New Belgium in Entrepreneur Mag

My brother-in-law Chris informed me that Entrepreneur had a piece on micro-brewing this month, and he was right—it's all about New Belgium and its co-founder, Kim Jordan (who apparently just split with her husband, the other co-founder, if anyone's, you know, interested). The gist is that it's a near-$100 million brewery with the soul of a micro-brewery, because she bikes to work and wears jeans and thinks conservation is "sexy." Whatever. My take is, she created something she was passionate about and people really like—the culture doesn't make the product successful, it's the reverse: a successful product allows that culture to exist. If New Belgium weren't making insane money, they'd be spending a lot more time trying to be profitable and a lot less time watching "An Inconvenient Truth" in the breakroom and listening to Phish. Anyway, good for the smallest macro-craft brewer in America.

San Antonio's Freetail Brewing Company

My bro-in-law David had said if possible, we should visit Freetail, a nearby brewpub. The requisite amount of wheedling and complaining made this happen, as the wife and sister practically insisted we get out of their hair for a few hours. So we headed down to the road to the Freetail Brewing Company, a modest-sized place but very nice--one wall slides up like a garage door to open entirely, so you can look out over a huge area, a quarry or something. The weather was great, and the beer selection was awesome: a few different varieties of IPA, a brown, a standard pale, a Belgian Wit, a saison—in all, probably a dozen or more, but only 3 that appear to be year-rounders. Most of the beers there seem to be made in small batches and sold until they're gone. I enjoyed the Hop Brutality IPA and it was okay; the Hopasaurus Rex was better, and the Hopothesis (available for the first time that day) at an insane 12.5% ABV and 125 IBU was ambrosia.

The service was spotty, and the brewmaster seemed a little too cool for school, for some reason. That said, the beer was awesome, the pizza was very good and the atmosphere was ideal. Thanks to David for taking me, and to anyone, check out Freetail when you're in San Antonio!

More Texas Craft Beers

As I'd hoped, the need to feed my family happily coincided with an opportunity to sample more Texas beers. I visited the awesome Gabriel's Liquor Superstore on Blanco Rd. and received excellent advice from the resident beer aficionado; after recommending Real Ale (which I'd tried the day before) and Shiner (meh), he suggested I try either Houston-based Saint Arnold or Austin-based Independence Brewing Company. Not knowing when I'd be in Texas again, I did the responsible thing and picked up six of each.

I started with the Saint Arnold Elissa IPA, and I had high hopes. I was decently satisfied—only Cascade hops are used, and the body was malty enough, but there was a slight metallic tang at the finish that didn't thrill me. Maybe my expectations were too high, because it wasn't a bad beer at all.

That said, my expectations were suitably dampened enough that I found the Independence Pale Ale to be a delightful session beer, dry-hopped with Cascade and Saaz hops to provide a subtle hoppiness—it is, after all, a pale, less hoppy than my standard go-to faves Odell 5-Barrel Pale Ale or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale but a nice effort nonetheless. I look forward to sampling more of Independence Brewing Company's offerings (especially their seasonal Stash IPA, hopped FIVE TIMES. Ay caramba!) in the future.

Sampling Beer from the Texas Hill Country

Greetings from San Antonio! A 5-day visit to the sister's house to visit our new baby nephew has, unsurprisingly, proven an opportunity to enjoy beer I can't get in Kansas City. After a 2-leg flight on delightful Southwest airlines (seriously, they're great) and a brief ride in our rented Chevy Aveo (seriously, it's a clown car) we arrived at my sister's place just before a flash flood hit. It wasn't long before I realized the only beer in the house, an 18-pack of Bud Light, wasn't beer at all—just an empty box in the fridge. Cruel fate! But an opportunity to venture out into the heart of the tempest in my tiny Aveo, to the H-E-B supermarket just down the street.

I was anticipating a poor selection, and I couldn't have been more wrong: this place had a GREAT selection of beers, including my favorite: Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA. However, in the interest of budgeting, I ended up purchasing my second favorite, Dogfish Head 60-minute IPA. I also picked up a sampler six-pack from the Real Ale Brewery in Blanco, TX—something local, and a variety to boot. Upon returning, I immediately cracked open a Dogfish Head 60-Minute, and it was good. Not 90-minute good, but still damned good. I followed it with the Full Moon Pale Rye Ale, and I was underwhelmed. I tried the Rio Blanco Pale Ale, and it was better, but not great. The Brewhouse Brown Ale was the best of the lot, but it was a Brown (i.e. relatively boring). That was yesterday.

Today we took the kids to the children's museum in New Braunfels, which was very nice. We came home, the kids played, I watched Doctor Who on my laptop, and at 5 I finally cracked today's first beer: another Dogfish Head 60-Minute IPA. And I thought, you know, this is really good, so NATURALLY whatever comes after is going to pale by comparison. And trying the Real Ale Pale again, I thought, this isn't too bad. Not remarkable, a bit thin, not terribly memorable, but not bad. So kudos to Real Ale, a brewery that is not as good as Dogfish Head, but that doesn't make them a bad brewery.

Expect more reviews—I'm here 3 more nights.

The fastest growing segment of alcoholic beverage is…wait for it…

Cider! Interesting to know, especially since there's a presumably delicious M&B hard cider doing its thing in the carboy as we speak (hat-tip to Tom Cizauskas).