Austin’s Best Breweries of 2024, Power Ranked!

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It’s the ninth rotation around the sun for our annual Austin Chronicle Brewery Power Rankings, and this is the year we finally heed to your demands for satisfaction.This is the year we nail it, folks; shant be any disagreements whatsoever in the comments sections webwide, including amongst the hatin’ ass haters over on Reddit. Y’all need a hug. Also, you’re welcome!

To add to the value that you, loyal Chroniclings, have given to our sizzling mediocre takes over the last eight POWER RANKINGS, we mined each and every sentence we committed to script like cryptocurrency from the very taproom of the brewery we were writing about. Apart from being super meta, we thought it would lend the healthiest, most up-to-the-minute voice we could muster by being present in the moment instead of relying on our damaged memories, which have been famously ventilated by nine years of drinking all the beer in Austin just to bring you our Top 25. So, if anyone needs to know the passwords to 30+ taprooms across the 4,300 square miles and the six counties within the Austin MSA, hit us up. They’re predictably some variation of the most popular beer the brewery makes, how cold you should drink that beer (really goddamned cold!), or an inside joke that only the co-founders and their first brewer (like 10 brewers ago) sent to each other’s LG slide phones in the mid-Aughts. And yes, one of those counties we traipsed across includes Blanco County, which famously incorporates Real Ale, an Austin-adjacent brewery, but also one that is significantly Austin-aligned, so piss off all you Bexar County boozebags getting all stampy-footed when this rag considers ranking an equidistant brewery to your silly Sewer Walk. We know you are hate-reading this.

During our 365-day, 8,760-hour happy hour, we couldn’t help but notice fewer folks drinking in the Hill Country than there used to be, preferring their friendly neighborhood beer maker down the road making clean, simple, low ABV lagers to the 400-acre destination brewery/compost farm recycling used teabags into an Estonian koduõlu with mango peels. We still love all of that hoity, complicated brew, but it was a bit alarming to see some of our favorites out in the countryside operating in a permanent off-season. And yet, effortlessly cool and intimate, urban-style taprooms heavy on pilsners and air conditioning were definitely in style at any moment. We felt that. We too like drinking 5.1% lagers on heavily padded vinyl stools in a taproom that feels like a meat locker. This is the basic and new post-pandemic era of craft beer. Needless to say, those sorts of optics made an impact in our rankings.

In fact, our POWER RANKINGS scorecard acknowledges several factors that all extrapolate to a final 2024 lore that each brewer is free to flash about town like a fresh tattoo. They are: the brewery’s consistency with the quality of their core/mainstay lineup (35%); the brewery’s execution of their taproom/biergarten (25%); the creativity of their seasonal and limited beer lineup (15%); the brewery’s revisitability factor (10%); the brewery’s 2024 collection of beer awards and honors (10%); and finally, important nuances and intangibles like a notable food truck, great branding, live music, live art, or heck, live animals (5%). This year many of our Top 25 brought home medals from the third annual Texas Craft Brewers Cup – hosted by the Texas Craft Brewers Guild – showcasing the quality of Texas’ craft beer industry with 956 beers made by 170 participating breweries at the competition. A lot of people are saying that Texas’ apex-level beer is being made and served right here in the Austin(ish) area, so be sure to visit and support them with all your children and dogs in tow! Everyone loves that. And with that said, these are Austin(ish)’s best breweries, POWER RANKED!

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Dropped from Rankings: Nomadic Beerworks & Outpost (16), Flix Brewhouse Flagship (18), Family Business (21), Oasis, TX Brewing Co. (24), Hopsquad (25)

