One Hell of a Party; an Amazing Brewery
Written: Nov 04 '00 (Updated Aug 15 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Amazingly technologically advanced brewery, real friendly people.
Cons: Miles and miles from any damned place that's civilized.
The Bottom Line: Even without Bocktoberfest, Spoetzl is worth the trip for a tour of this amazing brewery. With Bocktoberfest thrown in... Wow.
|
|
|
| beerfly's Full Review: Spoetzl Brewery |
She pulls back onto Main Street,
in her new Mercedes-Benz.
The road goes on forever,
and the party never ends!
You really oughta get to the Shiner Bocktoberfest some year. You and 30,000 other people, right? Sounds nutty, but these people are friendly. The bands are great (like Robert Earl Keen, who closed this year's fest: whoa), the food's pure Texas good eating (tamales, real barbecue, turkey legs, and some great Shiner sausage), and hey, man, the beer's Shiner Bock!
750 kegs of Shiner beer, baby. I walked the tap setup with the head brewer of the Gambrinus Corporation, the company that owns the Spoetzl Brewery (and imports Corona for Texas and the eastern half of the U.S.). Amazing: 50 taps, all pouring ice-cold Shiner. This guy's a fanatic about draft quality, and for a one-day fest, they've got a draft setup most bars would kill for.
The big seller over on the tap-line is Shiner Bock, a smooth-drinking dark "American bock" kind of beer, not too intimidating but with more guts to it than Bud or light beer. Shiner Blonde does okay, at about a tenth of Shiner Bock's sales, and the rest of the brewery output is made up of the surprisingly tasty and delicate Kolsch-style Summer Stock (of which I drank a powerful amount that hot afternoon), the wit-bierish Honey Wheat, and the mighty nice Winter Ale, a dunkelweizen, believe it or not (and the beer I went to when the sun went down).
The Yuengling of Texas? The Spoetzl Brewery (which almost everyone in Texas assumes is called the Shiner Brewery, but hey, it's understandable) is another surprisingly strong regional brewer. Considering that Corona money behind the brewery, maybe it's not so surprising. Corona brains, Corona distribution muscle, Corona money, some people would say this brewery is being forced down Texan throats.
I say, who cares? I absolutely do not give a rat's butt how Shiner has pulled this off (well, except in a professional, how-can-I-sell-an-article-on-this sense...). I'm just so happy to see another regional brewery taking on the nationals and clawing out a success. Shiner's over 200,000 bbls. a year, and that's good, these days. The Summer Stock, Honey Wheat, and Winter Ale are damn fine beers, though I don't touch Shiner Blonde with a stick, and Shiner Bock's an excellent drinking beer, especially in the new crazily huge 24 oz. bomber bottles.
But... Do you want to know how they did it? Then come inside this brewery, take the tour. Wow. This must be one of the most technologically advanced brewery in America, and I've seen a lot of them. The only one that comes close is Latrobe, in PA. I suppose the most amazing part is seeing the old brewery, used up until a few years ago. It's a relic, almost frightening, with an old, hand-hammered look to it.
No more. Spoetzl/Shiner is a gleaming all-copper brewhouse with a tile floor and huge windows, flanked by a full-bore analytical lab with a very talented and educated staff. It's a fully automated fermentation hall, elevated for tours and all button-pressing easy. It's high-speed bottling lines and advanced cleaning-in-place (CIP) systems, some of them so advanced that they are prototype, showplace systems for the manufacturers. Other brewers come to Shiner (that's the name of the town, by the way) to look at how they do things.
You should too. They're very friendly people, they're very smart people, and they sure know how to do a tour. So if you're anywhere near hill country, down by Austin or San Antonio, make the trip down to Shiner. It's a bit of a hike, but the good things are rarely easy. It's fun to come down during Bocktoberfest, but no matter when you do, be sure to poke around Shiner. There's a gas station out on the edge of town that has cold beer, a beer garden, live bait, ammunition (all kinds of ammunition), hot and cold running videos, and... the owner's a dentist. Like Robert Earl Keen sings it,
The road goes on forever,
and the party never ends!
Recommended:
Yes
Date Visited: October 2000
Tours Offered: Yes
Tasting cost, per person: $0
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
beerfly
|
|
Member: Lew Bryson
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 79 members
About Me:
One bourbon, one Scotch, one beer, eh? I'll take Kentucky Spirit, Scapa, and HopDevil.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2008 Shopping.com, Inc.