true anomaly takes off
Award-winning EaDo brewery blasts off to bigger, better home in Second Ward
True Anomaly has outgrown its current facility.
After five years of service, the award-winning Houston brewery, True Anomaly Brewing Co., has begun the process moving from its current taproom and brewing facility in EaDo to a new home in the East End.
Scheduled to happen in phases between now and the end of 2024, the plan includes moving the brewery operations and taproom services from True Anomaly’s current Dallas Street location to a sprawling one-and-a-half acre, 20,000-square-foot complex at 4001 Navigation Boulevard that the brewery’s owners and investors purchased. While the move is only about two miles in distance, the new facility promises an upgrade to the overall True Anomaly concept. True Anomaly shared a sneak peek of the facility on Instagram.
The new brewery will include a full-service kitchen that will serve pizza and other dishes, a larger taproom for hosting events, and most importantly, room for expanded brewing capacity and production. With the news of multiple Houston brewery closures over past six months, True Anomaly’s plan for expansion shows promise in an industry riddled with setbacks.
True Anomaly co-founder and CEO Michael Duckworth tells CultureMap that the current facility’s limitations prompted the move. Although the brewery still sells most of its beer via its taproom, it has had success self-distributing to retail, including to more than 30 Houston-area H-E-B stores. With the distribution side poised to grow by 20 percent or more per year, the need to grow beyond the current facility’s 8,000-square-feet became obvious.
“We were scraping the top of our capacity in the current space and what the current fermenters could turn over,” he says.
Along with brewery’s physical limitations, TxDOT’s $9 billion expansion of highways 45 and 59 through EaDo also played a part in the brewery’s relocation decision. “This is something we’ve been keeping our ear close to the ground on for years,” he adds.
Duckworth admits the timeline for highway construction to begin is still pretty fluid, but the brewery felt it was in their best interest to get a head start on relocation before TxDOT forced their hand. True Anomaly has already moved its brewing operations to the new location but plans to operate two taprooms until they’re focused to vacate the original location (the Navigation taproom is expected to be operational by year’s end).
“We decided it was best to extend our lease on the current location for the next two to three years or until they pull the rug out from under us,” he says.
Duckworth also mentions that due to its proximity to downtown Houston’s corporate convention circuit, their flagship location’s demand for both taproom sales and private events remains quite strong. In fact, they estimate as many as 60-percent of the brewery’s visitors are coming for the first time. Moving all of the brewing equipment to the new facility has opened up 2,000-square-feet of space for events such as markets, musical performances, and other occasions that benefit from being held in a covered, indoor facility (albeit one that isn’t air conditioned).
Since its inception in 2019, the brewery has concentrated its efforts mainly on Farmhouse Saison, Belgium, and Foeder (large wooden barrel) aged style beers. In their first year alone, the brewery released an astonishing 46 unique beers marking their position in the city and state’s ultra-bespoke craft landscape. While considered in craft beer circles as a “Brewer’s Brewery” for their sour and wood-aged products, True Anomaly’s most approachable beer, the Scout Mexican lager, remains a taproom and critical favorite. So much so that the beer garnered a silver medal from the Great American Beer Festival in 2021 marking it as one of the best in the nation.
True Anomaly built on that success at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup in February. The space-themed brewery took home three gold medals for their White Dwarf Wild Ale, Flanders Redux, and Fireflies foeder-aged lager. It also scored bronze hardware for their Sea of Waves Wild Ale. Most importantly, True Anomaly was awarded Brewery of the Year in the 600-plus barrel category for the second year in a row. Quite the accomplishment for a brewery that just opened its doors in April of 2019.
With these past accolades and news of recent expansion, the future is bright. Founded by four NASA employees who homebrewed for decades prior to opening True Anomaly in 2019, their passion for the craft has not faltered.
“It still gets me excited knowing that a lot of care and love went into these products.” Duckworth says. Be on the lookout for upcoming announcements as they grow into their new facility.
---
Ralph Palmer is a local beer blogger, a co-host of the Beer, Blood and the Bayou podcast, and a partner in the barbecue pop-up Deckle and Hide. Follow him on Instagram at eyefearnobeer.
