Where to Drink Now

7 can't-miss Houston craft beers to drink right now

Ingenious' C800 tastes as good as its can looks.

Photo by @eyefearnobeer

We’re just over a month and a half into 2019, and Houston’s ever-growing craft beer scene shows no signs of slowing down. With breweries such as True Anomaly, Black Page Brewing, and Astral Brewing slated to open later this year, Houston is quickly finding itself up to its ears in hoppy suds.

With all these new entrants alongside the existing craft landscape, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sift through the extensive tap lists at everyone’s favorite establishments. Drinkers might be tempted to settle for an old favorite, but these (mostly) new options are too good to ignore. While not all of these beers are easy to find, these seven beers brewed by independent Houston breweries represent some of the very best of what’s on tap in Houston right now.

Eureka Heights: Buckle Bunny

Style: Cream Ale
ABV: 4.5 percent
IBU: 15
Availability: brewery tap room, keg distribution, retail cans

As stated above, some of the beers in this list will be hard to find, but Buckle Bunny is not one of them. Released back in 2016, it continues to be a great go-to beer when something light and sessionable is desired. As a mainstay for Eureka Heights Brewery, this beer is widely available across the city.

This beer is clean, creamy, and refreshing with a surprisingly light body and just a hint of maize sweetness — a great entry beer for people who are shifting from light American lagers and attempting to tip-toe into the craft world. In 2017, the Great American Beer Festival recognized Buckle Bunny with a Gold Medal for best cream ale. Quite the achievement for a brewery who just opened their doors a few years ago.

Klaus Brewing Company: One Helles of a Lager

Style: Munich Helles
ABV: 5 percent ABV
IBU: 21
Availability: brewery tap room, keg distribution

Palate fatigue is a real problem these days in the world of craft beer. With so many adjunct releases commanding attention, sometimes one desires beer as it was originally intended. Enter Klaus Brewing Company on the northwest side. Head brewer and founder Thomas Lemke is focusing on flagship German-inspired recipes at their simplest common denominator.

One Helles of a Lager is a prime example of an old-world favorite. This beer is light, clean, and crisp with just a touch of bitterness. The beer is a prime example of amazing sessionable goodness that could help anyone lose a few hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Spindletap Brewery: Draped Up

Style: Double New England IPA
ABV: 6.8 percent
IBU: not measured
Availability: brewery tap room, keg distribution

Spindletap could easily be considered the NEIPA champs of Houston. Their monthly releases command sold-out events and lines as deep as your regret for not updating to a faster internet connection. Luckily, this beer should be attainable with relative ease.

Draped Up is quadruple dry-hopped New England Style IPA with a combination of Amarillo, Mosaic, and Galaxy hops. The nose is a bright fruit profile of pineapple, mango, and citrus with a soft and easy mouthfeel. Look for Draped Up on draft at beer bars across the city.

Great Heights Brewing Company: The Whammer

Style: New England IPA
ABV: 7.5 percent
IBU: 25
Availability: brewery tap room, keg distribution

As its name implies, Great Heights is neither located in the Heights nor should it be confused with Eureka Heights. Located a few hundred paces down Wakefield from Petrol Station in the Garden Oaks/Oak Forest neighborhood, the brewery continues to release solid beers across the style spectrum. The Whammer, their recently-released NEIPA, is no exception.

This soft and juicy NEIPA is brewed with Mosaic and Motueka hops that gives this a beer a pleasant aroma complexity. The beer has a strong pineapple and grapefruit nose with a sweet, clean, and fruity finish. As indicated by the low IBU, the lack of bitterness makes this beer surprisingly easy to drink.

Ingenious Brewing Company: C800

Style: Double New England IPA
ABV: 8.2 percent
IBU: 70
Availability: brewery tap room, keg distribution

With one of the most exhausting release programs in the city, it’s impossible to keep up with everything Ingenious is doing. Since opening last year, Ingenious has racked up close to 300 releases. Craft beer nerds are suckers for aesthetically pleasing cans, but sometimes that doesn’t translate into good beer. In this case, Ingenious nailed both.

Inspired by a future post-apocalyptic reality littered with metal endoskeletons, C800 is scary delicious. With a bright orange hazy appearance, this beer is exploding with fruity-citrusy aromas and balanced with a nuanced, pillowy mouthfeel. Take one sip and as Arnold would say — you’ll be back.

Brash Brewing Company: Deadhorse Scottish Hell Wee Heavy

Style: Wee Heavy Aged in Scotch Barrels
ABV: 8.5 percent
IBU: 30
Availability: brewery tap room, keg distribution

Brash’s beers are not for everyone; their releases are consistently heavy, bitter, and unapologetic. One cannot mention Brash without also mentioning their strong affinity for heavy/thrash metal and the influence it has in crafting its beers. That partnership is the basis of the Deadhorse Scottish Hell Wee Heavy.

Despite taking its inspiration from the song “Scottish Hell” by Houston-based thrash metal band Dead Horse, this beer is surprisingly easy drinking. True to the form of a Wee Heavy, this beer has a sweet maltiness that is balanced out by seven months of aging in Scotch barrels. Served still (i.e. no carbonation), the beer has full-on raisin/caramel notes balanced with peat barrel flavor and a hint of hot booze. Absolutely delicious.