Just Missed: Roughhouse (81.1 pts) Winners of three Untappd (holy smokes, that's still around?) Beer App Community Awards for Pecan Praline Bock, Treeform Farmhouse IPA aces, this one), and Smoke Rings smoked beer, Roughhouse has been confidently crushing a whole spectrum of amazing brews out in wilderness of Hays County for half a decade. Flix Brewhouse Flagship (81 pts) Flix has maxed their “taproom experience” score because, let’s face it, viewing nostalgiacore films like Transformers One and Homeric masterpieces lasting a third of your Sunday are a thousand percent more satisfying when fresh, in-house pilsner is involved (and at a much more reasonable rate than our other local beer-pushing cinema houses). This Austin-area movie chain has even grabbed some national attention for Cosmic Spice (silver medal) and Kutia Stout (gold!) at the U.S. Open Beer Championship this past July. Nomadic Beerworks & Outpost (81 pts) The Nomadics got the nod for “Best Family Outpost” in our 2024 Best of Austin awards, and together with some spectacular house beers, rotating food pop-ups, free live music, and plenty of running room for the wildlings (Sunset Valley location), these dual breweries are an underrated smash for families looking to hang without judgment. Vacancy (79 pts) Silver medalists at the 2024 Texas Craft Brewers Cup for their best-selling house lager, Vacancy Classic, this diminutive, retro-styled brewery set inside a glorified toll booth at South Austin’s The Yard features an impressive focus on Austin’s beer palate: lagers and approachable IPAs. Vacancy’s Sunrise Snorkel snagged the brewery a second silver in the Session IPA category. Obsidian Brewing (78.1 pts) A handsome taproom done no justice by being housed in a dull Leander strip center, Obsidian features an excellent spectrum of house beers for a beginning brewery. Obsidian’s Coors OG yellow belly dupe, Banquet Hall, is a masterpiece of 1980s tube-sock skeeball-dad and 2008 ironic hipster all in one glass.

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Trend Tracker: The “AC Power Rankings Trend” moves from oldest to newest. GREEN indicates a brewery moved up in the rankings; RED indicates a brewery moved down; and BLUE indicates a new entry or no movement. Looking for previous Power Rankings? See 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Part I and Part II, and 2017.

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Top of the Hops IX

25 | Bear King

2024 Score: 81.3
AC Power Rankings Trend: NEW ENTRY

If I lived in Marble Falls and Bear King was my only local brewery I’d be pretty damned thrilled about it. Strangely enough, Marble Falls features a couple other standout beer makers in Save the World and Double Horn breweries, but in our very accurate opinion, Bear King delivers the total experience of small town Americana, like the Tom Petty of Marble Falls’ Traveling Wilburys of Brewpubs. And because our jam is a solid pilsner, we always defer to Pistol Grip, Bear King’s nod to German-style pilsner that pairs fantastically with the brewery’s pork schnitzel, pretzels, and their array of street tacos (if you’re as into the whole “conjunto” thing as much as we are). For the hop perverts out there, Bear King’s IPAs do a lot of the store’s heavy lifting, particularly in Foggy Eyes, the brewery’s mainstay New England IPA. Lady Wood Spruce Tip IPA, which struck bronze at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup, is a piney treat to down a burger with on the semi-enclosed porch while ignoring the Cowboys as they commit sports malpractice on one of the many screens displayed around the pub.

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24 | The Draught House

2024 Score: 81.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 18, NR, 23

We know y’all LOVE some Draught House content; so do we. After all, this is an adored Austin institution that has served local casquette-wearing dads and fondue-night moms since 1969 (and subsequently brewing since 1995). It's a place that must be protected by Austinites at all costs! The more recent years have seen DH transform from London-style public house, to American parking lot tailgate party, and then Frankenstein’d back to some variation of a Merseyside beer den and outdoor German Oktoberfest sometime around the pandemic reboot. We loved that for us because we adore being engaged with the Rosedale neighborhood while drinking fresh pints of NutBush Extra Special Bitter, Trophy English pale ale, and their criminally overlooked Vanilla porter. But Josh Wilson’s beers rotate so often, we rarely go on a bender of one particular style and defer to whatever random recipe he happens to have cooked up in his pint-sized beer mill.

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23 | Hi Sign

2024 Score: 81.6
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 15, 13, 15, 17, 13, 19

That every music festival impresario, coffee shop baron, and Etsy crafter in town uses Hi Sign as their de facto boardroom, sucking small bits of charm from the taproom with all that tote bag industry talk, does nothing to discourage my enthusiasm for one of the great neighborhood joints in town and a sit-down with a 4 o’clock Wooderson IPA. Hi Sign makes two of our weekday fridge staples: Violet Blueberry Blonde and that alright, alright, alright Wooderson beer. Could Hi Sign soften that concrete-bonded biergarten a bit, sure. But you won’t find a chillier taproom in town from which to enjoy a mid-afternoon Champions League match and a Hi-C Hazy IPA, the Samsung Galaxy S24 to Electric Jellyfish’s iPhone 14 Pro.

