Where to Drink Now

Where to drink now: Introducing 3 of Houston's freshest new breweries

Find True Anomaly in EaDo across from Vinny's.

@trueanomalybrewing Instagram

As of last count, roughly 60 breweries operate in the greater Houston area. Even the most seasoned beer ~~nerds~~ enthusiasts may find visiting each one a tough task, but those who make the effort will find plenty of tasty rewards.

In 2019, the roster will continue to grow as Houston rides the nationwide craft beer wave. Even as we roll into April, Megaton Brewery in Kingwood has had a soft opening and Fortress Brewing in Spring just opened to the general public. While those new arrivals will need a couple of weeks to get their sea legs, here’s a quick look at three Houston breweries that have opened in the last couple of months. With patio season upon us, they're ready to serve some of the city's freshest suds.

True Anomaly Brewing Company
To the delight of thirsty Houstonians — especially EaDo residents like SportsMap editor Fred Faour — True Anomaly Brewing Company opened its doors to the public last month. The brewery joins the ranks of fellow EaDo brewers 8th Wonder, Sigma Brewing, and Moontower Sudworks, making the neighborhood a legitimate craft beer hotspot.

The name True Anomaly, a nod to aerospace design, reflects the scientific roots of founders Michael Duckworth, Tom Ahlstrom, Ben Stahl, and David Lantz; it's also the best acronym in Texas brewing. The partners, all either former or current NASA employees, have been home brewing together for over a decade. Unlike the complexity of rocket science, True Anomaly strives for simplicity. “We try not to include any ingredients in the beer that doesn’t need to be there,” Ahlstrom tells CultureMap.

Their brewing program is expected to yield a creative twist on styles that are already popular around town. The brewery’s initial tap list consists of a Grisette (similar to a light bodied saison), house IPA, New England IPA, dry-hopped Saison, and a fruited Berliner Weisse. In the coming months, the brewery is expected to host an ambitious range of styles that are unique to Houston’s brewing landscape (for now).

“We’re actively working on developing our sour and wild ales in our barrel room,” Ahlstrom says. “We purchased two foeders from American Foeder Crafters and already have some inoculated beer going in those. We will also be filling our first sour barrels next week. Building up this barrel room will take years, so within the next [couple of] years we intend to have a large inventory of sour beer for blending, fruiting, bottling, and getting out into the market.”
2012 Dallas St.; Wednesday-Friday 4-10 pm, Saturday noon to 10 pm, and Sunday noon to 7 pm

Astral Brewing
New entrant Astral Brewing debuted in early March in its newly minted facility located in the Independence Heights neighborhood. The spaced-themed brewery, helmed by operations manager José Ceja and head brewer Alex McDonald, hopes to push the boundaries of the local beer scene and help put Houston on the map as a craft beer destination.

“The beer scene in Houston is greatly improving, but it still trails the great beer Meccas of the United States in terms of number of breweries and the quality of beer,” says Ceja. “As Houston will soon be the third largest city in America, it seemed like the right place to open a brewery, and we felt we could offer something.”

Astral’s opening lineup includes traditional styles such as English Golden Ale, porter, West Coast IPA, and the ultra-trendy New England IPA. In short order, Astral will begin a barrel aging stout program and eventually parlay into mixed fermentation. To assist in their future wild ale/sour program, Astral has tapped Garrett Crowell, former head brewer of Jester King, to consult.

“Alex’s background in microbiology, and our work with Garrett will hopefully make this possible,” Ceja says. “We want to take things slowly, though, and feel like we've mastered the production and repeatability of clean beers before introducing 'bugs' into the brewery.”
4816 N Shepherd Dr., Ste A; Thursday-Saturday, 4-10 pm and Sunday noon to 8 pm

Walking Stick Brewing Company
Tucked away behind Wakefield drive in the Garden Oaks neighborhood lies Walking Stick Brewery. Located just across the street from Great Heights Brewing, owner and head brewer Andy Dunn, a Colorado transplant and avid hiker, hopes to bring a fresh mountain-inspired feel to the neighborhood.

Two years ago, Dunn shifted careers from corporate consulting to brewing full time in Houston. “I love the mix of challenges a brewery presents,” Dunn says. “It’s a healthy balance of intellectual and physical demands. It allows us to build something beautiful and very personal.”

And beautiful it is. Dunn and his wife Angie have transformed the previously vacant space into a family-friendly beer garden fresh with chic industrial finishes, AstroTurf patches, and oversized, comfy, striped loungers. For the time being, Walking Stick’s beer is served out of a vintage trailer until construction on their taproom finalizes later this month.

“I aim to brew a spectrum of beer styles that present a wide range of flavors and colors,” Dunn says. “I lean toward the British ales as a foundation, but I want to have an option for all preferences.” To that point, Walking Stick currently offers a wide range of beers on tap including an ESB, pale ale, Saison, and brown porter.
956 Judiway St.; Friday 4-8 pm, Saturday and Sunday noon to 8 pm

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Ralph Palmer is a local beer blogger and co-host of the Beer, Blood and the Bayou podcast. Follow him on Instagram at eyefearnobeer.

Walking Stick welcomes visitors with a lush beer garden.

Photo by @eyefearnobeer

Walking Stick welcomes visitors with a lush beer garden.

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eat real food

Houston DJ-turned-TikTok star cooks up a cult following one recipe at a time

Courtesy of Uncle Dibbz

Uncle Dibbz, a.k.a. A.H. Bowden, has built a devoted following for his viral recipes.

