I have lived in a lot of hot places: El Paso; Phoenix; the damp, camel’s buttcrack that is Austin By God Texas. It helps to have good beer and a recreational water source around, and only one of those places has both. For what it’s worth, beer fans and sweat-abolitionists have witnessed true greatness over the course of the last two decades in Austin when it comes to our cooling-down efforts. As we in this publication have mentioned many times, lager is king around these parts, and as any qualified Austinite would, we’ve taken to the crisp, satisfying drink with excessive pomp and cavalcade. We’ve talked about the giants of Texas lager many times ad nauseam: Live Oak, Oddwood, Austin Beerworks, Hold Out, Meanwhile, to name a few. But there is also a phony perception of a prestige gap between those mammoth breweries, those ones-of-one – and those that also make great beer, but don’t generate as much hype. Maybe it’s due to dorky branding, or geographic isolation, or, in one case you will see below, the lack of any traditional taproom at all.
Each brewery has the potential to contribute something cool to the beer scene in Austin: an iconic beer, a unique taproom experience, an anniversary party with an LCD Soundsystem cover band! But so many of them don’t make it to that point. In the last fiscal cycle alone, the market has taken from us true bangers like Beerburg, Humble Pint, and Hedgehog. Access to Q2 Stadium couldn’t save Oskar Blues, 4th Tap, Adelbert’s, or Circle (which also shuttered its brand-new taproom in Elgin for maximum pain). Friends & Allies, gone. Thirsty Planet, adios. Skull Mechanix, cross ’em off the list. The pandemic era was particularly brutal. Within a single year, Hops & Grain, the Brewer’s Table, and NXNW, all competitors in our annual Brewery Power Rankings list, were wiped off our pub crawl. Rumors of potential shuttering for some of the pillars of the Austin beer industry would make you blink in bewilderment.
There is a nesting doll of reasons why the craft beer market suffered over the last several years after decades of remarkable growth and promise, each problem stacking neatly into the next, before attempting to swallow the small-brew industry whole. Pandemic disruption still loiters about with production and sales in decline since 2020, a hangover from craft beer’s intense brewery growth rate that was never sustainable due to economic inflation and modern lifestyle trends toward healthier living, among other things. According to Bart Watson, the Brewers Association’s chief economist, brewer applications for selling beer in the U.S. grew by only 485 in 2023, the slowest gain since 382 applications were filed in 2011. He notes that brewery growth peaked in 2017 at +1,673. Other issues like supply chain disruptions, steel tariffs, ingredient shortages, and shelf space contraction have indiscriminately affected breweries of all sizes.
But we’ve seen the demise of important breweries before in Austin, notably the core four Downtown breweries that launched the entire state into a beermaking frenzy: Waterloo, the Bitter End, Copper Tank, and Lovejoys. The failure of those defunct establishments wasn’t so much the competition in a crowded market, but the general lack of quality in the product. With Austin’s second brewery wave emerging in the late Nineties with the debuts of platinum-grade breweries like Live Oak and Real Ale, Austin refocused on quality brewing to do the load management for a healthy and thriving beer scene – a sturdy reputation that Austin continues to nurture today. Now in its third wave of growth, Austin finds itself at a threshold of breweries that are struggling to find a foothold in a crowded market despite their quality. If you’re into a healthy and thriving beer scene, it’s likely time to explore all the options. Here are six suggestions to get you on that path. Besides, the Earth’s just getting hotter by the second, folks. Stay hydrated.