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22 | Yokefellow

2024 Score: 81.8
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 18, NR, NR, NR

Garrett Crowell’s part-time nanobrew side-project, Yokefellow, is as much a delicious collection of spectacular beers as it is a mononym for his mysterious alter ego, like Dntel or Eels or some other imaginative creator that won’t give us as much new material as the public demands. While we absolutely LOVE Yokefellow’s brews, we simply aren’t given enough of it to satiate our craving. Heck, Yokefellow doesn’t even have its own dedicated taproom, instead defaulting to the very classy, very demure, very Hill Country-esque saloon Nice N Easy over in Johnson City, which exclusively pours Crowell’s beers. The good news is that Nice N Easy is a brilliantly executed drinking space, a cross between Texas frontierism and boutique hotel lobby. As of this publishing, the tap list features a whopping three Yokefellow beers on tap: Dath, a brown ale – a personal favorite – featuring tamarind, turbinado, and chicory, clocking in at a trim 4% ABV; Out the Window, Yokefellow’s vision of a pale English beer; and an Extra Special Bitter collab by power throuple Yokefellow, Hold Out Brewing, and haunting songsmith Bonnie Prince Billy called Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You. Extra. Special. Bitter, indeed.

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21 | Frontyard

2024 Score: 82.1
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 18, 22

Frontyard is the acoustic bop to Meanwhile’s amped-up, live-wire version of the same song. Let’s say you’re feeling more like vibing to the lo-fi aura of Kurt Cobain’s “All Apologies” recorded in Hell’s Kitchen instead of its chaotic eight-minute counterpart from the Reading Festival in England but you still want the same jam; pop into the Meanwhile:Unplugged of family-friendly breweries for chill time at the nine-acre Frontyard Brewery instead. Two-time champs as “Best Brewery” according to readers of Austin Monthly magazine and current “Best Brewery” title holders given by the readers of the Austin American-Statesman, Frontyard has been improving their extraordinary lineup of core beers since its launch in 2020, including a very sexy Mexican lager weighing in at a very sensible 4.3% ABV and their Honey Blonde ale that somehow bends the space-time-taste continuum to 1998 when honey blondes were all the rage. Frontyard brought home silver at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup in February for their mainstay hazy IPA and a bronze for Coffee Milk Stout in the Chocolate and Coffee Beer category.

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20 | Central Machine Works

2024 Score: 82.6
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ NEW ENTRY

I’m a dark beer elitist, so I love breweries that reject the claim that dark ales and dark lagers are to be banished to the cooler months. Not here at CMW, where this promising upstart features a spectacular rarity: Kentucky Common, a roasty, peppery, dark cream ale made popular in Louisville during the mid-1800s. We absolutely dug it in that brisk, 199 degree September heat. But CMW is also on that refreshing lager tip, too. The brewery’s Vienna lager, American light lager, and German pilsner hold up to some of the city’s finest. Still, whenever we’re tinkering around the CMW taproom with its 1940s industrial modernist aesthetic, we defer to the beer that makes us feel like B-29 pilots back from a big arial victory. Go on, crack an icy cold Kentucky Common with your pals! Now in snappy, to-go cans. They’re real humdingers!

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19 | The Brewtorium

2024 Score: 82.9
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 15, 16, 14, 17, 15

Now, here’s a place where I spend negative 3.7 seconds thinking about what to drink first from the brewery’s massive beer board. Each visit begins with an Electric Lederhosen, one of the great core beers of Austin. And if I time my visit just right, my second order will be Schwarzengiggles, The Brewtorium’s spectacularly roasty black lager that emulates that forgotten mug of coffee you left in the microwave after you had to do kid shit all morning. So damned satisfying. The Brewtorium’s beer menu has expanded rapidly and deliciously to feature a half dozen lagers at any one time and several interesting variations of IPAs. We really enjoy Long Weekend Lager, a michelada-style dupe that tastes as joyful as its namesake, and Flamingo Bomb Hazy IPA that features notes of coconut and peach. We will die on the hot take hill that The Brewtorium has the best food menu of all Austin breweries, beginning with the truly flawless Joe vs. the Avocado Bowl (well, there is one flaw, I want a bowl quadruple in size, haw, haw) and ending with a fantastic beer cheese for all your dipping needs. The Brewtorium brought home gold at this year’s Texas Craft Brewers Cup for their pale lager Das Daydrinker and placed third for the best fruited IPA in Texas with Mango Thee Stallion at the Untappd Beer App awards.

