BOCK 'N' ALE YA

New microbrewery (512) hopes its beer rings true to Austin this summer

By Patrick Beach
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Forty-third and Duval streets is a great Austin intersection. You've got Mother's, Julio's, Le Dolce Vita, Asti, Fresh Plus and, at the northeast corner, the Pronto Food Mart, which, after he worked selling kegs to frat boys at Pronto's sister store in the University of Texas area, was Kevin Brand's beer school.

We're talking early to mid-'90s. The little corner store, which perpetually smells of hot dogs, had and has a truly impressive beer selection for such a small space. Brand, who earned a bachelor's in mechanical engineering in 1996 at UT, minored in zymurgy at Pronto, getting more interested in beer the more he tried different ones.

From there he was onto homebrewing, back when the old St. Patrick's brew supply "store" was, in fact, a garage. And after roughly a decade in the San Francisco Bay area, where he sampled plenty of West Coast brews and became a certified hophead, Brand and his wife, Sara, whom he met at UT, returned to Austin. Now Brand is taking his passion to the masses, or at least thirsty Austin beer lovers, launching the (512) Brewing Co. out of a warehouse in South Austin he and his family built literally from the slab up. His timetable calls for brewing early this month, with the goal of having the stuff — a pale, an India Pale Ale and a Belgian wit style — on tap in area bars and restaurants around Memorial Day or shortly thereafter, with bottles to come. This is, of course, every home brewer's dream and many a home brewer's eventual disappointment, if not financial ruin. But his old day job working for companies that developed medical devices made Brand a fastidious and technically precise guy, and this is, as he puts it, an opportunity to cement his technical and artistic sides — and we get beer out of the deal.

This is Austin's first micro since Rob and Amy Cartwright booted up Independence in late 2004. Brand said that as part of his business planning he visited other Central Texas brewers, generally a pretty collegial bunch except when the medals get handed out at competitions or bars start pulling taps of one local brewer's product for another's.

"I think we're all interested in helping put Texas on the map for craft beer," Brand said. "People just haven't felt comfortable enough to taste it. People just haven't been given that opportunity."

And the market is growing. Since Independence launched, craft brewers' sales volume has grown more than 50 percent. On the other hand, the economy is scary bad and hop prices are going through the roof. (What, they make ethanol out of hops now, too?)

Whatever the vagaries of the economy or commodity prices, Brand sees (512) filling a niche within that niche, to "do some beers that aren't represented now." His IPA will be about 6 percent alcohol and dry-hopped to 65 International Bittering Units, which is slightly hoppier than a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. The Belgian wit style is Brand's nod to the gone-but-not-forgotten Belgian brewer Pierre Celis, with coriander and citrus — domestic, as per Brand's preference, not Belgian — and two-row barley and wheat.

As for other offerings down the line, he says, "I think there's room for big beers, maybe seasonally."

With three fermenters, (512) can brew 180 barrels a month, and if he needs to, he can add another six tanks. And it's remarkably self-contained. Brand and his wife bankrolled it themselves and Brand is founder, brewer, marketer and distributor. How many micros have the same guy making the beer and delivering it to bars?

With more people eating and drinking locally, it's a great time for a new micro. But the success or failure of the venture will be determined by how many new people who've never tried something new and different give (512) a shot. The business is built, as they say, one pint at a time.

These days, Brand, 35, is busy with contractors and city inspectors, and the question he's most commonly asked is what kind of beer he's going to make. (One poor woman said the darkest beer she'd ever tried was Corona. The horror, the horror.) Brand's answer?

"You know what? I'm going to make a beer you'll like."

A work-in-progress Web site is at 512brewing.com.

Deschutes, de-scores: Bend, Ore.'s Deschutes Brewery enters the Texas market with two of its best-known beers on tap at the Ginger Man, Lovejoy's, Draught House Pub & Brewery, Cool River and elsewhere. The Black Butte Porter is a solid representation of the style, with plenty of pleasant malt notes and not an oppressive excess of body that scares a lot of folks off trying a dark beer. Mirror Pond Pale Ale is a very crisp pale ale with a nice nose thanks to the Cascade hops. Pales tend not to blow me away, my palate long since having been napalmed by wildly hopped beers, but if you like Sierra Nevada's pale, give this one a shot. Check out other offerings that might or might not be headed our way at deschutesbrewery.com.

And landing on retail shelves right now is nuttiness from the foothills of the Rockies: Oskar Blues Brewery's Dale's Pale Ale, with two other of the Lyons, Colo., brewery's offerings, Old Chub Scottish Style Ale and Gordon, set to land in the retail market this week, with kegs in bars to follow. The sinewy Dale's was top-ranked in a 2005 New York Times pale ale tasting panel's judgment and it scores a 95 at Ratebeer.com. It has a distinct, almost buttery mouth feel, with good body and an assertive but not overpowering hop nose. Wonderful copper color, too. Chub is a Scottish strong ale with a mouth feel similar to Dale's, tons of malt and a bit of beechwood-smoked grains to suggest a peaty single-malt Scotch. Its color might be imposing if dark beers give you nightmares, but give it a try and you might be surprised. Yes, it does have some chew from all that malt but not as much as you'd think. And it makes me want to put my kilt on. The Gordon is a stern one, a cross between an imperial red and an IPA, with 8.7 percent alcohol by volume and 85 IBUs. The hop-to-malt ratio is more balanced than the first whiff upon opening the can would suggest, and the hop nose is almost citrus-y or floral, not unlike a Stone IPA. If you love big beers, look for four-packs of this. Locally, Oskar Blues is available at the Whip Inn, some H-E-Bs, Central Market, Whole Foods, Grapevine Market and more.

Yeah, yeah, I know — good beer in cans? Get over it. Oskar Blues was the first micro to can beer six years ago and has been winning medals and accolades from extreme beer lovers ever since. The idea at first was simply to have packaged beer to sell to fans of the brew pub and restaurant, back when they were running about 700 barrels a year. Last year they brewed almost 12,500, and they have a new brewery in a nearby town.

The brewery says contemporary cans are lined, so metal never touches the beer. Moreover, canning helps reduce their shipping costs and carbon footprint, lets beer drinkers take the beer where bottles aren't practical or are prohibited and protects the brew from damaging ultraviolet light. Something's working for them — they're one of the fastest-growing craft brewers in the U.S., and their arrival in this market is a very welcome development. (And for more on the can vs. bottle debate from an environmental perspective, check out an illuminating discussion in Slate magazine at www.slate.com/id/2186219.)

Oh, and the brewery also makes what it calls the world's first lip balm made with beer — Old Chub, to specify. The safety seal says "Twist the knob and rub the chub." Uh, I'm not sure I want to.

A salud to St. Arnold's of Houston, which took a gold medal in the Brewers Association's World beer cup for its Divine Reserve No. 4 in the strong scotch ale category and a silver in the international pale ale category for Elissa IPA. Spoetzl Brewery of Shiner also took a silver for in American-style wheat beer for Shiner Dunkelweizen. Oskar Blues' Gordon, mentioned above, took a bronze for imperial reds.

Some of you less bleary-eyed readers might have noticed we've changed the name of the column since its debut four weeks ago. Brew's Next is dead; all hail Bock 'n' Ale Ya. (This galvanizes the well-deserved reputation we scribblers have as shameless punsters. And way to go to American-Statesman copy editor Panfilo Garcia for coming up with it. We should all be so clever.)

But hey, I'm a flexible guy — if somebody out there comes up with something even more brilliant, maybe we'll change it again. You can send hop-scented epistolary suggestions to the e-mail address below.

pbeach@statesman.com; 445-3603