For the past month, Uncle Dibbz has been, shall we say, going ham on social media with the myriad videos of alternative Thanksgiving dishes. He’s dropped how-to clips for such recipes as Cajun-roasted turkey, honey-baked ham/hens, oven-bag turkey, and six-piece fried turkey (to go). Basically, if you don’t want to cook a bland ol’ Butterball this Turkey Day, Dibbz has you covered.

Who is Dibbz, you say? Well, he’s a North Jersey-born, Georgia-bred, Houston-based chef who’s been building quite the foodie rep online. Several videos across his TikTok, Instagram and YouTube pages, from his Cajun-boiled fried chicken (2 million on IG) to his “Propose to Me Pasta” (12.3 million on TikTok), has amassed millions of views. But Dibbz (government name: A.H. Bowden) wasn’t always a culinary content creator. He used to spin music back in Atlanta as DJ DiBiase, named after retired wrestler Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase. “DiBiase is a mouthful to say, so people just always call me ‘D’ or ‘Dibbz’ for short,” says Bowden, 37, during a Zoom interview.

@uncledibbz PROPOSE To Me PASTA 💍 🍝 Trust your Uncle! This SEAFOOD Pasta will seal the deal 👌🏽 Get my recipe below ⬇️ or on uncledibbz.com [@uncledibbz Link in Bio] 🌐 **Ingredients:** - 8 ounces spaghetti - 1 lb mixed seafood (shrimp, scallops, crab meat, etc.) - 2 tablespoons olive oil - Fresh chopped basil - 2 cloves garlic, minced - 1/2 cup white wine - 1/4 cup heavy cream - 2 tablespoons unsalted butter - Salt and pepper to taste - Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust [link in bio] - Fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish) - Grated Parmesan cheese (for garnish) **Instructions:** 1. Cook the spaghetti pasta according to the package instructions until al dente. Drain and set aside. 2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic, chopped basil and sauté for about 1 minute until fragrant. 3. Add the mixed seafood to the skillet. Season with Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust to taste and cook for 2-3 minutes until cooked through. Remove the seafood from the skillet and set aside. 4. Pour in the white wine to the skillet and let it simmer for 2 minutes, allowing the alcohol to cook off. 5. Stir in the heavy cream, butter, Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust seasoning, salt, and pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. 6. Add the cooked spaghetti and cooked mixed seafood to the skillet. Toss everything together until well coated with the sauce. 7. Remove from heat and garnish with fresh parsley and grated Parmesan cheese. 8. Serve hot and enjoy the flavorful Seafood Spaghetti. That's good Shawty! #UncleDibbz #ThatsGoodShawty #Pasta #marryme #proposal #bride #wife #husband #relationshipgoals #datenight #easyrecipe #seafood #cajun #cooking #fyp #foryou #viral #houston ♬ original sound - Uncle Dibbz 🍴

He was making a nice living as a DJ, even serving as rapper Big K.R.I.T.’s touring DJ for a while. But when the pandemic hit, the gigs obviously dried up.

“I was living in Miami at the time,” he says. “And, you know, when you have a lot of time on your hands to think – but also need to figure out a way to, you know, sustain an income and everything like that – the ideas start coming,”

Like most DJs at that time, he was doing live mixes on Instagram. But his days throwing cookout parties in Atlanta inspired him to start doing his cooking videos, where he used his very own seasoning. Of course, he had a lemon pepper blend, which he used in a lemon pepper hot wings video that currently has over a half-million views on TikTok.

“I'm about to go live to DJ later that night, and my phone was just going off with orders,” he recalls. “So I'm like, where are these orders coming from? And it's not from my friends. I'm seeing the cities and the states. I don't know these people.”

Thanks to his videos, which usually end with him saying his signature line “That’s good shawty!” (that’s also the name of his cookbook he released last year), Dibbz went into the seasoning business full time. He eventually hired another person to help send out the piles of orders he was receiving.

He even got an order from former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith, one of his favorite athletes. “I remember doing a book report on him when I was in fourth grade,” he boasts.

Although Dibbz has a flair for making meals that border on decadent, he’s an ardent practitioner of cooking with natural ingredients, especially in his seasoning. He has several low-sodium seasoning, including Bebe’s Salt Free – named after his mother, who had open-heart surgery a few weeks before the pandemic started.

“I don't think a lot of people understand the amount of toxins and chemicals that go into a lot of these seasonings,” he says. “You're starting to see it in the news now. A lot of the foods with certain dyes are being taken off the shelves and things like that.’

Soon, Dibbz moved himself and his new business to Houston, a favorite place to perform as well as a town whose hip-hop got him into music. He cites local chopped-and-screwed gods DJ Screw, Michael 5000 Watts, and OG Ron C as his holy trinity of influences. To give props to the music of his new home, he created a hot sauce – called HXT Sauce – whose uncharacteristically large bottle resembles Promethazine cough syrup (aka the key ingredient in lean, the preferred purple cocktail for the city’s rap community).

“It's not necessarily about promoting that usage,” he says. “But, at the same time, it’s just a homage to one of the factors and influences of screwed-and-chopped music.”

Dibbz still indulges in spinning records from time to time. The Waxaholics’ DJ Big Reeks has gotten him to break out the vinyl a few times during his Thursday-night sets at Alley Kat Bar & Lounge in Midtown. But creating new recipes, dropping delicious content and proving you can eat and live in a hearty, healthy fashion still remains his full-time mission.

“I’m not just talking about eating cauliflower rice all day and every day, but just eat real food,” he says. “We're eating fake food. That's the bottom line. We're eating fake food and my whole purpose is to inspire people to eat real food and that starts with real ingredients, real herbs, you know – real natural seasonings.”

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