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18 | Southern Heights

2024 Score: 83
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 9, 9, 7, 9, 11, 14, 17

Southern Heights is the hottest taproom in Austin, and we hope you interpret that literally. Not great for the summer months, no, but hey, when summer smash cuts to fall, and fall into winter, count us in for some Sweater Weather American Imperial Stouts and ALL of the thick-n-hearty hazy IPAs that Southern Heights deals to us with absolute perfection. And hell, if you aren’t goose-down soft like I am, why not beat back Austin’s heat with a pillowy, mid-range ABV, IPA anyway? Those delicious little shits add real scar tissue to the soul after they melt your face off. Yep, Southern Heights continues to stunt on the other IPA hoes in town with the likes of their inimitable Tahitian Dreamin’ and taproom smash hit, It’s Probably Awesome. You just might wanna crack a window first, get some air circulating.

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17 | Batch

2024 Score: 85.2
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 14, 19, 22, 13

We’ve been huge fans of Batch from the get-go; comfort carbs and interesting beers to boot? Heck, sign us up! But ever since the relaunch of the beer program last year pivoting from beers on the chunkier side to light and refreshing lagers, we’ve become fully obsessed. We said it last year, but like true dads, we like to repeat ourselves whenever we’re right: If you can get here in time for a schwarzbier and a cinnamon roll before they sell out, you’ll stay regular all week, er, we mean you’ll be completely satisfied all day! And at our advanced age, that’s as great a Sunday hangover cure as one can get. Texas Craft Brewers Cup bronze medalists for their house Pilz in the longest-named category, Session and Standard German and Czech Lagers, we salute our newest lager-knowin’ overlords. Yasss, Batch.

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16 | Acopon Brewing

2024 Score: 85.4
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ NEW ENTRY

We are pickier about what local joints we trust to serve us our helping of European football matches than we are about who we vote for in November, so this summer Acopon got our attention by dishing out full-throated British commentary on their big telly along with an amazing spectrum of English-style cask ales (FOUR ENGINES!) to match our hooligan spirit. We nearly died with ecstasy. This seven-year-old British-style brewpub sizzles with exciting styles from across the pond, and although few could mistake England’s brewing history or their football team with anything exciting, Acopon delivered to the football watching throngs (like 20 people) top bins of Dark Mild, Special Bitter, Golden Ale, and an ESB. If that doesn’t make you wanna win promotion from lagerboi to caskman, then it’s time to rethink your priorities and give Acopon a visit. With a gold medal from February’s Texas Craft Brewers Cup for Karnstein in the Amber and Dark Beers category and an Untappd community award for the best Bitter Session beer for Gaspipes, we can even forgive that these nice folks are actually Man City punters.

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15 | Real Ale

2024 Score: 86.1
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 2, 6, 6, 9, 11, 10, 4, 12

The bliss of drinking an OG Full Moon Rye IPA in Real Ale’s boisterous taproom lousy with grandparents and their gnarly grandkids is worth the drive from Austin out to the middle of the cypress forest just to scratch that nostalgic itch. While you’re there, have a pour of that fabled, yet bottle-endangered Phoenixx double ESB. And you know what, all that Blakkr black IPA isn’t gonna drink itself. No amount of farty-paw paws and hip grandmas in their Veja V-10s digging into their Kibou fanny packs for applesauce pouches will keep us away from getting some of Real Ale’s most legendary beers that are seemingly mere weeks from retirement. We like to say that Real Ale has discontinued more hits than other breweries have had hits, period. Ask yourselves: Have you ever had a bad beer by Real Ale? Nope. Cruzer Kolsch is the latest Real Ale beer to be recognized as a real belter, taking bronze at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup this year, and Hans’ Pils, the 28-year-old brewery’s flagship beer, is still a big act in town and throughout Texas. You can rely on a Hans’ if you ever find yourself stuck in Abilene. Perhaps a Swifty Pale Ale or Crispy Business helles sixer might find its way into an Allsup’s cooler. That’s quality you can trust.

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14 | Fast Friends

2024 Score: 86.4
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 20

Not only is FF figuratively the most overlooked brewery in town, but it might also be literally the most overlooked brewery in town, seeing that it’s on the city’s agenda to swallow this brewery with a one hundred year I-35 reconstruction plan and decorate it with the orange construction barrels of boondoggle shame. Despite its awkward location, however, FF is throwing heaters out there with outstanding beers like Fritz German Pilsner, Sup Y’all IPA, and Vadr Dark Czech Lager. FF swiped a silver medal at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup with Red IPA Silent Laughter in the Specialty Hop category and recently, the brewery began farming tall boys of their mainstay beers – Mucho Gusto Mexican Lager, Matamata NZ Hazy IPA and Sup Y’all West Coast IPA – out to local beer stores and H-E-B, which is fantastic news for fans of the brewery, but we’ll miss our rations of their phenomenal Jala Pep pizza when sitting on our front porch instead of in the taproom. Also, their beer logo freakin’ slaps.

