So how do the services available to us in Houston stack up against one another? There’s three main ways to get beer delivered:
1. Store ‘curbside’ or traditional ordering combined with a task service like Taskrabbit to go get it
2. Delivery services that specialize in beer, wine and liquor
3. Hiring someone to go get what you want via Taskrabbit

Not able to go to the store yourself? In my experience so far nothing is really ‘there’ yet, especially for the beer drinker that wants something other than macro lager and cares about best-by dates. If you’re going to try it out, I think whether you have a good or bad experience comes down to four key factors. Some are better than others in each area, but none excel:

Price: How much more do I pay for the convenience of delivery (or order prep)?
Inventory: Can I find what I want, and is it accurate?
Speed: How fast can I get my order?
Quality: When I get it – is it damaged/expired/whatever

Online ordering and curbside pickup

I’ve used two main services here – Kroger ClickList and Total Wine & More’s online ordering process. Both services require about 12 hours advance notice, although with Total Wine I actually was able to have the order picked up within a hour or so by calling the store after I submitted my order – they put it together for me within about half an hour of my call.

Kroger charges a $5 fee after the first three uses of their service, and Total Wine offers theirs for free, although it isn’t curbside – you have to go into the store to pick up the order.

Total Wine’s online inventory system was quite accurate – easily the best online system available – and included listings for variants and all the sizes available (including kegs), and they actually had the things I ordered. Kroger’s ClickList search features are pretty primitive, and the inventory doesn’t list everything they have – just ‘mainline’ beers, and even then it can be inaccurate. You can, however, make manual entries and provide lists of products to sub out if what you want isn’t available, and this works reasonably well.

Note, HEB and Wal-Mart also offer curbside pickup at some of their area stores, but in my experience they have the same online inventory issues as Kroger … and as I don’t live near one of their participating locations I have not used them.

A TaskRabbit ‘tasker’ will charge an hourly rate to go and pickup basically anything, on the order of about $10-$20.

In terms of quality, I’ve never had an issue with my beer orders for Kroger (and I’ve bought quite a few six packs using ClickList) – the beer is always cold and as fresh as I would find on the shelf. In comparison, Total Wine sent me a six pack of my favorite IPA that was a little too close to the ‘best by’ date for my usual preferences.

Delivery Services

There are four big players in Houston right now that offer true web-to-home delivery. Drizly, Instacart, Minibar and Shipt. Shipt works exclusively wth HEB, and requires a fee to sign up (plus additional fees to deliver alcohol), so I didn’t try them out.

Both Instacart and Minibar offer 1 hour delivery to my area, but their online inventories stink. Instacart works with Specs, but the product database is a mess and full of beer that I sure hope isn’t available. Case-in-point, when I searched for Sierra Nevada the only product that came up was a 12 pack of Celebration… their winter seasonal.

In my neighborhood, Minibar works with a store called Chalet Fine Wine and Spirits over off West Gray. I had not been there before, and after looking at the complete inventory of beer available I figured out why.

Yeah, that was everything they had.

On cost, Drizly includes a tip of ~10% of your order total and a $5 delivery fee – not cheap, especially for a wait that potentially could be measured in days and not hours. The inventory is a little clunky to search, but I was able to find some specialties (Bishops Barrel and Barrel aged Bigfoot). However, when my order was filled a week later, they called me and said the Barrel aged Bigfoot wasn’t actually there – but they were ready with an acceptable substitute – barrel aged Narwhal ‘Trip in the Woods’. While it was nice that they knew their stuff enough to make that offer, it was annoying that they waited to call me about it for a week.

Drizly had the best quality of the bunch, but I did order mainly barreled beers and not fresh IPA, so it may not be a fair comparison.

Hiring someone

The final option is to hire someone to go and get beer for you. There’s really only one option for that (aside from putting out an ad on Craigslist), and that’s Taskrabbit. Favor is a competitor in this space, but they don’t do alcohol delivery, and although they say they have a partner that does this, that outfit isn’t in Houston at this time (delivery.com).

Taskers (as they’re called) specialize in specific tasks they are willing to do – everything from basic errand running to house handyman stuff. As I mentioned above, the ‘grocery/item’ pickup folks charge on the order of $15-20/hour, and that’s on top of whatever you spend on the items you’re paying them to go and retrieve. Total cost depends on how how long it takes the tasker to do the pickup and delivery.

It’s the most expensive of the options, but if you know exactly what you want and it’s not available from one of the store partners that offers online services of any kind (ahem, three crowlers of Mini Boss, please) it’s the best option.

As I opened with, nothing’s really all the way there. All the services have drawbacks that (from my perspective) are deal killers. Now if only we could get Hopsy to come to Houston …

The post On demand craft beer? Not yet. first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post On demand craft beer? Not yet. appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

The Line for Spon on Friday at Jester King.

