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    Where to Drink Now

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

    Ralph Palmer
    Feb 21, 2019 | 1:40 pm
    Ingenious Brewing C800
    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.

    Spindletap Brewing Draped Up
      
    Photo by @eyefearnobeer
    Draped Up is another NEIPA from Spindletap.
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    he finished the job

    Houston chef Tristen Epps dishes on his Top Chef victory — and what's next

    Eric Sandler
    Jun 13, 2025 | 9:05 am
    Top Chef Tristen Epps
    Photo by David Moir/Bravo
    Kristen Kish, Tristen Epps, Gail Simmons, and Tom Colicchio.

    Houston has played a leading role in America’s culinary scene, but the city has never been home to a Top Chef winner — until last night. In the final episode of season 22, chef Tristen Epps earned the title and a $250,000 cash prize.

    Epps secured his victory by remaining true to the Afro-Caribbean cuisine that helped him secured an impressive four Elimination Challenge wins and $35,000 in additional prize money from two Quickfire wins and as a member of the team that won the show’s signature Restaurant Wars challenge. His four-course menu took a panel of celebrity judges on a journey that also referenced the finale location of Milan, Italy.

    In particular, Epps wowed the panel with his second course — Chicken “Durango” with injera shrimp toast and shellfish jus — that referenced both the Ethiopian chicken stew doro wat and the Italian dish pollo durango, a sly nod to the history of imperialism between the two countries. He finished his savory offerings with Oxtail Milanese Crepinette with Carolina Gold rice grits, curry butter, and bone marrow gremolata, which earned praised from the panel.

    “Historically, we’ve been underserved oxtail,” Top Chef alum and James Beard Award winner Gregory Gourdet said during the episode. “Tristen took the time to pull it, create that beautiful, huge, maybe too big, portion of oxtail. And cover it with that gremolata. He did not forget the bone marrow. That’s very, very smart.”

    Throughout Top Chef’s run, Epps has been holding a series of pop-ups devoted to everything from hot dogs to steakhouses. Now, he can turn his attention to Buboy, a tasting menu concept that will celebrate the Afro-Caribbean cuisine he championed throughout his time on the show.

    CultureMap caught up with Epps on Friday morning for a brief chat about his victory and what’s next.

    CultureMap: What do you remember from the day you cooked that final dinner?
    Tristen Epps: It was an extreme amount of focus. A lot of writing in my notebook. I didn’t want to laugh. I didn’t want to cry or do anything except finish the job, regardless of whatever the outcome would have been. I remember wanting to call my mom. I really wanted to talk things out so I could calm myself down and stay within my focus. Once I got into cooking, I felt so much at ease. It’s my happy place. It’s my serenity.

    CM: How did you feel when you saw Gregory Gourdet on the panel? Did you feel like you had an advocate in the room?
    TE: I’ve cooked with gregory before, a long time ago. It was really fun. I loved what he was doing.

    I felt like I had kind of an advocate. I was worried my food wold be too spicy or too overpowering [for the European chefs]. Seeing Gregory was really good, especially with what I was doing.

    CM: Other chefs, including Gregory Gourdet and Houston chef Dawn Burrell, have done well on the show with Afro-Caribbean cuisine but they didn’t win. How important was it to you to finish the job and use those flavors to win the title?
    TE: To me that was super important. There’s adventurous people who make phenomenal food. They’ll go once because it’s interesting, bu they’re usually skeptical. When you don’t nail it, they say, that’s why I go to the regular places that are familiar.

    Finishing the job was really important to me. People have come up short on this. I wanted to get this right for everyone who’s made that step forward and created the ladder.

    CM: What have your last 12 hours been like since the episode aired? Have any celebrities reached out to you?
    TE: A lot of calls, a lot of good luck. A lot of everything. It’s been amazing.

    A lot of past Top Chef winners reached out to me, giving me a lot of support and telling me what they did after they won.

    [ESPN football commentator] Mina Kimes did, which was really cool.

    CM: What are your plans for the prize money?
    TE: It’s going to go to Buboy. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, it can go a little faster.

    CM: You’ve been holding a series of pop-ups that range from tasting menus to hot dogs? What’s next?
    TE: Part of getting the restaurant open has been introducing myself to all of Houston. These pop-ups represent my interests and my fun. They’re the things that Buboy is going to represent. It can be fun, it can be a conversation, it can be educational, it can push the limits of cuisines we know. It’s an expression of culture in whatever way I see fit that day.

    The hot dog concept will probably be a separate venture, but who’s to say there’s not a hot dog at the end of that meal?

    Top Chef Tristen Epps
      

    Photo by David Moir/Bravo

    Kristen Kish, Tristen Epps, Gail Simmons, and Tom Colicchio.

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