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13 | Lazarus 1 & 2

2024 Score: 87.1
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 20, 16, 10

Last year, Lazarus set the Austin pilsner scene ablaze with (not ONE, but) TWO pilsner golds at GABF for both their Bohemian-style pilsner, Dark Horse, and their seminal flagship beer, Prodigal Pils. Prodigal Pils continued that winning tradition in 2024 by sweeping the second annual Pils-Off championship sponsored by craft beer joint (and supremely understated date-night hot spot) Hopfields. That's a damn fine contest to win, presumably judged by a panel of real lager professionals. But hand to Sabnock, the entire beer menu at both Laz 1 and Laz 2 dazzles with quality bangers up and down the beer list: Thunderpup Session IPA, Amandus Belgian Strong Golden Ale, and their rye IPA collab with local whiskey firebrand Fierce Whiskers. Austin Monthly’s 2024 “Best Brewery” according to the magazine's readers, both Laz 1 and Laz 2 have featured over 70 unique beers this fiscal year, so there will likely be something tasty for your delicate palate up on the wall. Find the perfect complement with Lazarus’ outstanding slate of northern Mexican tacos.

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12 | Austin Beerworks & Sprinkleworks

2024 Score: 87.6
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 3, 5, 4, 1, 3, 4, 9, 6

Now that Austin Beerworks’ Sprinkle Valley franchise has been in operation for over a year, we address the aged query: Was the sequel as good as the original? No. But let’s be fair, ABW1 is Empire and ABW2 is Jedi. No. Wait. ABW1 is Toy Story 3 and ABW2 is Toy Story 4. Hmm, no. Erm, ABW1 is Look Who’s Talking and ABW2 is Look Who’s Talking Too. Okay, uh, let’s workshop that one a little more. Let’s just agree: OG ABW is simply one of the highlights of the Austin beer experience, an icon of the Austin beer culture and conduit to the newbie craft beer transplants becoming full-on local beer snobs. It’s the taproom you take eager out-of-towners to on stop number one. Sprinkleworks doesn’t quite spark the same warm vibez and beer board options as ABW1, but knowing the tenacity of ABW as a brand, we know a spectacular vision is in the mail (heck, they did insinuate a lazy river at one point). Still, we continue to guzzle the eternal Pearl Snap by the kiloliter and make plenty of tummy space for delightful seasonals like Acoustic Metal Czech-style dark lager (our favorite rotational beer this year) and the award-winning Super Awesome helles. And we still get amped for the annual Sputnik Oatmeal Coffee Stout release like it’s Rex Manning Day. ABW scored a brace at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup with a bronze for Flavor Country and a silver for Killer Strains Golden Sour Ale. Co-owner Adam DeBower was also honored as the 2024 “Ambassador of Craft Beer” by the Texas Craft Brewers Association.

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11 | Jester King

2024 Score: 89
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 4, 2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 4

There was a hot hangin’ minute where the only place to access Jester King’s world-class fruited sour ales was the outer reaches of the Far West Austin farmhouse brewery itself. But now we’re living in a golden age, baby, and we’re seeing fresh Jester King’s brews just about everywhere in town, including H-E-B; obvious reparations for limiting that coveted liquid to the damned unincorporated territories of Central Texas. Needless to say, we’ve enjoyed the easy availability of Jester King’s canned lagers in four packs, like their Japanese rice lager and their helles, and we still get thrilled when we see a legend like Fēn Táo out in the wild (back again in 2024!). CultureMap rated Jester King as their Tastemaker Winner for “Brewery of the Year” and readers of online mag Craft Beer and Brewing voted Jester King as their favorite sour or wild ale brewery in the world ahead of wild fermentation giants like Russian River (2), Cantillon (3), Jolly Pumpkin (5), de Garde (6), and 3 Fonteinen (8). Readers also declared Jester King their 15th favorite small brewery in the U.S., while closer to home, SPON Three Year Blend took home gold from this year's Texas Craft Brewers Cup. We’re looking forward to the moment when locals flock out of their own asses and back to this destination brewery to rub elbows with the wide-eyed tourists making pilgrimages to a mecca of craft beer.

