Spring in Texas: Beer Fest!

Texas, Travel, Wine Making & Home Brewing

Texas Beer Festival

We met up with my friend Erica and her husband downtown to celebrate all things Texas craft beer (read: to drink beer outside on a beautiful day) at Texas Beer Festival a couple of weekends ago. Dozens of craft brews, many of them from Texas – every style for every taste, from the easy-to-drink “intro” Alamo Golden Ale that my Bud Light-drinkin’ baby brother would actually drink to a wildy fragrant Chai Porter that Erica and I decided would make a killer cupcake. And frosting! But, you know, maybe just not… beer 😛

Texas Beer Festival

My husband seemed solidly unconvinced on the “cupcake + beer = successful bakery” business model.

Clearly, his glass was still half full.

Texas Beer Festival

If you’ve been around here for more than 5 minutes, you probably know that Jason and I are hobbyist craft brewers. We like to drink beer. We like to make beer. And we love to drink the beer that we’ve made.

Texas Beer Festival

Our latest project? I call her “Ruby Moon.” She’s a Belgian-style wit beer (the same style as Blue Moon, hence the awesomely creative name) that we infused with the zest and juice of Texas ruby red grapefruit.

Beer and ruby red grapefruit. They actually were kind of meant to be.

Texas Beer Festival

Our origins in craft brewing were very simple. We bottled our first wine the year before and wanted to do something a little different. Jason printed the description of a beer that he really liked from a brewery’s website, handed that piece of paper to the guy at our wine supply store, and 15 minutes later we had everything we needed to make beer. At home!

Jason’s favorite brew was our first, an agave wheat beer. My favorite brew is our latest, the Ruby. And the good ones in between: a Blue Moon knock-off, a Texas-style bock (Shawndabock!), and a honey wheat. But J loves his Agave Wheat. And I’m going to be hard pressed to find one I love as much as the Ruby.

And that’s coming from a margarita girl 🙂

Texas Beer Festival

Two things came out of this weekend: renewed interest for pushing the envelope on our next brew and 2) a wicked tan line. It’s a good thing that I bought 5 of those summery kimono dresses from Target. Because after forgetting to put sunblock on my chest, they’ll be the only things I wear for a while.

Texas Beer Festival

Interested in brewing your own beer? If you’re in the Houston area, DeFalco’s is our go-to for beer- and wine-making supplies. They were so nice and super helpful to the two dorks who walked in to their store 6 years ago and declared that we wanted to make wine. And their grain room smells like heaven. If heaven were a beer supply store.

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