. I think that my favorite was probably B-52’s “A Tart Frenchie – Peach & Apricot,” which was lightly tart, very well-balanced, and extremely refreshing, without hiding any of the delightful fruit flavor. It reminded me a little of some of the beers I’ve had from California’s Good Beer Co, which are absurdly delightful for many of the same reasons. It’s clear from this beer and others that I’ve now had from the growing Conroe brewery that B-52 is a force to be reckoned with, having already earned my vote for Houston’s second best brewery, rising with a bullet.

Cantillon ‘Nath’ (Brussels, Belgium) – December 1st, 2012, I was sitting at the Avenue Pub awaiting my taste of that year’s “Zwanze,” a special beer created by the Brussels brewery once a year. That year, it was a lambic with rhubarb added, and I recall not getting a lot of rhubarb flavor but still immensely enjoying it. Fast forward to August 26 of this year, and I’m sitting at Cantillon, trying my first bottle of Nath, the newest rhubarb lambic. This time, there’s a lot more rhubarb, with a fantastic balance, an incredible aroma, and an amazing lambic “canvas.” I was fortunate enough to try Nath one more time this year, on tap a month later (again at Avenue Pub for Zwanze day), and found the rhubarb slightly more muted, serving as a bridge to that memory from five years ago. And of course, it doesn’t hurt that it has such a great name…

Jose Luis Cubria

Eureka Heights ‘Mini-Boss’ – My favorite Houston IPA, and the beer that made me forget about Yellow Rose’s quality-control issues. It’s deliciously fruity, and the tropical/citrus notes hit you the moment you start pouring. It’s scary how quickly a crowler of this can disappear. (Honorable mention: the various barrel treatments of Saint Arnold DR17.)

Boon Geuze ‘Mariage Parfait’ (Halle, Belgium) – On the short-list for my desert-island beer, and an insta-buy every time I see it. The fact that this is now a Houston shelf beer blows my mind. For my tastes, it’s a perfect gueuze, and a perfect beer.

Kenneth Krampota

The post Our Favorite Beers of 2017 first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Our Favorite Beers of 2017 appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Photo: Larry Koestler

With the six-month anniversary of my challenge to local breweries to start brewing the hottest beer style in the country — the New England-Style IPA (NEIPA) — rapidly approaching, now seemed like as apt a time as any to check in and see where things stand, especially in light of the unexpectedly impressive amount of style-related activity we’ve seen during this timeframe.

It’s worth noting that there seems to be something of a dividing line among local breweries, with some fully embracing the NEIPA nomenclature — and it’s not going anywhere, with sites like BeerAdvocate and Untappd recognizing its ubiquity and distinctiveness from the classic West Coast-Style IPA and opting to finally categorize it as its own thing — while others seem reluctant to hop on what they presumably perceive as a regional bandwagon phenomenon, and instead have chosen to offer up their own interpretations that are generally described with non-location-based adjectives like “hazy.”

Regardless of what school of thought you subscribe to on the topic of “NEIPA” taxonomy, there have been a slew of beers released in the past six months that many would agree live up to the hallmarks of the NEIPA — aromatic, juicy, soft, creamy, hazy, massively citrus/tropical-forward, and relatively minimal bitterness. Also, while some consider “milkshake”-style beers to be a part of the NEIPA canon — which is totally fine by me! — I personally do not, as I find the flavor profiles of those beers to be different enough that I’m not quite convinced that they belong in the same category (though I could very well be persuaded otherwise! Admittedly I do not have anywhere near as much experience with milkshake IPAs), and so this list does not include those beers.

By my count — and, try as I might, it’s possible I may miss a few, as there really have been a lot of releases — the following should be a mostly comprehensive list of local beers that have been brewed in the style (this list only includes officially released beers, not pilot batches):

• 8th Wonder – S.L.A.B.
• B-52 – Wheez the Juice (16-oz. cans)
• Baa Baa Brewhouse – Cat and the Fiddle
• Baa Baa Brewhouse – Cow Jumped over the Moon (12-oz. cans)
• Baa Baa Brewhouse – Ennie (12-oz. cans)
• Baa Baa Brewhouse – The Little Dog Laughed
• Copperhead – Feeding Frenzy (12-oz. cans)
• Copperhead – Kangaroo Killer
• No Label – Sittin’ Sidehaze
• Sigma – 4X DH Medina Sod
• SpindleTap – Houston Haze (16-oz. cans)
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Detonate
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – DL Double (hasn’t historically been one, but recent Untappd checkins would seem to indicate a revised recipe)
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Haze Phaze
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Hop Explorer X
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Hop Explorer XI
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – NEAF
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Overcast
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Scattered Showers
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Spottie Oaty
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Steady Sippin’
• Whole Foods Market Brewing Co. – Tropical Storms

Which ones do I like best? Drop me a line on Twitter and I’d be happy to have a conversation about it.