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10 | Prost Alehouse

2024 Score: 89.8
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ NEW ENTRY

We decreed Prost Alehouse as the Best New Brewery in our Best of Austin issue last June, and we continue to be completely satisfied with our opinion – and with Prost’s commitment to dark lagers, most notably Finish Line schwarzbier, the brewery’s bedrock beer. The taproom itself feels like someone from the old country came and set it up brick-by-brick and then started shoeing horses in it. It feels a thousand years old and each plank of wood creeks like ancient stonecutters were rolling old barrels of beer on it for the monthly meeting of the Secret Order of Freemasons. Now there’s a half dozen flatscreens just for sports. Yay progress! With up to 19 beers on tap, a newly expanded family friendly patio and playscape, and a kickass Mexican hamburguesa truck, Prost is bursting at the hinges with both deeply satisfying beers and the potential for so many more interesting lagers in the tanks.

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9 | Vista

2024 Score: 90.9
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 11, 12, 11, 13, 10, 14

Vista is a living piece of history. What history, you may ask? My chat history of all the times I’ve texted people who care very little that my favorite beer in town is Dark Skies black pilsner, a light, roasted, and refreshing dark lager that goes mach 5 on my tastebuds. Such a decree should be shouted from the balconies of the Domain, I say. But nobody ever does. Well, the fine folks over at the U.S. Open Beer Championship cared enough to award my jam the bronze medal for American-Style Dark Lagers in 2024 (to pair with the gold they awarded it in 2018). Dark Skies was also bestowed a Good Food Award by the Good Food Foundation, which honors excellence in food and beer. And though Vista is only six years old, it feels ingrained into the culture of Austin beer with its modern interpretations of farmhouse style beer, like Zenith oak-aged petit saison and Hive Mind honey ale. Vista’s franchise lambic-style ale, Stonewall with peaches, snagged a silver at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup. We suggest you fire one up in their gorgeous taproom, which is the Austin brewery antidote for the same-old, same-old taproom fatigue: leather, wood, stone, steel, long paned glass doors, and all the softening tapestries necessary to feel like you just want to live here and drink Dark Skies all day. That’s what I do!

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8 | Pinthouse Brewing

2024 Score: 91.9
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1, 2, 8

Green Battles IPA isn’t the most famous Pinthouse beer, but it’s certainly the most decorated beer for this multi-store IPA-making powerhouse. Green Battles continues to rack up big-time dubs with its massive hop profile and tropical tang, winning a 2024 World Beer Cup gold medal in the American Style Strong Pale Ale category to go along with its Phelps-esque neckline of numerous medals from highly respected showcases. We also cannot deny that Electric Jellyfish has not only become ubiquitous as the default go-to beer in town but has iconically become ascribable by only two letters: EJ. That’s when you know it’s made it to the elite ranks of monogrammed towel status: MJ … KD … NPR … EJ. Further, Pinthouse continues to rotate their beer menu with a lineup of weapons-grade IPAs like Training Bines, Bailing Room, and what we believe should be the most coveted IPA in town, Fully Adrift. And Pinthouse still has these fools out here lining up for hype releases like Emilio Triple Hazy IPA and Jaguar Shark Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout. You know what? It’s still worth it. Readers of Craft Beer & Brewing elected Pinthouse as their sixth favorite Small Regional Brewery, up three spots from last year’s rankings, while the Statesman crowned them as the Community Choice Award Winner for Best Beer Selection for a Restaurant/Bar. And even if they continue expanding their storefronts and taking the best item off the food menu (Cheeseburger pizza, we hardly knew ya *weep*), the Burnet store – our OG taproom – still makes it feel like the glory days of Austin beer, back in 2015. Thanks for keeping it real Pinthouse, despite all the trillions in crypto earned off stadium EJ!

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7 | The ABGB

2024 Score: 92.7
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 8, 1, 1, 5, 6, 7, 12, 11

When you find yourself at the ABGB, you gotta start with the basics: a Hell Yes Helles (bronze medalist at the 2024 World Beer Cup), an Industry Pils, and if you’re feeling plucky enough for a third at Friday happy hour, a Rocket 100 pre-prohibition pilsner, a prickly nightcap that hits the spot. The ABGB, candidly, is the most comfortable brewery in town with its approachable menu of low-ABV, easy-drinking lagers and unfussy list of pizza pies to engage all that tranquil beer. There is plenty of room to spread out with companions, and nooks to slip into when you just want to stay untroubled by the outside world while swiping at your phone. And if you stay into the evening, you’ll be serenaded by a local band. All of that while getting to drink some of the best lagers available in the entire country. But don’t just listen to us – the readers of Craft Beer & Brewing selected the ABGB for their “Favorite Lager Brewer in the U.S,” list, the only brewery in Texas to make the cut. And locally, the ABGB was selected by the readers of the Austin American-Statesman as the Community Choice Award Winners for Best Brewpub/Brewery in town. There is simply no reason to stray once you’ve planted yourself at the ABGB.

