bad astronaut, good beer

New Houston brewery opens massive new space with easy-drinking beers and game-stocked taproom

One of Houston’s newest breweries is now open to the public. Bad Astronaut Brewing Company began a soft opening in December and has been open five days a week since mid-January.

Founded by Karbach veterans Chris Fall and Craig “Rocky” Keener, Bad Astronaut occupies a massive, 36,000-square-foot warehouse at 1519 Fulton St. in the Hardy Yards neighborhood north of downtown. All that space provides plenty plenty of room for brewing, along with a taproom that’s stocked with games such as pool, shuffleboard, foosball, and air hockey.

“I always wanted to do my own thing. It’s kind of every brewer’s dream,” Keener tells CultureMap. “It’s just nice to be able to bring your own creativity without any kind of guidelines from a company telling you what to do.”

For Keener, whose roles at Karbach included overseeing the brewery’s cellar program and leading the team that developed recipes for new beers, doing his own thing includes creating Bad Astronaut’s four core beers — Cloud Punch, a German pilsner; Phaser Fight, an IPA; Cruis’n Through, a helles lager; and Fake Landiing, a hazy IPA — that are available both at the brewery and are being distributed throughout the Houston area. Overall, Bad Astronaut wants its beers to be balanced and easy to drink.

“I’m not doing anything revolutionary,” Keener says. “I try to make beers people can drink six of.”

Taproom exclusives include Monster Beast Theater, a cookie ale that’s inspired by Girl Scout favorite Caramel deLites. As a brewpub, Bad Astronaut is also able to pour beers from other breweries such as Equal Parts, City Orchard, and Eureka Heights.

Whether visitors are indulging in six beers at a time or just one or two, Bad Astronaut offers a pleasant environment to spend time. In addition to the games, the brewery has enough TVs to follow along with the day’s sports. Its proximity to Minute Maid Park should make it an appealing pre or post-game destination for Astros fans.

So far, food has consisted of trucks or pizza pop-ups, but marketing director Zach Davis says they’re planning to focus more directly on pizza over the next few months.

The brewery has also been drawing crowds for events like a Hip Hop Vintage Flea Market, comedy shows, and art markets. On Sunday, February 19, it will host a punk rock garage sale from 1-5 pm.

“We’re meeting a lot of our target numbers. Everyone is having a great time,” Davis says. “We’re working out the kinks. It’s been rocking and rolling over here.”

Courtesy of Bad Astronaut Brewing

Bad Astronaut founders Chris Fall and Craig “Rocky” Keener.

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New York Times critic awards Houston restaurant 2 stars in glowing review

Courtesy of ChòpnBlọk

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Let’s just call 2025 the year of ChòpnBlọk. In a review published Tuesday, December 16, the New York Times has awarded the Houston restaurant two stars (“very good”).

Written by chief restaurant critic Tejal Rao, the review touts many of the same qualities that the Times already praised when it included ChòpnBlọk on its list of America’s 50 best restaurants.

Rao writes that she usually avoids restaurants that serve food in bowls, but she’s impressed by the way that chef-owner Ope Amosu has put a West African spin on the concept.

“For inspiration, Ope Amosu looked to the kind of chain restaurants that were built to scale, where flavors are often subdued to appeal to the broadest possible audience, focus-grouped to death. But the delight of ChòpnBlok is in its sure sense of self, its lively, multidimensional cooking and clear, delicious vision for modern food from the Black diaspora,” Rao writes.

She singles out specific dishes, including the Nigerian red stew with short rib, the Black Star bowl with shrimp, and the signature Motherland, made with chicken, greens, and plantains. “It’s utterly simple, but draws you in for more with the mouthwatering twang of not-too-much MSG — an international shortcut to building umami that tends to be used carefully, and layered with other forms,” she writes.

The review also touches on the way Amosu switched the restaurant from counter service to full service — described as “warm, informal, and quick with the jokes” — and his time working at Chipotle to learn the basics of the restaurant operations.

A two-star review is only the latest instance of ChòpnBlọk receiving national attention. In addition to the Times 50 best list, Esquire recently named it one of America’s best new restaurants. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand designation for 2025. Amosu earned a semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: Texas in the 2025 James Beard Awards.

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