What has been amazing and extremely promising for any beer lover living the North Texas area is the current growth in the craft beer industry. When I moved to Dallas back in 1998, the available selection was just, well, pathetic. The offering in any regular grocery store was worse than one was able to find in the smallest neighborhood convenience store back on the other side of the Atlantic. Not only was the variety usually limited to the creations of the big three (Budweiser, Coors and Miller), but those creations usually had the taste of some watered down rice water for anyone who grew up drinking Belgian beers. But things are changing.
Granted, 15 years ago one could find good beers around here, as long as you were willing to put forth the time to do some searching, driving and investigating. It did require some effort and very few bars and pubs would carry anything else than the aforementioned trio. Which is all the more surprising when you realize that Saint Arnold, a craft brewery in Houston, had been in operation since 1994 and even the late great Pierre Celis, of Hoegaarden fame, had opened his new brewery in Austin back in 1992. But due to the very strict Texas beer legislation, which puts significant restrictions on a brewery’s distribution rights, good beer remained elusive and the target of continuous treasure hunts.
Beer pubs were even more scarce. The Flying Saucer was a notable exception, which always prided itself in a huge selection of beers and to this day remains a staple for the beer lovers around. Another one of the most memorable places in Dallas is the Old Monk beerpub, in which I recall having my first Orval in Dallas. Thanks to these trailblazers, the palate of beer consumers slowly started to change and demand seemed to force larger retailers and pubs to carry at least the beers from the leaders in the American craft beer world such as Samuel Adams, Sierra Nevada, New Belgium Brewing Company and the aforementioned Saint Arnold.
Since then, we have seen a resurgence in craft beer in America, which now outpaces Europe and especially Belgium in new breweries per capita. In 2012, Texas was the third fastest growing state with 25 new breweries opened. Are they all equally good ? As someone once said (And I can’t remember for the life of me who said it)
You can make good beer, or you can make bad beer. As long as you make good beer or bad beer consistently, there’s bound to be someone out there who will like it.
So I will leave it up to you to decide who of the North Texas brewers makes beer you consistently like, although I will share my reviews here on the blog. But even my favorite North Texas brewer has beers I absolutely love and some that are just not my cup o’ tea. Regardless, the list is growing and that can only mean one thing, more choice for the beer lovers amongst us and amongst all that beer, there’s gotta be some gems waiting to be discovered.
For the complete list of breweries in North Texas, which I will try to keep up to date as much as I can, please see the brewery page. As I publish my reviews of their creations, I will add the links below each brewery name, so keep checking back. There’s lots more to come !