By: Jamie Fulton, Head Brewer
When I operated The Covey Restaurant & Brewery from 2006
to 2010, I often thought that Fort Worth was the final frontier of craft
brewing. I had many die hard, loyal
regulars that had their favorite beers and appreciated the variety that came
out of my small seven-barrel brewery.
However, there were many more folks that were very suspicious of what
was going on behind the glass walls in all those stainless steel tanks.
“I think those are for making
tortillas.”
“If it was any better than
Budweiser they’d be brewing it.”
“I don’t drink brewed beer.”
“You never know what these little
breweries are putting in this stuff…”
The list goes on and on. These are pretty hysterical comments, but not
when you’ve got bills to pay and people are drinking macro-brewed lager at the
restaurant next door. Macro-brewed lager
has ruined so many people’s conceptions of beer over the decades since
prohibition, that it’s hard to blame any of these folks, as it is all many
people have ever known as beer.
What many
people do not realize is that Texas had a very rich brewing history before
Prohibition wiped the slate. During the
mid 19th century, the south-central through north-central regions of
Texas had one of the highest concentrations of central European immigrants in
North America. And as in other areas of
the United States, seemingly before they even unpacked the wagons, they were
brewing beer! By the turn of the century
there were nearly a half million barrels of beer being brewed in Texas.
There were
important breweries all over the state.
Dallas had Dallas Brewing Co. (1887).
Fort Worth had Texas Brewing Co. (1890). Houston had American Brewing
and Houston Ice & Brewing Co. (both 1893).
The most important brewing town was San Antonio though, with San Antonio
Brewing Co. (1883) and Lone Star Brewing (1884). The span of all of these large breweries
opening is only ten years!
It is no
stretch to draw a comparison to the explosion of craft breweries opening
today. By my count there are nearly one
hundred craft breweries and brewpubs in operation today in Texas and that
number is exponentially increasing with many more in planning.
Is this a
fad? Not a chance. While I do think Darwin’s theory will take effect before long with some new breweries (hopefully not mine), many are here
to stay. And the great news for craft
brewers in Texas and around the country is that the demand is higher than ever
before and ever increasing.
How could we have even thought of
having North Texas Beer Week ten years ago?
That would have been a sad week indeed for craft beer lovers. While there were a few breweries around,
there is no comparison to the plethora in the current marketplace. Just this past weekend, Texas brewers brought
home ten medals in the biggest beer competition in the nation and the
world! It was unforgettable to see Texas
represented so well, unlike any year past I have been. The camaraderie is healthy too; nearly all
the Texas brewers were sitting together cheering each other’s win.
As a seventh-generation Texan I am
already proud of my roots, and now there’s yet another source of pride for me:
our ever-strengthening Texas beer culture.
So I propose for North Texas Beer Week, let’s raise our glasses and
cheer each other’s win as fellow Texans: having a righteous selection of
amazing craft beer brewed right here, fresh and local, and here to stay.
Cheers!!!!
