Houston: The Floodgates Are Now Open
Cheers!
Cheers!
Hello, all!
It’s about that time of the year again! As you probably know, Houston Beer Week will be from November 9-16 this year. The friendly folks at Valhalla on Rice University campus have offered to host our first HBW meeting for the year, and of course, we’ll spot you on the first few beers.
This meeting will be at Valhalla THIS SATURDAY, September 21, at 12 noon. In order to attend, all members must be up to date on their dues for 2013.
Here’s a map of Rice campus to help you out.
If you’d like to join the HBW Committee and/or haven’t paid dues yet for 2013, you can do that here.
Thanks for reading, and we look forward to getting the ball rolling this year!
Jay
Hello, all!
First of all, in case you haven’t marked your calendars yet, Houston Beer Week will fall on November 9-16 this year. Help us spread the word! As always, the week will be filled with a variety of craft beer-related events all over the city. We will be opening the calendar for submissions sometime in September. Additionally, like last year, we will have a Houston Beer Week Committee that will assist with the management and outreach of Houston Beer Week. Members from last year will be notified when it opens for membership this year by the end of July, and the Committee will open for new members on August 5th. So, if you were a HBW Committee member last year, look out for an email in the coming weeks. If not, but you are interested in joining our merry band of beer geeks, come back on August 5th and join the team. Dues remain the same — $20 and will get you access to our beer-centric meetings, an opportunity to purchase a HBW Committee shirt and represent our crew during beer week.
In addition, we’d like to announce a couple of changes for 2013. The rumors you’ve heard are true, we’ve chosen not to hold The Draft this year (formerly Monsters of Beer). However, we are excited to announce that the Untapped Festival is coming to Houston in November. If you’re unfamiliar with Untapped, it’s a craft beer/indie music festival. It has been extremely successful in Dallas and Fort Worth, and we’re happy to see it here in Houston. The festival organizers will be donating a percentage of the proceeds to Live It Big, benefiting Friday Harbour and Stepping Stones Charter School. The venue and date have not been set in stone yet, but you can follow @untappedfest on Twitter and Facebook for new details. They will be accepting volunteers for the festival soon, and we’ll be hitting up the HBWC members to help out!
Also, we’d like to announce Kevin Healy as our new Executive Captain for 2013. Kevin was a member of the Houston Beer Week Committee last year, and we believe he has a lot to bring to the management and expansion of HBW. Kevin has a background in technical computer stuff. He has raised funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society by cycling 100 miles last month and raising over $4,200 for the charity. He also really likes craft beer, and that’s really important.
We’re super excited to have Kevin in this new leadership role for HBW, so give him a good welcome!
Jay and Cathy
For the last two years, we’ve scheduled several GABF meetups at Houston craft beer bars to get fellow craft beer lovers together to plan their trip to the Great American Beer Festival. This year, we’d like to get everyone together in Denver as well, just for the fun of it. And where else than Falling Rock Tap House?
Falling Rock Tap House owners Chris and Steve Black hail from Kingwood, in fact, Falling Rock was modeled after The Ginger Man. If you happen to be in Denver during GABF, let’s meet up at Falling Rock on Thursday, October 11, any time from 1-5 PM. This is totally informal, just stop by and say hi to fellow craft beer-loving Texans. See you there!
Headed to Denver this year for GABF? It’s time for the 2nd Houston GABF Meetup. Let’s have a cold one at Petrol Station on Thursday, September 20! The second meetup had a great turnout last year, and is a great chance to visit with fellow Houstonians and optimize your GABF experience. If we’re all on the same page, we can all hang out in Denver with friends and find all of the good stuff. Even if you’re not headed to GABF, come get hopped out at Petrol Station anyway and meet fellow craft beer fanatics.
Mark your calendars!
Petrol Station
Thursday, September 20
5:30 – Whenever
This year’s Great American Beer Festival tickets sold out in 45 minutes. If you’re one of the lucky 50,000 holding a GABF ticket for October, join us at Little Woodrow’s on Studemont and White Oak this Thursday for our Houston GABF Meetup. This is a great way to plan out your trip and get a good look at the hundreds of happenings surrounding GABF, and to meet and interact with other Houston GABF attendees. Also, it’s just a great excuse to drink craft beer with good people.
Little Woodrows (Heights location)
2631 White Oak Dr.
7PM
As many of you probably know, around this time last year, Houston’s coveted Petrol Station won Stone Brewing’s Most Bitter Bar Challenge. This isn’t a city or state competition- Petrol Station sold more of Stone’s hoppy beer than any other bar in the nation. It’s not just an amazing feat because of Petrol’s modest size, it says a whole lot about craft beer’s steep rise in Texas. This tells the world that there’s a big market for craft beer in Houston and Texas- and the bigger our market gets, the more varieties of beer we’ll see around here in upcoming years. Let’s help them do it again!
This contest ends Sunday night at midnight. Give these hometown heroes your business tonight and this weekend, and fill up some growlers too. These are the beers that qualify:
Stone IPA
Stone Cali-Belgique IPA
Stone Ruination IPA
Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale
Tonight at Petrol, The Modular is having their first anniversary, so you’ll have plenty of fine cuisine to pair up with your Stone beers. Growler fills are only $8 for Stone IPA, and $16 for Ruination. If you’re on Twitter, use the hashtag #MostBitterRepeat, and help spread the word!
**********UPDATE 7/19/2012!
Today Ben Fullelove got the call from Greg Koch from Stone. PETROL STATION WINS MOST BITTER BAR IN AMERICA! Way to go Houston!
Over the weekend, Jay and Cathy Rascoe visited Mikkeller’s Copenhagen Beer Celebration in Denmark, featuring 25 of Mikkel Borg Bjerso’s favorite breweries in the world. Check out Cathy’s recap on Brewtiful.com!