I’ve read the articles against standing in line for beer. Thrillist recently wrote one, and there’s an entire thread devoted to debating the subject on Beer Advocate, but here I sit, in my second line in a week for beer. The question you may ask is why? Do I not believe there are great beers sitting on the shelf at the local supermarket or Specs? Well, I know there are, probably ones that are better than whatever my line waiting ends up with. So what drove me to wake up at 5 AM this morning to drive the 30 minutes to wait in line at Hay Merchant? What drove me to caravan 3 hours to Austin for the Jester King Spon release last weekend? Why am I doing this when, right now, sitting on a shelf somewhere, is an equally amazing beer that I could have slept several more hours and picked up at my leisure? Why?! My wife really wants to know…

Reason 1: I’m an obsessive personality. I imagine many of the people in these lines are. People like me get an idea in their head and it’s tough to beat it out with things like logic or reason. Those things are for other people to worry about. I want a bottle of Atrial!!

Reason 2: They can actually be quite a bit of fun. This isn’t waiting in line at Disney World with your daughter constantly reminding you how bored she is. No, this is community. Something about that guy next to you drove him to do this as well.

Reason 3: Odds are someone is sharing something. In the Jester King line, I stood with several other HBG writers and as we took turns getting beers, other people we knew came around and shared something. The best beer I had that whole day wasn’t Spon, it was someone’s home brew that was being passed around. It was outstanding. I would have never have had that opportunity to meet that person, but maybe I run into him again somewhere else down the road. There were bottle shares going on all over the place in the line as we waited, and the atmosphere was fun and jovial. Even the early morning Hay Merchant line had a few beers popped; I stuck to the free donuts at that one.

Reason 4: The anticipation. Remember as a kid when you were pretty sure you knew what you were getting for Christmas, but you were still excited about it? At the end of that line, there is beer, and maybe you pop that bottle that night, or maybe it’s months from now, but you have it and you can be excited about it until you do. You can take it to that share you got invited to and feel you have something unique and interesting, but most importantly you have a story to share.

Reason 5: You make friends or you spend time with friends that go with you. I stood next to the same few people for 4 hours on a Friday morning at Hay Merchant. We talked beer almost the entire time, but you sprinkle in some getting to know them. At the end of the day you probably have a new social media friend or a few. Maybe you stick around and have a beer with them. I can guarantee you learn something about beer by the end of the time. I still chat from time to time with the guy I stood next to in last year’s line. Even if they aren’t near you, you recognize people from other beer related events. That guy with the Brash hat, yeah, he wears that hat everywhere, bad ass!

The line for Black Friday at The Hay Merchant.

If you’ve never stood in line for beer, let me pass on a couple of tips. First, take a chair, that ground or concrete won’t be that comfortable. Do make sure that chair is easily foldable though, and definitely have a way to carry it over your shoulder when the line starts moving. Second, bring something to eat if nothing is being sold. It can be a long wait. Many times even though something goes on sale at a certain time, it can be quite some time after that before you get your beer and pay for it. Keep that in mind. Third, be friendly, and don’t dare think of cutting. This isn’t elementary school, we’re all adults, be courteous of those behind you. If someone needs to go to the bathroom or get beers, that’s cool. You know who is standing around you. Just don’t be that guy that rolls in a few minutes before the release time and hops in line with his friend at the front. Fourth, be nice to the people dealing with the crowd or selling the beer at the end of the line. They’re working pretty darn hard on days like this. Fifth, think about bringing a bag, especially if you’re going to be buying more bottles than you can carry. Odds are they’ll have a carrier or box for you, but I’ve seen beer dropped or fall through a battered box too many times. It’s brutal to watch, you don’t want to be the person that waited for a few hours to drop his beers as he tries to unlock his car, or as happened to my friend, stain his carpet when the beers fell through the bottom of his box when he got home.

With that, I know this isn’t for everyone. Do you want to chat about beer for a long period of time? If you’re social like me, then probably yes. If you’re not, then take a friend. If this sounds like torture, then maybe it’s not for you. Are you in it only for the beer? Then maybe this isn’t for you either. Like I said, there is  probably equally as good stuff on the shelf. However, if you’re looking for an experience, and something to have a story for as you pull that prized bottle out of the fridge, I challenge you to give it a shot. Worst case, you hate it, you hate the beer, and you wish you had those hours of your life back, but hey, you’ll still have a buzz.