Slackers
Slackers leans heavily into the Gen X, 1990s microbrewery ambience, with a small, industrial-core taproom and open display of how the sausage – or beer, rather – is made in the production facility to the rear of the building. And while that description seems no different than two dozen other local outfits, Slackers offers a mixtape of Nineties staples like a brown ale (James Brown); a nitro milk stout (Milkman); a Belgian blonde (Beachcomber); and a traditional, piney IPA (The Situation) that complement their more modern styles on the tap wall. Back in the 1990s, microbreweries wanted to consolidate the American palate for beers like Newcastle Nut Brown Ale, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Guinness, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale into a single brewing program and taproom experience. Slackers reconstructs this experience, as if Lovejoys shook off most of the punk vibes, grew up and moved out to the burbs, got a couple of kids, an engineering job, and a Volkswagen Arteon. But they’re still hanging on to the “Austin Slacker” spirit and still get the ol’ board out at least twice a year.
This is not to say that Slackers is outdated. Not at all. There’s a reason nostalgia pings the emotional beef in your brain and the mention of “vintage” is cool while “antique” drools. That craving for the old days never wanes and only gets worse as you age. Slackers serves a core memory of some of the first taprooms we ever visited: uncomplicated, warm, approachable but explorative, exciting.
About the only update – an important one, though – is Slackers forgoing the traditional shaker pint glass in favor of much more drinker-friendly flared beer glass that lets the beer breathe and react properly in the glassware. Maybe the trouble with all the awful beer three decades ago was the shaker pint fucking up a decent blonde ale. It could have also been Lovejoys’ propensity for brewing in a filthy stockpot, but I digress. Glassware makes a difference, folks, and Slackers addresses that issue.
And now that Gen X is saddled with small children being gross all over the place at an alarming pace, it’s comforting to know that Slackers accommodates this kid-rearing issue with an indoor playspace. After all, we were raised in taprooms too, and look how we turned out! Drinking from the ladle at Lovejoys.
12233 N. FM 620 #204, Austin, slackersbrewing.com
Bear King
If Bear King had an Austin address, heck, maybe even a Dripping Springs one, the hype would be substantial for this 5-year-old brewing outfit out of Marble Falls. But it doesn’t. And truthfully, maybe the outlier ZIP code is what makes this true-to-style brewpub in the middle of the Texas Hill Country, like, 11% cooler. It’s also why I don’t groan too loudly when the family drags me out to Sweet Berry Farm twice a year to spring for overpriced pumpkins the size of refrigerators and bushels of self-harvested strawberries, because I know where my fruit-gathering ass will be ending up afterward: the front end of a Bear King IPA.
Remember those? IPAs? That’s the soup du jour out at Bear King. You can get other things and totally ignore the tap wall of IPAs knurling your fragile palate from afar and still have a really good experience, but for me, the IPAs are where Bear King beams. Foggy Eyes, Bear King’s mainstay New England IPA, is a house hazy and has more grit than Wade Boggs after a bucket of KFC. It’ll have you bangin’ a uey back to the bar for anutha, ay-oh!
Apart from the bittered beers, Bear King features a broad and alluring list of on-style options. The second beer is where I like to take my exercise around the tap wall. In Central Texas, a brewery is judged by the quality of its house pilsner, as is the margherita pizza for any Neapolitan pizza joint. This one meets and exceeds expectations: Pistol Grip Pils is a nice, sensible lager with a pilsner’s trademark bite. Meanwhile pecan porter Bird’s Word stacks up to the nutty, robust profile of some of the area’s best.
But perhaps my favorite feature of Bear King is the rapport that these excellent, potable choices have with their edible counterparts. Bear King’s burgers are a can’t-miss, particularly if the brisket-topped burger is being offered that day. Out of luck? The menu features up to eight tacos, including asada, pork belly, and birria. You’d think Texas would have normalized beer and tacos, but Bear King is one of only a handful of breweries who get it right.
Can’t take my word on any of this? Not confident in my opinion in this fuel economy? Sweet Berry Farm closed for the season? No worries. Bear King is widely distributed via cans in many Austin-area retailers, including H-E-B, with their vibrantly hued cans. But your patio won’t be as classy as theirs.
