Jeremy Banas
Texas Wins Big at the 2024 World Beer Cup in ...

The 2024 Craft Brewers Conference is in the books and with it another World Beer Cup (WBC). The world’s most prestigious beer competition and a yearly battle between breweries all over the world. Setting itself apart from other competitions, the World Beer Cup commemorates brewing with judges and entries from around the world.

Down a little in numbers from 2023, this year’s competition saw 280 judges from 37 countries, many of whom were from outside the United States. This elite group of judges evaluated 9,300 entries, with 2,060 participating breweries, from 50 countries. Judging of the 172 beer styles took place over nine days totaling 18 sessions.

Texas Wins Big at the 2024 World Beer Cup in Las Vegas
Beer and cocktails
Jeremy Banas
San Antonio Breweries Make a Splash At The 2023 ...

Texas craft beer producers showed the rest of the nation that the Armadillo State (yeah, Texas has other nicknames) can brew with the best of them.

Yesterday Texas craft breweries brought home an impressive 19 medals at the 2023 Great American Beer Festival in Colorado — Alamo City-area breweries accounted for three of the state's total medal haul. The festival, which draws tens of thousands of people annually, is considered the industry's most prestigious competition in the U.S.

San Antonio Breweries Make a Splash At The 2023 Great American Beer Festival
Beer and cocktails
Jeremy Banas
Samsaric Brewing Company Collaborates with Two ...

Samsaric Brewing Co out of Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania will release their passion fruit witbier this Friday, June 9th. Previously released last year the beer will make its Texas debut at Mort Subite Belgian beer bar and Celis Brewery in honor of Kama Sutra Day. Yes, that Kama Sutra.

Samsaric Brewing Company Collaborates with Two Austin Staples
Jeremy Banas
Texas Wins Big at the 2023 World Beer Cup

The 2023 Craft Brewers Conference is in the books and with it another World Beer Cup. The world’s most prestigious beer competition, which had been held every two years, became a yearly battle starting last year. Setting itself apart from other competitions, the World Beer Cup commemorates brewing from around the world with judges and entries from around the world.

This year’s competition saw 272 judges from 26 countries, many of whom were from outside the United States. This elite group of judges evaluated 10,213 beers, with 2,376 participating breweries, from 51 countries. Judging of the 176 beer styles took place over nine days totaling 18 sessions.

Texas Wins Big at the 2023 World Beer Cup
Beer and cocktails
Jeremy Banas
First Annual Texas Craft Brewers Cup

Winners of First Annual Texas Craft Brewers Cup Revealed at Brewers Gathering

AUSTIN, Texas (February 12, 2022) —The Texas Craft Brewers Guild awarded 81 medals to 57 small and independent breweries from across the Lone Star State in the non-profit trade association’s first statewide craft beer competition.

The best Texas craft beers in 27 medal categories covering 150+ different beer styles were awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals during an awards ceremony at the Texas Craft Brewers Guild’s Annual Meeting at Hilton Austin on Saturday, February 12. Judging took place January 29-30 in Austin with 37 judges evaluating 755 anonymized entries from 131 breweries hailing from all different corners of the state. The Texas Craft Brewers Cup judging pool was comprised of experienced brewing industry professionals and members of the homebrewing community with extensive Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) judging experience.

First Annual Texas Craft Brewers Cup

San Antonio Brewing Association

Pearl Brewing: A Book Teaser Part III.

By late 1918, Federal Prohibition was in effect and with it a change in the San Antonio Brewing Association, now known as Alamo Industries. Emma Koehler and company were intent on riding out the storm, as many did not feel that the national ban on alcohol would last more than a few years...

" Period Three. Prohibition 1918 - 1933

Chapter Eleven

In the two years leading up to the start of Prohibition, San Antonio and Texas in general, was in its prime. San Antonio boasted six breweries: the San Antonio Brewing Association; Peter Bros Brewery; Degen’s Brewery; the Lone Star Brewing Association, Schober’s; and the Och’s and Aschbacer’s Brewery. 1916 saw these San Antonio breweries realize a combined annual income of $8,000,000 that was a ridiculously high sum that amounted to around a fourth of the city’s overall income. With 1,200 employees and a total payroll of a million, San Antonio’s brewing Industry was three times larger than any other industry in the Alamo City.  In 1917, with Prohibition on the horizon, the San Antonio Brewing Association introduced ‘La Perla – A Near Beer’ while still brewing XXX Pearl Beer.

Pearl Brewing: A Book Teaser

In December of 2015, my first book “San Antonio Beer: Alamo City History by the Pint” was released. Co-written with my friend, and fellow beer writer, Travis Polling, it chronicled the history of brewing in San Antonio from the early 1850's to the present. Two of the chapters alone were just the Pearl. It was through this research I realized that the full scope of Pearl's story could be contained in such a small number of words. Thus my second book "Pearl: A History of San Antonio's Iconic Beer" was born. Though the book will be released in December of this year, I wanted to release a series of 'teaser' posts. Below is the first of six previews. 

 

The early 1880’s were an interesting time for San Antonio. The population had 225,000 by 1880; the city’s second railroad, the International-Great Northern, had arrived and an industrial revolution had gripped the city. Modernization was in full swing, paralleling that of the country’s growth at the time. Having dropped slightly from being the largest city in Texas, San Antonio’s infrastructure boomed as well, with hospitals, paved roads, telephones and the like bringing San Antonio into the modern era and once again the State’s largest city.