The above doesn’t even include forthcoming Ingenious Brewing Co., which expects to open in Humble later this summer, and which I previewed back in February. The duo has had a busy spring, setting up free tastings across the greater Houston-area and further tweaking their already-delicious recipes while adding a slew of additional beers to their portfolio. Highlights include a revised Hop Delivery System, which is now a Double IPA, and Northeast Houston IPA, also retooled as a DIPA.

Photo: SpindleTap Brewery

And lastly, I’m excited to announce that I’m collaborating with SpindleTap and Boston homebrewer Rich Wein on a hazy, juicy double NEIPA called Juiceton, which should be out in cans in the first half of August. Juiceton will be a hazy, juicy AF DIPA clocking in at 8.0%, with the creamy, soft, pillowy mouthfeel you love, propping up heroic quantities of Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe. Hit with multiple rounds of dry-hopping, this worthy successor to Houston Haze will deliver that massively tropical and fruit-forward hop flavor we all crave.

The post Houston Embraces the Haze Craze first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Houston Embraces the Haze Craze appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

(Click here to for a zoomable version)

Yo that IPA Region is stacked! Mostly Harmless got screwed, though. Pumpkinator vs. Rocket Fuel in the Sweet 16 is gonna be brutal. I’ve got EZ7 as my Cinderella. Think Yellow Rose can win it all again?

Welcome to the 2017 edition of the Houston Beer Guide Bracket. Last year’s bracket was a blast, with some nail-biters, a ballot-stuffing scandal, a handful of upsets, and Lone Pint Yellow Rose ultimately cruising to the title.

We’ve made some changes compared to last year, when we used weighted Untappd rankings to fill out the field from 1 to 64. This year, we still leaned on ratings, but we also opened up the selection process to the HBG staff, our own version of the NCAA’s selection committee. We awarded “automatic bids” to breweries that wouldn’t have qualified based solely on rankings. We eliminated one-time releases (no Divine Reserves, Bishop’s Barrels, etc.). And we limited the field to independent craft breweries — you know what that means.

Enough with the pregame analysis. Let’s get to the #HBGBracket. Voting for the first round ends Monday night, March 20th. The second round will begin Tuesday, March 21st. We’ll update results on Facebook and Twitter.

Update #1 – Round of 64 recap:
The first round has wrapped up and there were quite a few surprises. 12-seed SpindleTap Hop Gusher took down 5-seed Saint Arnold Endeavour, with a respectable win of 56%. In our far north vs. far south matchup, 14-seed B-52 Double IPA beat 3-seed Galveston Island Citra Mellow. Copperhead King of Terrors managed to eke out a win against Buffalo Bayou Vanilla Mocha Sunset, in a match decided by just 13 votes. In the battle of Clear Lake, Texas Beer Refinery’s Gulf Coast Gose held its ground against BAKFISH I Tell You Wit. Unfortunately, Texas Beer Refinery Catalyst wasn’t able to repeat last year’s Cinderella run. Yellow Rose continued last year’s tradition of dominating the competition, knocking out newcomer Running Walker Texas Reserve. Check out the rest of the results at the bottom of the page.

Update #2 – Round of 32 recap:
Well that was certainly interesting. The majority of this round went to chalk, with the 1-seeds doing especially well. Dig into the middle of the field a little bit, and you’ll see some very surprising results. 12-seed SpindleTap Hop Gusher continued its Cinderella run, leading 4-seed Brash Pussy Wagon the entire round. At the 24-hour mark, Brash Vulgar Display of Power vs Brash Cortado was exactly 50/50, but lower-seeded VDoP eventually won out. 11-seed Copperhead King of Terrors managed another narrow victory, this time over 3-seed No Label Nightmare on 1st Street. There were no upsets in the Easy Drinking region, dashing the chances of a Pilsner head-to-head between Back Pew and Saint Arnold. How will old-standard Buried Hatchet fare against new-hotness Raspberry AF in the next round? Last year’s champion, Lone Pint Yellow Rose, faces Cinderella; is there a stunning upset on the horizon? Will King of Terrors be able to sneak past Brash EZ-7 and into the Elite 8? It’s all up to you.

