I recently found myself captivated by a Beer Advocate discussion entitled “At this very moment, what is the best brewery in Texas?” and as I find the topic both incredibly interesting and important, wanted to also post my response to that thread here as well:
“Best” is so, so subjective, and will change on a dime the next time a local brewery puts out an amazing or shitty beer. Of course, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t love organizing, categorizing and making lists of things, and I am as guilty as the next when it comes to enjoying subjective rankings. But it’s important to keep in mind that, like anything else, tastes continually evolve, and the brewing process itself — particularly among newer breweries, which Texas is replete with — can be highly volatile. I have the utmost respect for the brewers that have the temerity to dump an obvious bad batch, tweak a recipe (for the better), or consistently turn out a world-class example of a style.
The ranking of “best” is also tricky because your own personal preferences are going to come into play. While I’m sure everyone enjoys a wide variety of styles, I’m almost always going to view what I consider the best breweries through the lens of their hoppy beer portfolio. So while I have a ton of respect for a brewery like Jester King — who is almost certainly the most innovative in the state — they don’t make a single beer that I absolutely love (though I have not had AR yet, and that could very well change things). But, I’m glad as hell they exist, and you couldn’t have a conversation about best in the state without including them.
Quality control — both on the part of brewers as well as bars/retail establishments — freshness, and time spent on shelf aren’t issues unique to Texas, but certainly play a role in my assessment of certain beers as well, and something that I think occasionally gets lost when reviewing beers. If your first experience with a given IPA is a six-month-old version of it, then of course you are going to think it sucks (see pretty much everyone not located in Santa Rosa who tries Pliny the Elder for the first time).
Since moving down to Texas I’ve seen several local breweries take some huge steps forward, though ultimately I find a lot of the core beers somewhat lacking. As a hop head, there’s almost no reason for me to ever buy Karbach’s Hopadillo when fresh Sculpin is sitting on the shelf (unless I’m not in the mood to get gouged that day :)). I also find Hopadillo to be a very different experience on tap. I was excited for Weekend Warrior to get canned and hit year-round, but the sixer I grabbed tastes muted compared to the batch I tried last winter, and I’d imagine Karbach probably had to adjust the recipe to scale up, perhaps sacrificing some of the flavor notes I recall really enjoying when it was draft-only.
Yellow Rose seems universally agreed upon as the best IPA brewed in the state, and I was going to end this post with a statement to the effect of “once Lone Pint starts bottling/canning this thing, Texas will finally have a must-have packaged IPA,” although in noting some of the struggles I’ve experienced elsewhere — not to mention needing to monopolize entire Mosaic crops to satisfy demand — I’m not sure packaging Yellow Rose would actually be in Lone Pint’s best interest, at least from a QC perspective (financially, of course it would).
Halcyon Days 