207 Ave. G, Marble Falls, bearkingbrewing.com
Obsidian Brewery
Obsidian operates in the space formerly known as Humble Pint Brewing, transitioning the brewpub’s origins from its California Pizza Kitchen-nostalgia era into a much more elegant beer and cocktail bar with warm interiors and handsome fixtures. And guess what? That makes the beer taste 81% better! So, if you are in the market for a beer, rest assured that my very intense research of all Leander breweries has led you here to Obsidian.
And where Obsidian dazzles, apart from its stunning brewery logo, is with its experimental beer program. Sure you can grab a Hazy IPA and a pizza pie or a Hero Way Hefe and a pretzel for a swell time. But if you want to be more layered than that, grab one of Obsidian’s more interesting selections, like Parkles Aussie-style sparkling ale, A Boy Can Dream strawberry hefeweizen, or the brewery’s imperial stout made with Round Rock Donuts, Donut Mess With Texas. My preferred flavor is Obsidian’s Japanese-style rice lager, Kokuyoseki, a perfectly dried-out and subtly sweet assist to my alley-oop of happiness. Such a fine delivery from this three-month-old brewery.
Like many breweries, the beer brings you in and the food seduces you to stay. Obsidian is mainly a pizza joint, but like their beer program, is as experimental as a sriracha Pop Tart. Again, one could opt for the Margarita pie, but the true joy is in the Bianco Basalt with garlic oil, burrata cheese, prosciutto, arugula, and hot honey; or La Birria, which is basically a taco on pizza dough – a pretty can’t-miss combination, if you ask me. Tired of eating pizza because you’ve got six kids and a time budget? Obsidian’s locally sourced bratwurst hit the spot, and truly, what’s better than a German wurst and a beer?
11880 Hero Way W. #208, Leander, obsidianbrewery.com
The Stay Put
As Rainey wheezes its way toward becoming another boring Downtown commercial district, the few single-family-home-turned-charming-bungalow-bar holdouts milk the clock for dwindling social entertainment in the southern edge of the neighborhood. And while I’m in no possible metric anything close to Rainey Street demographic or age (other than “creepy alone guy at the pub”), a good bar is a good bar, twentysomethings be damned. Sometimes one has to venture between the Cybertruck bros and 3K MicroInfluencer babez and enjoy a good pint. And a good pint is what the Stay Put offers.
For me, the 10-barrel brewhouse dazzles straight out of the starting gate with a Gucci Lucci Italian pilsner for times when I’m fortunate enough to catch it on tap. Their oft-rotating wall of house beers has included fun and interesting styles for all seasons: a Kölsch, dark lager, Citra pale, helles, and a particularly cheeky rye lager that always soothes my mood disorder. Of course, they offer IPAs in both normal and hazy, but, generally, I stick to their lagers because lagers are fun.
One can’t say enough about the architecture and design of any Rainey Street bar and the mint it must cost to throw all that grandiose vision together. That’s why it’s depressing to see such a unique bar district in America overwhelmed by glass and steel towers. The Stay Put is magnificently constructed as a basement rec room with horizontal natural wood paneling, TVs, and foosball. The exterior is hardy plank with a tin roof and an interconnected front and back yard with the requisite biergarten picnic tables and complimentary dog-friendly space. A fully habitable dwelling by any definition. You can’t live there, I’m assuming. The rent is too damned high. But you can spend all the free time you want.
73 Rainey St., Austin, stayputatx.com
Yokefellow
Yokefellow has been kicking ass for over four whole years in the Central Texas area, and you may not have even heard of the nano-sized brewery. They haven’t made it easy, really, brewing up to one pint at a time (not really) and distributing them to very limited outposts in the Austin area all without so much as a taproom to bring your smelly kids to. I knowww-uh!
But, reader, please believe that these beers are worth seeking out. Like a classic album in a record store vintage bin, you gotta get through a lot of the chaff before finding the nut. Brewer/co-owner Garrett Crowell (along with wife Adrienne Ballou) set out for sessionable beers made from raw ingredients that do all the talkin’. For Crowell’s beers, nuance is the feature that sets his wares apart from his counterparts. Take his latest offerent, Dath brown ale, for example, with notes of tamarind, turbinado, chicory, cellar, and perique, and clocking in at a very mild 4%. Crowell describes Dath as a “functional drink for a time of functional drinking” with a nice, round malt tone that drinks light but tastes dark.
