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.

New Magnolia Brewing is one of the newer breweries that has popped up in Houston, and they’re a pretty close neighborhood brewery to me. I’ve been going since their soft open back in November of 2019 (back before the world went crazy!)

I want to talk about their green level member program and getting to brew a beer with them, but I figure I should start with talking about beer first!  Being that we are deep in the heat of the summer I would recommend any of the Splitz that they have on a tap, these range from different tropical flavors to cherry and are quite refreshing on a warm day.  This past week I picked up a crowler of their new strawberry lager and took it with me on a road trip.  The strawberry flavor was light but the lager was solid, a nice approachable lager for a summer afternoon.

Last year I had the pleasure of getting to brew a pilot beer with Sean and John (two absolutely stand up people, real nice, so easy to get along with and work with).  We brewed a chai stout and the smell in the brewery that day was amazing (a good combination of roasted malt and chai spice).  The communication between parties was really great and they were attentive at all points in the process.  I entered the lottery to do it again this year but did not make the cut, I’m a little upset about this but at the same time happy that a new person is getting to go through this experience.  It’s always great to go to a new brewery and taste/fall in love with their beers, but it’s a whole other level of experience to get to see behind the scenes and brew something delicious.  I came away from this with a brand new appreciation for all the work that goes into the drinks that I love.

Thanks!

Chris Ayers
#HoustonBeer Lover!

#HoustonBeerMonth Guest submission by Chris Ayers

The post My neighborhood brewery: New Magnolia Brewing first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post My neighborhood brewery: New Magnolia Brewing appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.