Abilene, Texas beer scene

I recently returned from a trip to Abilene, Texas, where my little brother lives and recently got married. I know Texas does have some good breweries. Personally I’m a fan of Real Ale Brewing out of Blanco, Texas and Saint Arnold Brewing Company out of Houston. I’ll touch base with both of them a little later.

Our first visit was to the Cypress Street Station Restaurant and the Abilene Brewing Company. The restaurant is built into a store front in downtown Abilene. The service was a little slow but part of that was the fact that we had a party of 10 for the wedding.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the food. The beer was another story. My father and I had a sampler of all of their beers. The flight featured Raggz Red Ale, Belgium Wheat, the Dubble Trubble and their Vanilla Ale. All of the beers had a flat mouth feel and their taste was very similar. Needless to say we were a little disappointing. On top of that they had several bottled craft beers but they were out of the two I wanted.

Thus ended the local brewery options…

We next ended up at Oscar’s a local Mexican restaurant. The restaurant left a lot to be desired…including a good meal. The rest of the long weekend was marked by the same question and answer game at every meal.

ME: “What beer do you have?”

WAITSTAFF: “What do you like?”

ME: “I like all kinds of beer. What do you have?”

WAITSTAFF: “Bud, Bud Light, Corona, Miller, Miller Light”

ME: “I’ll stick with water”

(I look at a table near me and see Shiner Bock)

ME: “Do you have Shiner Bock?”

WAITSTAFF: “Yes”

ME: “Why didn’t you say that when you were listing the beers?”

WAITSTAFF: (shrug)

Every time we went to eat it was the same story. Even at the wedding reception the bartender wouldn’t tell us what exactly the 10 beers were at the bar. We got nine of them, never did find out what number 10 was.

Thank the gods for Pinkies! I was able to get a six pack of Saint Arnold Lawnmower, a six pack of Real Ale Brown, Pale and Rye and a six pack of Alamo Golden Ale…the weekend was saved.
I send a big thanks to Saint Arnold Brewing Company, Real Ale Brewing and Alamo Beer Company for continuing to produce good Texas beer…keep it up!

Wow...It's been a while.

Sorry it’s been a while. I’ve had a full plate in my real-non-brewing world.

 

So what’s been going on?

When we last left off we had just bottled our first brew. The question came up about the size of the bottles I use. The blue grolsch bottles are 16oz which gives me about 6 and 3/4 beers.

By now they should be ready for tasting. The instructions say two weeks…I like to leave them to mellow for about four weeks. I feel it gives the beer time to smooth out and really lets the flavors shine.

 My first beer was a Belgian dubble oaked with port wine. The flavors were just about what I was hoping for with the port and the dubble complimenting each other. They weighed in around 7-8%. Since this is one of my first brews I haven’t started checking gravity to get a good measure but I will soon.

So what did it look like?

I poured with a good foamy head and a red color. The taste was caramel and vanilla with the port throwing in a slight chocolate/grape note. I was able to get little to no sediment into the bottles which was great.

Overall I’m very happy with my first try at brewing and even happier that it was all grain. Next up a Chocolate Maple Porter from the Brooklyn Brew Shop.