The unlikely duo of Justin Gyorfi, a urologist from Clear Lake, and Mike Broderick, an award-winning Pennsylvanian home brewer and former IT professional, have faced some formidable obstacles to opening Ingenious since we began reporting on the brewery’s progress in February 2017. The business partners weathered construction hurdles, Hurricane Harvey, and shortly after Harvey’s devastation, Justin’s first child was born, and Mike suffered a ruptured appendix on the same day.

The Ingenious Brewing taproom is full of hop themed decorations. | Photo: Shawn McDermott

During the delays, venues around the Houston area from Webster to Katy hosted events showcasing Ingenious brews. Justin said he is thankful for the support of these establishments, including Craft Beer Cellar downtown and Humble’s the Hop Stop, who were among the first locations around town to receive kegs and are currently serving Ingenious beers on tap.

A passion for craft beer, particularly IPAs and stouts, bonded Justin and Mike, who met when Justin was doing his residency at Hershey Medical Center in Pennsylvania. The two formed a plan to open a brewery, and in 2014 Mike sold everything he had and moved to Houston.

“We are trying to bring in elements from breweries around the country that we admire, then combine that with our own thoughts and ideas to create a distinct Ingenious experience here in Houston,” Mike said.

The bookcase bar at Ingenious Brewing Company. | Photo: Shawn McDermott

They have succeeded in creating a unique atmosphere with a very smart-looking bookcase bar and a wide array of brews, heavy on New England IPAs inspired by Tree House and Trillium, and complex stouts in the vein of Cigar City, one of Mike’s favorite breweries. A fan of Tired Hands’ milkshake IPAs, Mike also brews his own twist on lactose IPAs, FroYo beers.

Though the taps rotate often, Ingenious has a few beers that have consistently been on the menu. I tried the creamy Vanilla Coconut FroYo IPA, which features a vanilla aroma, subtle coconut flavor and light bitterness. My favorite beer was the Bigger in Texas New England IPA, an imperial version of their Made in Texas IPA. It is juicy, a little floral and has a velvety soft mouthfeel.

I also enjoyed the stouts I tasted, particularly the rum barrel-aged ones. All of them were well-balanced and very smooth. With no heavy booziness, they went down very easily – a little too easily for me as most of them ranged from 11-13% ABV.

Mike said he feels Ingenious’ variety of styles sets their beers apart from other Houston-area breweries. I agree. In addition to the IPAs and stouts, in their short existence Ingenious has also produced brown, cream, English mild, amber and wheat ales. I tried the Vanilla Coffee Cream Ale, which has a delicious candy nose. Heavy vanilla at first sip, the beer finishes with a slight coffee flavor.

Ingenious IPAs ready to drink | Photo: Shawn McDermott

Ingenious is working on having an on-site food truck full-time. Meanwhile, the brewery is hosting pop-up kitchens, most notably GastroCraft, featuring local chefs. GastroCraft’s Dennis Feray has created some insanely delicious culinary delights such as mouth-watering chili verde pork tacos featuring slow-simmered pork shoulder, fire-roasted poblanos and jalapenos, and dishes which showcase beer like “hopped-up nachos” made with IPA-infused queso. Hungry brewery patrons can finish their meals with April “Ape” Feray’s luscious, chocolately cupcakes, cookies and brownies baked with stout.

Additionally, Ingenious will soon offer ¼ lb. hot dogs on a fresh bakery roll, chips, and sodas, which patrons can enjoy inside, or on its kid- and dog-friendly patio. Outside food and food delivery to the brewery are also allowed.

On Mondays, Ingenious will offer full pours of many of their beers at half-pour prices. Thirsty visitors can take home brews in growlers or crowlers. The brewery recently began canning and plans to have fresh four-packs offered monthly.

The prolific brewery has scheduled releases of one to three new brews a week, one of which will typically be a barrel-aged offering. This constant variety should ensure patrons have the distinctive Ingenious experience that its founders desire.

“Each time a patron comes to the brewery, we would like to give them a unique beer drinking episode,” Mike said. “We want to give people a reason to come back again and again.”