The entire operation takes on this humble ethos: “Easy drinking beers of companionship,” Crowell says. “Simple expressions,” he continues. Crowell is part Jim Nantz and part Old Time Hawkey coming to you from the Cedar Swamp.
It’s somewhat hard to make out from any of the socials (and Crowell maintains the air of mystery), but Yokefellow releases one beer at a time to retailers with no discernible brewing schedule for future releases. And despite Yokefellow claiming no official taproom, the brewery and its brewhouse is quartered in Johnson City’s Nice N Easy saloon, a de facto taverna for multiple Yokefellow offerings. Currently, Nice N Easy features three of the brewery’s wares: Ilk ordinary beer, Wetsuit dark beer, and Friendbeer saison.
When you really think about it, you’ve been meaning to get out to Johnson City, haven’t you?
Johnson City, mostly. Wherever it may find you. yokefellowbeer.com
Prost Alehouse
Prost feels like the type of brewpub the Austin area should have for ages and fills a niche that other big-time beer cities have enjoyed for decades. Set inside a historic brick building in something called “downtown” Pflugerville, the two-story beer palace designed by renowned brewery architects OPA Design Studio is an homage to the multilevel brewpubs that characterize the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest. While Prost’s brewhouse churns on the ground floor, a stairwell leads thirsty patrons above to the taproom making way for a jarring visual of Prost’s main bar. It boasts an almost overwhelming number of beer selections on the tap wall for a brewery of its structural scale – 15 beers to be exact. Turns out, Prost’s 20-barrel brewing system is rather large for a small brewery without any retail distribution. Translation: lots of space for well-conditioned lagers and creative beer recipes. Prost leans heavily into the area’s German heritage, so all of these elements of the brewery work out masterfully.
Prost’s taproom feels warm and inviting with a variety of seating options, both bartop, high top, standard, and even balcony seating. Flat-screens dot the taproom in a somehow inconspicuous way, so it’s easy to avoid inadvertent screen gaze if your company is particularly interesting, but they’re still prominent enough that if the local sports team is a-playin’ it would be a boisterous setting to gather – if only the eastern suburbs weren’t so inundated with Aggies.
The beers are absolutely spot-on. Like any real Texan, I started with a dark lager, Prost’s schwarzbier called Finish Line, served properly in a dimpled mug (although if you’re feeling particularly immortal, you can opt for the 1-litre mug, which is also offered for many of Prost’s lagers). It’s a magnificent beer, up there with the best dark lagers in Texas: toasty, nutty, dry, with a bite of dark chocolate at the end. My second and third choices were Blitzbahn, Prost’s Bohemian-style pilsner, and the brewery’s ESB, because anytime an Extra Special Bitter is offered I’m having it. Both were smash hits, no notes, would drink again.
Below the balcony’s roost over P-ville’s rockin’ Main Street is Van’s Damn Tasty Tacos and Ronburguesas, incorporated into the Prost habitat so as to facilitate the enjoyment of all 15 house beers. And as any true day drinker knows, a good food truck is the rug that ties the room together: street tacos, gourmet hot dogs, a massive variety of cheese fries that look like good trouble on the tummy, and Mexican-style hamburgers. Anyone who’s ever eaten a Mexican restaurant burger knows that these are the planet’s superior burgers.
While Pflugerville can never be mistaken for Grand Rapids, this place sure as hell gives the same type of energy of a warm, jovial place to hang with family and goof off with your work friends after a shift at the ol’ walleye mill. Prost has terrific potential of being one of the Austin area’s best brewpubs.
115 E. Main St., Pflugerville, prostalehouse.com
This article appears in March 1 • 2024.