I Currently Work for a Brewpub/Craft Brewery AMA (1 Viewer)

[Payback]

I will not answer any questions about site moderation!

I bet you'll answer my questions

Love a good AMA. Do you have a reopening plan? What is the best selling beer you have? Do you distribute outside of the brewery and if so what's your favorite of that bunch?

I'm wondering if I can buy any locally as I'm always looking for new beers to try.

 

[JMC9389]

How do you enjoy a beverage through a mask?

Damn, beat me to it.

What was the most outrageous thing to happen at a location that you happened to be managing at the time?

 

[David O]

Headed home to cook some dinner for my mom. I’ll gladly answer these later tonight. Thanks for the questions, I am enjoying this!

 

[David O]

Are you brewing a gluten free beer? Is it more complex to make it?
If you know of a good one, would be appreciated.

We do not brew gluten free beer and yes it is harder to brew. For grain brewers it is especially harder to do. One thing is that malted versions of gluten free grains are not readily available commercially which means you have to malt your own. Also gluten free grains do not have a husk so the malts made from them are very low in diastatic power. There is also other reasons but as you can see it is more difficult and time consuming so it does not really provide an ROI with such a small audience.

Unfortunately I do not know any good gluten free beers but I can ask our Head Brewer.

 

[David O]

What are your favorite hops?

Unfortunately I do not have any favorite hops. I leave that to our brewer

 

[David O]

Wife has celiac. She swears by New Belgium Glutiny.

And on topic...David, what is unique about your brewery?

What sets you apart from the others?

What is your flagship beer?

Sorry if these have already been answered.

Our brewery is one that has survived the newness of craft brewers. We have been in operation for over 11 years. We have great Pizza at our brewpub and people love our beers. We do have some great recipes and we do some real good IPA's. We also have a couple of GABF Gold medals and we always put out a quality product.

We also partner up with organizations like our local zoo. We have a beer called Conserveza which a portion oof every dollar brought in goes to the Zoo.

Our Flag ship beer is Soul Doubt which is an American IPA with an ABV of 6.8% and IBU of 65. Coming in at a very close second is our Bat Outta Helles which is a German Style Lager with an ABV of 4.8% and IBU of 22.

 

[David O]

Who is a little crazier, your chippers or your craft brew seekers?

I never knew the second was a thing, until my brother in law explained how he picks up beer and drives it/ships it all over the US to trade with others, has to keep all his garage fridges stocked.

Follow up question, where’s the best brew come from? I’m very limited in knowledge, and I’m sure it’s quite “mainstream”, but man I can drink from Michigan all day long. Is Texas near the top?

I think they are probably both crazy. Much like chipping if you are not in the know you are not a "beer Person" We affectionately call the "Beer Geeks". Great group of people once you get to know them.

Hard to say where the best beer comes from. We like to say we have some of the best in Texas but I have had excellent beers in almost every state I have visited.

 

[David O]

How do you enjoy a beverage through a mask?

You don't!!!

 

[David O]

I bet you'll answer my questions

Love a good AMA. Do you have a reopening plan? What is the best selling beer you have? Do you distribute outside of the brewery and if so what's your favorite of that bunch?

I'm wondering if I can buy any locally as I'm always looking for new beers to try.

We are actually open. Our brewery never really shut down. We were ale to can and package most of what we had wagering or in holding tanks before being carbed up. We run the beer packaging with a skeleton crew.

We never closed our brewpub either. We were open for Pizza and beer to go. On May 5th we opened up our dining room following all of the state and local guidelines. We ad reduced our menu to accommodate the slower business and to prevent spoilage. We think we will be able to open up next week at 50% capacity once the Governor says we are good to go. We will add items back to our menu at each phase of reopening.

Yes we do distribute outside of our brewery. We distribute in Texas only at this time. We have our beers in the Rio Grande Valley area Corpus Christi, Houston, Austin and of course our Hometown, San Antonio. My favorite of the bunch is probably all of the above!!! Any new sale is good for our bottom line!

Unfortunately we f=do not have any distribution outside of Texas.

 

[David O]

Damn, beat me to it.

What was the most outrageous thing to happen at a location that you happened to be managing at the time?

Most outrageous? Well there are some tha tI can recall but one that I can remember when we owned all o fate Convenience Stores we had one close to the river in New Braunfels, Texas. It was one of our busiest stores and one day one of the "River Rats" who happened to be a pretty young lady with a heck od a body decided that she was going to pump gas into her vehicle. The only thing is she did not have any clothes on. I think it made every mans day that day that was working. Funny what a few drinks will do to you during a Texas Summer!

 

[Anthony Martino]

If @CraigT78 was let loose inside your brewery, how long before you'd be out of business?

 

[David O]

If @CraigT78 was let loose inside your brewery, how long before you'd be out of business?

A very long time. We have some big tanks full of tons of beer. Not even Craig could make a big enough dent. I will say it would be fun to watch though.

 

[Anthony Martino]

A very long time. We have some big tanks full of tons of beer. Not even Craig could make a big enough dent. I will say it would be fun to watch though.

Sounds like a PCF challenge, let's set the betting lines!

 

[CraigT78]

How many trial runs do you go through when developing a new recipe? For example let's say you want to make a Hazy IPA. What is the process for nailing down the recipe, and what do you do with the test batches that are't perfect?

 

[inca911]

How many trial runs do you go through when developing a new recipe? For example let's say you want to make a Hazy IPA. What is the process for nailing down the recipe, and what do you do with the test batches that are't perfect?

Allow me to translate Craig's post for you:

• "Do you need any taste testers with experienced palates?"

 

[bsdunbar1]

and what do you do with the test batches that are't perfect?

Another translation of @CraigT78's

• "How do I get the leftovers"

 

[grebe]

No but will try to find it online, just got the diagnose celiac desease a few weeks ago, dont have much experience yet. I appreciate it.

I am an ex-home brewer, and there is a product that is out now called Clarex that is used in the fermenting process to drop out proteins that cause haze in beers. This has the added benefit of making beers NEARLY gluten free. I don't know how it will work if you have celiac....and I probably would not try it, but if you have gluten sensitivity, you can probably get away with drinking beer from brewers that use Clarex to clarify their beers. Something to look into.

 

[David O]

How many trial runs do you go through when developing a new recipe? For example let's say you want to make a Hazy IPA. What is the process for nailing down the recipe, and what do you do with the test batches that are't perfect?

Most of the recipes we already have a good one of each style. If we want to experiment we have a small brewing setup at the brewery or we will tweak one of our core recipes at our 12 barrel system at the brewpub.
our 2019 GABF Gold Medal winner was actually an old Baltic Porter recipe that we had that our brewer tweaked a bit.

We generally sell everything that we brew be it a test or not. How they do it I cannot say but there is very little that ever just goes to waste.

 

[David O]

I am an ex-home brewer, and there is a product that is out now called Clarex that is used in the fermenting process to drop out proteins that cause haze in beers. This has the added benefit of making beers NEARLY gluten free. I don't know how it will work if you have celiac....and I probably would not try it, but if you have gluten sensitivity, you can probably get away with drinking beer from brewers that use Clarex to clarify their beers. Something to look into.

Thanks for the info but I really do not see us getting into the gluten free arena anytime soon. I am sure our brewer is aware of this product but I will let him know about it just in case