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6 | Zilker

2024 Score: 93.1
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 7, 6, 5, 5, 5, 7

The Premier League in the UK has a “Big Six” of its most successful football clubs synonymous with triumphs, financial prosperity, and trophies (not you, Arsenal). This is where the BIG SIX of Austin breweries begins, with the magnificent Zilker Brewing Co., and with this, we anticipate that Power Rankings for the foreseeable future will be the top quarter of this Top 25 battling it out for citywide dominance. These Big Six epitomize the height of the city’s most delirious lager games and most gratifying taproom experiences. The nine-year-old Zilker is one of those ultra-peaking breweries, confirming their rise to the top with one of the city’s most iconic beers: Icy Boys Light Lager, gold medalist in the American and Light Lager category at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup and 36-time champs as our weekly choice for fridge beer. They boxed it in an 18-pack, too, and called it the Icy Cube. Cute. Zilker is Austin’s scruffy heartthrob, one of only a few representatives of the urban taproom in town. They’re also pouring a lot of passion into making a seriously interesting seasonal and rotational beer menu, with corkers like Primos Mexican lager, Trouble Maker IPA (an Alpha King Challenge Top 20 beer for the most balanced and drinkable IPAs in the U.S.), and Andy’s Beer Euro pils. Then there’s my fall crush: Future You dark lager, just waiting to douse my tummy full of hot chicken snacks from omnipresent bird flickers out front, Spicy Boys.

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5 | Live Oak

2024 Score: 93.2
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 1, 3, 8, 8, 7, 6, 3, 5

I’m not gonna say anything that you don’t already know about Live Oak. They get their peculiar ideas, flip on the ol’ lager machine, and the lager machine goes brrrr: Out comes an array of interesting rarities choreographed into some of the finest German lagers made by Americans: leichtbiers, grodziskies, weisser rauches, and kleinesbiers. And if that lineup sounds like the Bavarian Kegenbahn All-Stars to you, well, we suggest it’s time for a visit to the shady biergarten under the flightpath. Now in its 27th year of setting the standard for Austin craft beer, Live Oak is at the age where they prioritize their health and long-term well-being. When you are as consistent as Live Oak, you can coast on classics while you have a lil fun with the smoke machine out back: Pre-War Pils (consistently badass), Hefeweizen (consistently iconic), Big Bark (consistently underrated), OG Pilz (consistently in our fridge). Rated the ninth favorite Small Regional Brewery by the readers of Craft Beer & Brewing, Live Oak took home two medals at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup in 2024, Silver for Gold in the German Pilsner category and Gold for Hefeweizen in Wheats and Ryes. If you are a disc golfer – and praise Jesus, I am not one of them – you can dork off pretty hard here with a round on their course and a refreshing lager while you do it. Just know we’ll be judging your battle lycra from the taproom.

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4 | St. Elmo(s)

2024 Score: 93.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 7, 7, 5, 4, 4, 3, 7, 9

Even though the brand-new St. Elmo 2 on Springdale is still in preseason training, they’re out here looking like the ‘85 Bears, a charismatic powerhouse looking to dominate the Austin beer scene with a strong board of interesting clean beers like Vaughn German pilsner (silver medalist at the 2024 U.S. Beer Open), Dad American lager, and (the best beer at the wedding of the coolest couple you know) Carl Kölsch. Carl is also the best matchday tallboy in the coolers at Q2 Stadium, custom designed for dimming the frustration of playing out of the back with a shitty midfield! St. Elmo’s OG the Yard location still slaps, too. There is no better brewery entrance in town than that of St. Elmo’s diminutive building and that first hit of grain mash wafting from the brewhouse as you walk toward the taproom. It’s like the Fresh Baked Cookies candle at an open house. I’ll take three houses, please! Except with beer. St. Elmo also boasts one of our favorite walls of IPAs in both regular and hazy; one in particular, Canopy double dry hopped IPA, makes our cold hearts race with notes of coconut, peach, and mango. The brewery has raked in a number of awards this season with Carl taking home a bronze from the International Beer Awards in the Kolsch category, a gold for May in the Helles Bock category, and another gold for Baby in the Barrel-Aged Strong Ale category. Baby also grabbed a silver at the U.S. Beer Open. They deserve a gold for those taproom smells too.

