How Do They Make Those Tasty Brews, Anyway?

Yeah, microbrews.

By now you've heard the usual spiel that goes along with every indie endeavor: Handcrafted goodness, a more personal touch, never have to worry about the lowest-common-denominator dumbing-down of taste that allows a corporation to appeal to the greatest (read: more ignorant) number of people, yadda yadda yadda.

Thing is: That shit is true.

And if the independent industry is local, then your patronage helps support your own community. And if it's a local food or drink-based industry, then there's the added quality of the product being so fresh that, sometimes, it can make your eyes water with tears of aficionado gratitude.

Right: What we were talking about: Microbrews.

Beer, in other words.

Specifically in this post, the excellent Belgian-style beers of the South Austin Brewing Company.

Actually, no, we're not going to talk about the excellent Belgian-style beers of the South Austin Brewing Company here. Because Jordan Weeks, master brewer and owner of the company, does just that himself – and shows you around the tanks and the various apparatus of beer-brewing – and provides generous examples of his beers and other (direct-from-Belgium) brews – as part of the Up & Down Tour the brewery offers, in conjunction with the coffee roasters of Casa Brasil, on the second Saturday of every month.

The knowledge you'll gain of the brewing process in general, and of the details and delights of Belgian beer in particular, is knowledge you'll be glad to have the next time you're getting ready to hoist a cold one; the just-bottled taste of the amber brilliance produced by Weeks and his crew might be exactly what you've been sadly yearning for since Pierre Celis sold his celebrated Hill Country brewery to the Miller Brewing Company back in the late '90s.

And this is just the second half, as we said, of the Up & Down Tour – where the beer will cool your palate and throttle back your caffeine overdrive after the folks of nearby Casa Brasil have schooled you on the bounties of the bean.

So: If you like your beverages carefully crafted and as fresh as possible,
if you like them created by local people with good taste and fierce professionalism,
if you'd like to learn what goes on during the whole, complex process … this, bud, is for you.