The post Is it Worth it to Stand in Line for Beer? first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post Is it Worth it to Stand in Line for Beer? appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

@GoodBeerHouston

These guys have been at it for a number of years, and just do a damn fine job of keeping up with the amazing diversity of beer events, releases, tappings, and general goings on across the vast geography that is Houston. If there’s one account to plug into on a visit to Houston, it’s this one. They’ll get you to a great spot with good beer and good people to talk to.

@FlyingSaucerHou, @SaucerSugarLand, @Petrol_Station, @HayMerchant, @Cottonwoodbar, @DandTIceHouse, @nobipub, @GrowlersMontros

Every craft beer bar in Houston has a social media presence, but these bars stand out to me for their interaction with customers, frequent tweeting of specials (and special tappings), and just overall participation in the social media fabric of H-town’s beer scene

@Specs_Beer_Dept, @TheBeerStation, @CornerFoodMart

Again, many supermarkets (especially the HEB locations around town) and the Whole Foods do a nice job of tweeting out special releases and allocations, but these 3 guys have been at it a long time and, like the bars I listed above, are interactive with their customers on Tha Twitterz.

So let’s say you’re at that craft beer bar or store, and you just scored an incredible pint/bottle of tasty Houston craft beer…but there’s no one to talk about it with! The HBG crew is a great place to start — they’ll always be willing to send a few @replies into your timeline …

@HoustonBeer, @astrosguy, @beernoulli, @beer_chris, @nathanmmiller, @beernerds, @LushtasticTX, @ehnovelty, @TheBeerGentlmn, @Jack_Around, @TimSpies, @codyhaskell, @ManuelTransmssn, @Lake_Speed

The post A (very) short guide to who to follow on Houston beer Twitter first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post A (very) short guide to who to follow on Houston beer Twitter appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.

I think the best place to start with my writing here on Houston Beer Guide is by introducing myself and give any possible reason you might need to read through all of the opinions and nonsense I will, undoubtedly, be slinging your way through this site.

First things first, I’m nothing new or unique in the world of beer, craft beer or the Houston beer scene. I was not in it before most. I have been in the right place at the right time, a lot. I have been the benefactor of some very kind and important people in the local beer scene. I have done my best with most of the opportunities that have come my way and for all of these reasons; I’m in a place to have what I hope to be a unique perspective on things worth reading.

I got my start in beer out in Katy at a glorified bowling alley (think Dave & Buster’s…but not epic). I wasn’t much of a drinker at the time, and when I did drink it was some gimmicky liquor beverage made known to me by friends or pop culture. I was introduced to beer through Guinness and a story I’ve told more times than I can count.

After the bar, I ended up as a stocker/cashier at the Mason Rd. Spec’s location in Katy. While at the cash register, I grabbed a beer book we were selling and read through it during down time. I started buying different beers based on the book and my curiosity. Originally, I loved malt, hated hops (IPAs) and was confused by Belgians. I have read and drank just about everything beer I could get my hands on since then.

I eventually moved into the beer department at that location, then to the beer department at the location in the Target shopping center on Grand Parkway and Westheimer. It was there that an email came down from the Spec’s Craft & High End Import Beer Buyer, Justin Cody, that they were looking for a beer guy at the Smith St. location. I replied, expecting to be put in the queue for upward mobility behind whoever got the job.

Unwisely on their parts, Spec’s chose me to take the position as department manager at the Smith St. location, having never had any experience in management or actual work. It was here that I was introduced to the depth and diversity of the Houston beer community and where I discovered my favorite part of it. The community itself is my favorite part. View it as pandering or a cop out, but I am sincere in my statement. I have been on the receiving end of so much good, love and enjoyment from the Houston beer community, that it has my, nearly, undying dedication.

In my time at Spec’s, both Flying Saucer locations (Downtown & Sugar Land), and my current return to Spec’s, I have been fortunate to watch things change, evolve and grow. Texas beer is snowballing into a monster in and of itself, a monster I’m excited to support. Consumer taste, knowledge, curiosity and openness are astounding. Sours & wild ales couldn’t be given away in my first tenure at Spec’s Smith St. Now, “where are your sours?” is at the top of FAQs. Saint Arnold Divine Reserve used to be the only line item. Now, we do our best to compile special releases and handle the best we can to reduce the stress of lining up weekly for special releases.

The growth of available liquids, the creation of events, the birth of local breweries and most importantly the appearance of new faces on a constant basis is my favorite thing about Houston Beer. I plan to state my opinions, however contrary to yours they might be. I hope that you will fight me, tooth and nail, on them. But more, I hope that after we slug it out in a way that only internet debates can allow, we go grab a beer and enjoy what we have here

The post My Craft Beer Journey – Joey Williams first appeared on Houston Beer Guide.

The post My Craft Beer Journey – Joey Williams appeared first on Houston Beer Guide.