Saint Arnold Brewery: Divine Reserve 19

Style: Spiced Oatwine
ABV: 10.4 percent
IBU: 30
Availability: brewery tap room, keg distribution, retail

Holding the crown as the oldest craft brewer in Texas (1994), Saint Arnold is still releasing some extraordinary beers from their yearly Divine Reserve series. These beers are single small batch with no rhyme or reason regarding style.

DR 19 is a complex spiced oatwine that was inspired by a classic oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. The base is an English-style barleywine brewed with malted oats and freckled with small amounts of cinnamon and nutmeg. The nose is a spice-fest reminiscent of a day in grandma’s kitchen with a thick, muted-fruit mouthfeel. Be warned — this a big, high-gravity beer; on a cold Texas day, it may go down easier than anticipated. Drinker discretion is advised.

---

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

Draped Up is another NEIPA from Spindletap.

Photo by @eyefearnobeer

Draped Up is another NEIPA from Spindletap.

craft-beer where-drink

Rising Star

Houston restaurateur dishes on swapping Tex-Mex for new retro steakhouse

Photo by Eric Sandler

Star Rover is now open in the Heights.

Restaurateur Ford Fry surprised Houston diners when he announced in January that he was closing his Tex-Mex restaurant Superica and replacing it with Star Rover, a casual, family-friendly steakhouse. With Star Rover now open for dinner and weekend brunch, Fry — who also owns Star Rover's neighbor La Lucha, casual taqueria Little Rey, and River Oaks fine dining restaurant State of Grace — explains that the decision came down to both economics and his own desire to provide the Heights with something he thought was lacking.

“This was our smallest Superica. Superica for us takes so much — every day you’re making salsas, tortillas, it’s so prep heavy,” Fry says. “We weren’t big enough to be that successful. We didn’t have enough seats to make the labor make sense.”

Rather than compete against Houston’s seemingly limitless roster of Tex-Mex restaurants, Fry saw an opportunity for a steakhouse that occupied a space somewhere between chains like Texas Roadhouse and Outback and fine dining staples like Pappas Bros. Enter Star Rover, which already has a popular location in Nashville.

Just as La Lucha channels Fry’s childhood memories of the San Jacinto Inn, Star Rover takes some inspiration from iconic Houston restaurant Hofbrau. Diners of a certain age will see places like Hofbrau in the restaurant’s design. The walls are adorned with framed pictures, taxidermy, vintage advertising, and more.

“The inspiration is if you were some old Texas dude who wanted to start a steakhouse you’d find a bunch of crap and put it on the walls,” Fry says. “We want to make it cool, but it’s got to take you away from what it was. Did we achieve that? I hope so.”

Fry tasked chef Bobby Matos with updating the Star Rover menu for Houston. It starts with a selection of steaks — chopped, filet, T-bone, ribeye, or skirt — along with a half-chicken, blackened redfish, and chicken fried chicken. All of them come with milk rolls, salad, fries, and onion rings. Diners who want a little surf and turf can add either a crab cake or a fried lobster tail.

The appetizer menu is similarly tidy, consisting of shrimp cocktail, oysters (raw or fried), potato skins, and vegetable crudités. Desserts include a selection of pies as well as soft serve ice cream.

Since the steaks are thinner than those served at upscale steakhouses, they’re cooked hot and fast on a plancha and basted in butter.

“We control the costs by the size of the meat,” Fry explains. “Meat is so expensive, how do you do a family-friendly steakhouse? It’s a 12-ounce ribeye and it’s choice. We put the right amount of age on it.”

Tucked away in the corner of the menu is text that reads “Cheeseburger?! Just ask!” People should, because it’s a hearty half-pound, New York tavern-style burger that sits on grilled onions, is topped with cheese and mayonnaise, and is served on a classic potato bun. Think of it as the thick-patty counterpart to La Lucha’s thin-patty Pharmacy Burger.

“I call it a lowbrow steakhouse burger,” Fry says. “It’s not a Peter Luger, but it may be better and it won’t cost as much.”

Star Rover’s weekend brunch menu features the same pancakes that had been a staple at Superica. They’re joined by some new items, including baked-to-order cinnamon rolls, breakfast tacos, and kolaches that use sausage from Houston’s Roegels Barbecue Co.

Photo by Eric Sandler

Star Rover is now open in the Heights.

The restaurant has one other old-school touch in the form of an eating challenge called the “I Ate the 76er.” Available with 24 hours notice, diners who finish a 76-ounce steak, milk rolls, salad, onion rings, and fries in under an hour will receive the meal for free, plus a t-shirt and the opportunity to sign a winners’ wall. The challenge reflects the spirit Fry is bringing to Star Rover.

“A lot of it is scratching that itch of something fun I want to do versus what I think the neighborhood will like,” he says. “We did a version of this in Nashville with a stage. It’s where I eat when I’m in Nashville, because it’s what I want to eat when I’m there.”

news-you-can-eat openings the-heights interview