Update #3 – Sweet 16 recap:
Let’s start with the fun parts: Almost every one of the match up in the Sweet 16 ended within 100 votes. For nearly 1,500 votes, that’s pretty impressive. Brazos Valley 7 Spanish Angels overcame Saint Arnold 5 O’Clock Pils by 107 votes, 4-seed Lone Pint The Jabberwocky upset 1-seed Brash Abide with 92 votes, Saloon Door Tasty AF beat Brash Vulgar Display of Power by 39 votes, and Pumpkinator vs Rocket Fuel was decided by just 32 votes. Every beer included in the Sweet 16 deserved it’s place this far into the tournament. SpindleTap found a post in one of the beer groups by someone bragging to have voted for Hop Gusher several hundred times in a short period Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, there is no way for us to undo the damage that was done. After a discussion with the team at SpindleTap, they offered to forfeit the game to Yellow Rose. At the T-11 hour mark, SpindleTap had the lead, and they appeared to gain more ground in the morning. As stated earlier, we believe that every beer that made it to the sweet 16 deserved to be there. Hop Gusher beat Endeavour and Pussy Wagon without any intervention, and there is a very strong likelihood that it would have beat Yellow Rose as well. Yellow Rose faces some stiff competition in the next round with Saint Arnold Art Car, as do all of the beers in the Elite 8.

Update #4 – Elite 8 recap:
The giants have fallen. Saloon Door rounded up their supporters to knock out 1-seed Saint Arnold Pumpkinator. Brazos Valley had a late surge of support: 7 Spanish Angels rallied from being down 49/51 at the 24 hour mark to come out ahead 54/46 and take out 1-seed Southern Star Buried Hatchet. 1-seed Yellow Rose clobbered 2-seed Art Car in a round that was expected to be more of a challenge for last year’s champion. Brash’s 7-seed EZ-7 avenged 1-seed Abide’s earlier elimination and trounced Lone Pint The Jabberwocky. Lone Pint Yellow Rose is the only 1-seed that remains in the tournament – how will it fare against the Saloon Door posse, which has already overcome some quite impressive opponents? Will EZ-7 or 7 Spanish Angels be the lucky one to advance to the finals?

Update #5 – Final Four recap:
Yellow Rose, our last 1-seed and last year’s champion was bested by the chocolate & peanut butter stout from Clear Lake, Tasty AF. 7 Spanish Angels, the coffee brown ale from Brenham, rallied its supporters to eliminate Brash EZ-7. It’s all come down to this: Saloon Door Tasty AF versus Brazos Valley 7 Spanish Angels. Peanut butter & chocolate vs coffee. Both beers eliminated some very impressive challengers along the way. Which beer will be crowned the best beer in Houston by the readers of Houston Beer Guide?

Update #6 – Championship recap:
Wow, that was a surprisingly close match. Saloon Door’s Tasty AF is now the reigning ‘Best Beer in Houston’ as chosen by the readers of Houston Beer Guide. If you haven’t tried it or any of the other 63 beers included in this year’s bracket, I highly recommend that you seek them out.

The changes we made to the beer selection process this year were a direct result of the conversations we had with our readers last year. If you have suggestions for ways we can make it even better next year, shoot us an email, we’d love to hear your ideas: info@houstonbeerguide.com.

Championship Results:

Saloon Door v Brazos Valley (1,800 votes)
Tasty AF – 51.3%
7 Spanish Angels – 48.7%

The Final Four Results:

Elite 8 Results:

Sweet 16 Results:

Round of 32 Results:

Round of 64 Results:

The post Houston Beer Guide Bracket 2017 first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Houston Beer Guide Bracket 2017 appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Apparently I should write about things I want to see happen more often. Since publishing “Who will be Houston’s Trillium or Tree House?” a handful of our area breweries have gone public with their intentions to attempt to brew a beer closely adhering to the style hallmarks — huge tropical fruit flavor thanks to obscene amounts of post-boil dry-hop additions during whirlpool, fermentation and/or under CO2 pressure of uber-popular citrusy hops like Citra, Galaxy, Mosaic, Nelson, Amarillo and El Dorado; super-soft, creamy and juicy body/mouthfeel as a result of the interplay of the water treatment, specialty grain bill and London Ale (1318) or English Ale (007) yeast strains; and minimal (but still present) lingering bitterness due in part to almost no kettle hop additions — of the supernova that is the Northeast-Style India Pale Ale (NEIPA), or at least their interpretation of such.

Baa Baa Brewhouse was among the first to respond, and I enjoyed their initial stab at it, which they are now tweaking in preparation for a more scaled-up release on March 4. Katy’s No Label then announced last week that they are taking a stab at a double dry-hopped New England-Style IPA; as did Spindletap (while also coining #HoustonHaze); it was mentioned in the comments of my Cow Jumped Over the Moon review that Sigma is also planning one (though I haven’t seen an official announcement anywhere yet); and there are a couple of forthcoming breweries with exciting plans whose beers I am very eager to try. In the midst of this flurry of activity, Conroe’s Copperhead Brewery also announced the release of their own double dry-hopped Double IPA, Feeding Frenzy, and were kind enough to invite me out to try it.

