“Nothing Finer Than a Shiner”
On Friday February 25, 2011, my husband Jason and I decided to take a quick road trip to Shiner Texas; we invited my sister Karla and her partner Christie to join us. The drive was fun.
Shiner, Texas is about an hour and half drive west of Houston Texas. It’s a small town with a population of about 2070. The area has deep Czech and German immigrant roots. It prides itself for being "The Cleanest Little City in Texas".
It’s also the home of K. Spoetzl Brewery, makers of Shiner Beer. We arrived a little late for the first tour at 11 am. As we waited for the second one, we looked around the Hospitality Room. It’s a long narrow room that is a gift shop/tasting room. I sign the log they have to receive some kind of mailing. The ladies were very friendly. They gave each of us 4 tokens. Each token gets you a 4oz cup of free beer. I tried their Shiner 102, the latest in their line of anniversary beers. This year’s is called Double Wheat. It’s very clear with a golden-yellow color tone. It tasted sweet, almost like honey. My second taste was the Light Blonde, a 99-calorie a serving addition. I really liked this one. I saved one of my tokens and gave the 4th one to my husband. The lady who poured our beer told us it had just debuted two days prior to our visit. I’m not much of a beer drinker, but this one I liked. They asked if we wanted to take a picture behind the bar. We jumped at the chance!
The city of Shiner Texas has 2070 residents and 65 of those work for the brewery. The location seemed safe and they continually cleaned. I didn’t see any trash anywhere, including the trash cans.
.I learned K. Spoetzl Brewery is the oldest independently owned brewery in Texas and has been operated since its start in 1909 by a Bavarian Brewmeister, Kosmos Spoetzl who had formerly operated a brewery in Egypt. During the prohibition he made “Near Beer”, but always had one keg with real beer among all of the kegs. He would allow the towns people to come in and get all the beer they wanted. The keg with a ladle on it signified the real beer and the one the town’s people always went to. Shiner has the capacity to bottle almost 500,000 bottles of beer a day and can switch its bottling line from style to style in about 20 minutes.
The Brewery’s marketing in the beginning consisted of Kosmos driving around in his truck, accompanied by his dog, giving away samples to farmers as they worked. He also kept it local. Shiner Beer as its original is known had a cult like following with Texas College students.
It is shipped to 47 states and is now also shipped to Mexico. It was acquired by the The Gambrinus Company importers of Corona Beer in 1989.
I would definitely recommend a tour to the little brewery in Shiner Texas.
Shiner, Texas is about an hour and half drive west of Houston Texas. It’s a small town with a population of about 2070. The area has deep Czech and German immigrant roots. It prides itself for being "The Cleanest Little City in Texas".
It’s also the home of K. Spoetzl Brewery, makers of Shiner Beer. We arrived a little late for the first tour at 11 am. As we waited for the second one, we looked around the Hospitality Room. It’s a long narrow room that is a gift shop/tasting room. I sign the log they have to receive some kind of mailing. The ladies were very friendly. They gave each of us 4 tokens. Each token gets you a 4oz cup of free beer. I tried their Shiner 102, the latest in their line of anniversary beers. This year’s is called Double Wheat. It’s very clear with a golden-yellow color tone. It tasted sweet, almost like honey. My second taste was the Light Blonde, a 99-calorie a serving addition. I really liked this one. I saved one of my tokens and gave the 4th one to my husband. The lady who poured our beer told us it had just debuted two days prior to our visit. I’m not much of a beer drinker, but this one I liked. They asked if we wanted to take a picture behind the bar. We jumped at the chance!
The city of Shiner Texas has 2070 residents and 65 of those work for the brewery. The location seemed safe and they continually cleaned. I didn’t see any trash anywhere, including the trash cans.
.I learned K. Spoetzl Brewery is the oldest independently owned brewery in Texas and has been operated since its start in 1909 by a Bavarian Brewmeister, Kosmos Spoetzl who had formerly operated a brewery in Egypt. During the prohibition he made “Near Beer”, but always had one keg with real beer among all of the kegs. He would allow the towns people to come in and get all the beer they wanted. The keg with a ladle on it signified the real beer and the one the town’s people always went to. Shiner has the capacity to bottle almost 500,000 bottles of beer a day and can switch its bottling line from style to style in about 20 minutes.
The Brewery’s marketing in the beginning consisted of Kosmos driving around in his truck, accompanied by his dog, giving away samples to farmers as they worked. He also kept it local. Shiner Beer as its original is known had a cult like following with Texas College students.
It is shipped to 47 states and is now also shipped to Mexico. It was acquired by the The Gambrinus Company importers of Corona Beer in 1989.
I would definitely recommend a tour to the little brewery in Shiner Texas.
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6:35 PM
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