Ingenious Brewing Company

1986 S. Houston Ave.

Humble, TX  77396

Hours: (as of the publishing date)

Monday, Wednesday-Friday 4-10 pm
Saturday 12-10 pm
Sunday 11-7 pm
Closed Tuesdays

Photographer Shawn McDermott is an IT engineer born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has been into photography for over a decade and loves traveling the world trying new beers!

The post Ingenious Brewing Brings Inventive Brews to Humble first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Ingenious Brewing Brings Inventive Brews to Humble appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

Ingenious Brewing Co.’s Hop Delivery System, a double dry-hopped IPA

Out of all the local brewery responses to the “Who Will Be Houston’s Trillium or Tree House?“ essay, there was one that carried an unexpected air of intrigue, given that it stemmed from a producer that hasn’t even opened yet. Amid the thread of a Facebook post about the article, one commenter innocuously announced the existence of a forthcoming brewery, alongside said brewery’s intention to make regular production of multiple Northeast-Style IPAs a primary focus and citing Trillium and other northeast legends as key influences. The brewery’s name? Ingenious Brewing Co.

Ingenious Brewing is the brainchild of a Houston native, Justin, and his business partner/brewmaster from Philadelphia, Mike, who met seven years ago while Justin was in grad school in Pennsylvania. The two bonded over their shared love of the emerging craft beer scene in New England, including the explosively hoppy beers that made Hill Farmstead and The Alchemist famous. This later led to a love affair with the current kings of the NEIPA, Trillium and Tree House, as well as other hazy heavy hitters like Tired Hands.

As Justin began making plans to move back to Texas for his career, he expressed his surprise to Mike that no local Houston breweries were making beers in the tropical AF, hazy, creamy NEIPA style. Out of this conversation came the inspiration to bring the juice to Houston, and Ingenious Brewing was born. Shortly after this, Mike — whose background includes a decade of home brewing, along with collaborations with several local PA brewers, moved to Houston and began laying the groundwork for what would ultimately lead to the construction of a new brewery just northeast of the city in Humble. While the brewery hasn’t announced the address quite yet — the closing is imminent — all of the equipment is ready to be installed and the vast majority of permits have been approved, and the duo hope to open the brewery’s doors this May.

I recently had the privilege of getting to try a handful of Ingenious’s test batches, and while I am concerned about setting unreasonable expectations, I will say this: if you are an insatiable hop-requiring animal with a severe case of lupulin lust and a fan of the double dry-hopped turbid juice that’s being produced in New England and the greater New York area, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by what Ingenious intends to bring to the table.

I tasted four(!) different NEIPAs, each of which boasted distinctive fruit-forward flavor profiles that showcased the soft, creamy body and mouthfeel the style is known for. Humble Galaxy is — you guessed it — a 6.5% ABV Galaxy-drenched IPA fermented with Conan yeast. The 6.5% ABV Northeast Houston IPA is something of a hybrid, with generous helpings of Simcoe providing a robust West Coast-Style pine flavor profile (supported by El Dorado for good measure) while retaining the Northeast-Style pillowy body. Breaking things up was an absolute beast of an Imperial Stout, the sublime Barrel-Aged Ice Cream Sundae. Brewed with cacao nibs and strawberries, it was shockingly smooth and easy to drink for a stout checking in at 15% ABV.

And lastly we had what Justin expects will be their flagship, a double dry-hopped beaut called Hop Delivery System, a 6.4% ABV IPA brewed with monstrous amounts of Citra, Galaxy and El Dorado, and a Citra Dry-Hopped Hop Delivery System (both fermented with style vanguard London Ale III). If you’ve read me previously you know I am gaga for Citra-hopped beers (Double Dry-Hopped Fort Point and Julius are my two desert island brews), and while both HDS IPAs were excellent, I enjoyed the regular Hop Delivery System the most, as the interplay of the three hop varietals presented an overwhelmingly tropical flavor and an added layer of complexity.

While there is still a ways to go, I feel comfortable saying that Houstonians are going to be in for a treat once Ingenious is up and running, and their eventual plans to start canning 4-packs of 16-oz tallboys to be sold on-premise only to ensure the freshest possible consumption should be music to NEIPA lovers’ ears.

The post Ingenious Brewing Is Poised to Fill a Hoppy Void in Houston first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Ingenious Brewing Is Poised to Fill a Hoppy Void in Houston appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.