Brewed with copious amounts of Citra, alongside Comet, Amarillo and Apollo, Feeding Frenzy announces itself immediately with its huge tropical aroma. It’s a fairly deep orange in appearance, with Fawcett Maris Otter and flaked oats in the grain bill, and pleasantly hazy. Flavor-wise the citrus is robust and plentiful; there’s absolutely no mistaking this beer for anything but Citra-dominated. And it is deceptively, dangerously easy to down for the 8.0% ABV. In fact, it may well be the tastiest Houston-brewed DIPA I’ve had — I actually said the same thing last time I had a Copperhead DIPA almost a year ago, and it’s clear owner and brewmaster Seth Earnest knows his way around hops.

Of course, you’re probably wanting to know whether I thought it was a good representation of a NEIPA. And, my answer is that it’s actually not an NEIPA (nor did Seth say it was one). Granted, Feeding Frenzy was brewed utilizing many of the aforementioned NE-style techniques (and these days specifically calling out double dry-hopping is a signifier in the northeast in particular), but the beer was also fermented with Chico (or American Ale) yeast, which, while historically hailed for its clean character, doesn’t lend itself to the creamy/juicy/soft mouthfeel that is a critical component of the style. As such, Feeding Frenzy still finished decidedly West Coast for me, with a bit of a harsher bitterness than I’d want in an NE-style beer. Seth mentioned to me that for the next batch, which will be appropriately scaled up, he plans to pitch Conan yeast instead, which is best known as the strain that made Heady Topper the most sought-after beer in the world three years ago. I’ll be curious to see what Conan does to Feeding Frenzy, although in my experience, the yeast strain really needs to be either 1318 or 007 to nail the Northeast-style mouthfeel.

That all said, I want to reiterate: it was still a very good beer. And ultimately it doesn’t even matter what I think as the beer was an unequivocal success in their taproom this past weekend, prompting Copperhead to add a new batch to its brew schedule roughly every other month going forward. And there’s even more great news for fans of beer in cans (a.k.a. everyone): while the next batch of Feeding Frenzy will be available in 4-packs of 12-oz. bottles to-go directly from the brewery, Seth intends to start canning all of their hoppy beers in the not-too-distant future, with flagship Striker IPA first up to hit six-packs of 12-oz. cans, eventually followed by Feeding Frenzy later on down the line.

The post A look at Copperhead Brewery’s Feeding Frenzy IIPA first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post A look at Copperhead Brewery’s Feeding Frenzy IIPA appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Image: Copperhead Brewery

Copperhead Brewing Company

Late last year, I had the pleasure to visit Copperhead Brewing in Conroe, and was pleased to try five of their beers, two of which, Striker IPA & Copperhead White, are now being bottled. They join Medusa, a Belgian Dark Strong, as Copperhead’s initial distribution bottles. I’m particularly pleased that the White was chosen as one of the three, as I found it to be rather refreshing, and it will serve as a great beer for Houston’s somehow-still-present summer. Copperhead doesn’t intend to stop with these three: already, Copperhead Red was a brewery-only bottle release, and Kangaroo Killer (previously named Yellow Tail Pale) is coming soon. In addition, I’ve been told that a brewery-only bottle release for King of Terrors, a 15% imperial stout aged on coffee, cocoa nibs, and vanilla beans, is hopefully in the works. And of course, as before, Copperhead still remains one of the handful of Houston-area breweries where you can take crowlers home. I look forward to seeing more Copperhead in beer departments soon.

Braman Brewery (Running Walker)

The excitement in the beer community these days is cans, cans, cans, and Braman Brewery is jumping right into the mix with their first cans, packaged just last week, for all five of their Running Walker beers. Their IPA, Kolsch, Pilsner, Stout, and Texas Secession cans will join an increasing number of aluminum options. Braman went all out on design for these cans, enlisting the help of branding firm Hawkeye Communications. Right now the cans are being produced on a mobile canning line, with plans to eventually purchase a canning line for the brewery.

Image: Graeme Rabe

Galveston Island Brewing

It’s no secret that I love Galveston Island Brewing’s Citra Mellow. It’s a truly excellent beer, and in my opinion, easily slots into the top beers in Houston. So imagine my excitement at learning that it will join Tiki Wheat as Galveston’s first canned offerings. Both will be available in 12 ounce six-packs, at first brewery-only, but very soon to see distribution. There are also plans for the Balinese smoked imperial porter to join the cans soon. Canning is being done via Armadillo Mobile Canning, an Austin-based mobile canning solution. Cans were designed by GI’s owner, and, as shown, are quite attractive.

The post New Beer Cans and Bottles All Over Houston first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post New Beer Cans and Bottles All Over Houston appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.