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3 | Hold Out

2024 Score: 94.8
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 10, 9, 11, 2

Once the lights went on both literally and proverbially for this Downtown-adjacent brewery, the glow has only beamed brighter and brighter. Shredders-only rule their beer wall, served in the most appealing and proper glassware, and the entire folio brewed to complement their extraordinary food menu populated with some of the most difficult choices in Austin dining. Will I get the Choriqueso Burger or a Comeback Chicken Sandwich? Should I embrace this dining experience with a side of roasted beets or, like, a whole other Chana Masala Frito Pie entree? Do I wash this shame down with a Nice-n-Clean pre-prohibition lager or a Dominguitos Mexican Lager? And at the risk of getting canceled by every other brewery, we’ll die with the hot take that Hold Out is the vibey-est taproom and biergarten in town, sharing karmic space with its more elegant sister, Better Half Coffee and Cocktails, which brings both a gruff and polished element to the entire compound. Hold Out nabbed two medals from the Texas Craft Brewers Cup, a bronze for Impeachment cream ale in the Pro-Am category and a Gold for Neu! Pilz. Y’all go grab all those other good beers, folks, leaving more Ol Gil Euro pils for its number one fan. Me.

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2 | Oddwood

2024 Score: 95.6
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 10, 10, 8, 8, 8, 3

Oddwood is on a heater. Critics choice at the 2024 Pils Off hosted by Hopfields for Pro-Tip pilsner, number one rated oatmeal stout in the U.S. for Lord of this World by the dorks at Untappd beer app, and the Texas Craft Brewers Cup gold medal winner for Ethics & Standards IPA, making it, by default, THE best IPA in Texas against 93 other statewide entrants. That’s the Oddwood guarantee! What’s cooler is that it’s entirely possible that NONE of those are Oddwood’s best beer. That would be Pool Dad, in my opinion, a Czech-style pilsner that snipes top cheddar all the way to glory. A real thirst destructor. Austin’s in the major leagues of lager after all. Beyond the beer, Oddwood hosts sizzling KG BBQ, the Egyptian-inspired,Texas-style BBQ food truck that is making people lose their shit over its unique greatness, the smoked lamb chops and bacon lamb ribs in particular. Imagine lucking into KG BBQ wrangling in additional patronage, just to find that your easy drinking beers are quite the perfect pairing to these rich, dense meats? It’s like accidentally auto-drafting Jayden Daniels onto your fantasy roster. Oddwood’s taproom is preposterously cozy, and its patios are forever boisterous on a weekend evening.

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1 | Meanwhile

2024 Score: 96.1
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 13, 12, 6, 1

Just like last year, Meanwhile is top of the table. The biggest of the BIG 6. The one place where, having to choose amongst a field of candidates, you bring the family; the out-of-town tourists; the game watchers; the craft beer enthusiasts; the only-sometimes-drinkers; the Comic Con nerds headed back to Orlando; the foodies; and so on. It’s a communal space for every niche and a place that has a spot on the compound for everyone to feel welcomed and comfortable. The taproom service and taproom/biergarten experience is second to no other spot in town, brewery or otherwise. And that’s before even getting to their wall of consistently creative, platinum-quality beers. Consider this: Of the 18(!) beers currently on Meanwhile’s tap wall as of this writing, eight are varying styles of lagers: a Czech-style dark lager, a smoked helles, their multi-award winning house pilsner. Nine others are a rainbow of IPAs: fresh hop, hazy, their multi-award winning West Coast IPA, Secret Beach. Meanwhile is the exemplar to which every other brewery with a little bit of roaming space should strive, a real ambassador to Austin’s cultural lifestyle of tired soccer dads and run-club moms and all of it catered by a slew of outstanding food trucks and a heavily shaded biergarten with a bonus 5v5 soccer pitch and a mid-yard playscape. Gold medalist for Left Handed Hummingbird in the Barrel & Wood Aged Beer category at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup, runners-up in the 2024 Pils-off with Meanwhile Pils, readers choice for “Best Place to Bring Kids” according to the readers of Austin Monthly, and title holders of “Best Playscape” in the Chronicle’s Best of Austin awards, Meanwhile is out here just showing every other brewery in town the bottoms of their shoes as they pull away from the competition. Well, here’s another one for your list, Meanwhile – you’re the best brewery in Austin!