Then and now: Comparing Plano's newest brewery to the one that started it all

Unlawful Assembly is the third brewing entity to exist in Plano (Photo © Brian Brown/Beer in Big D).

Nearly 30 years after the last production brewery operated in the city, Unlawful Assembly Brewing Co. (UABC) has opened its doors in Plano. The brewery exists on the third floor of Legacy Food Hall, in the new Legacy West development.

Indeed, while breweries have popped up in all corners of the Metroplex, Plano has seemed like a forgotten city. Other than an offshoot of the Gordon Biersch brewpub chain (just across the Dallas North Tollway from UABC, in the Shops at Legacy), Plano has been bereft of a dedicated brewing operation since Texas' first ever microbrewery, Reinheitsgebot Brewing Co. (affectionately known as Reinbo), closed in 1989.

Of course, things are a lot different now than they were in the 1980s. While UABC's setup screams modern-day industrial facility, getting Reinbo up and running meant scavenging and/or inventing the equipment used to make its beer.

For example, UABC's system consists of a newly-minted 30-barrel brewhouse, along with 21 large-scale tanks situated for use in the cellar and production space.

Unlawful Assembly's three-vessel, 30-barrel brewhouse and an impressive lineup of tanks can be
viewed on the second and third floors of Legacy Food Hall (Photos © Brian Brown/Beer in Big D).

And Reinbo? Its founders equipped their brewery by converting used dairy equipment for things like a lauter tun and fermentation vessels, making a grain grinder from scratch, and retrofitting a household water heater to act as a hot liquor tank.

At Reinbo, dairy tanks served as fermentation vessels (left), grain grinders were made by hand (middle) and
water heaters posed as hot liquor tanks (right). Photos courtesy of Russ Klisch, president of Lakefront Brewery in Wisconsin.

Regarding the types of beer made by each company, as the name suggests, Reinbo's products followed the German Purity Law - i.e. the brewing ingredients consisted of only malt, hops, water and yeast. The brewery's two main beers were a pale lager called Collin County Pure Gold, and a dark lager called Collin County Black Gold.

As for UABC, Plano's newest brewery has already gone on record as saying that it "won't be afraid to break a few brewing rules." In other words, it won't be guided by such limitations. One of UABC's beers proves that to some extent, considering Idol Time, a passion fruit pineapple wheat, was among the brewery's opening day pours.

Other beers on tap at UABC, at least for now, come together to form a fairly standard craft beer lineup. A brown ale, a pale, an amber lager and a witbier make up the list of what's to be had currently, but further experimentation is promised. Should that come to pass, Plano residents can look forward to a more diverse range of offerings, especially compared to what was being made in the city more than 30 years ago.

Either way, it's interesting to see how the industry has changed since the times of the first microbrewery to exist in the city, the region and the state. Reinbo may be a thing of the past, but the efforts of those behind it laid the early groundwork that allows breweries like Unlawful Assembly to be a part of the future.

From NTX and beyond: A (very) brief history of green beer

If you happen to be one of those people who simply must dip your lips in a pint of green beer this St. Patrick's Day, why not do so while knowing a little bit of the history behind the emerald elixir? By all accounts, these crafty concoctions got their start during the early 1900s (as you'll see in the snippets below), but you might not realize that a former brewery in North Texas plays a small part in the story as well.

Image taken from bottle label in personal collection.

Plano's Reinheitsgebot Brewing Co. was the first microbrewery in Texas, not to mention the sixth one ever to open in the United States. And, believe it or not, the company once produced the only bottled green beer in the country. Collin County Emerald was an all-malt beverage crafted for St. Patrick's Day in the mid-1980s. It was packaged and sold in clear glass bottles, which came complete with a Leprechaun on the label.

Image taken from the March 17, 1910 edition of The Press, a newspaper out of
Spokane Washington. Click here to access the article by way of The Library of Congress

America's first exposure to green beer appears to have happened in Spokane, Washington in 1910. That year, a local bar poured a beer with an apparently naturally-occuring shade of green, which...when combined with the imagery of a beer that "looks like paint"...makes you wonder what exactly patrons were being exposed to while drinking this beer.

Image taken from March 26, 1914 edition of The Independent, a newspaper based
in St. Petersburg, Florida. Click here to access the article by way of Google News.

Long about 1914, a man by the name of Thomas H. Curtin created a green beer by adding a bit of blue dye to a glass of amber-hued lager. The coloring agent, wash blue, was and still is a product used to improve the appearance of certain fabrics. No word on whether or not it had any effect on the taste of the beer.

An historical foray for Stout Day

Copyright © 2016 The Beer Goddess.

Today, it's all about the stout. That's because it's International Stout Day, a celebration of dark, decadent brews that got its start in 2011. So, in the spirit of that, I offer up a short synopsis of stouts that have been available at different times in North Texas history. Hey, it's what I do...I read old books and newspapers to learn how our scene has evolved. Sometimes such explorations also involve the consumption of beer...and more often than not, what I'm drinking is exactly the kind of rich, roasty and/or chocolately brew that inspired the creation of the day.

Cheers!

Drinking stout in pre-Prohibition Dallas

North Texans were drinking stout, or at least a kind of beer that would evolve into what was called a stout (more on that in a moment) as early as 1873. "Brown Stout Porter" could be found for sale at area grocers alongside imported lagers and Scotch ales. Many early listings don't credit the brewer, but C.G. Hibbert of London was likely the bottler of the stout porter advertised, since regular shipments from the firm were arriving at the Port of Galveston during the same period of time.

Dallas Daily Herald (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 42, Ed. 1 Sunday, March 30, 1873, newspaper, Dallas, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth279736/: accessed November 2, 2016), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu.

With regards to that other famous stout, Guinness was being sold early on by locals as well (purportedly for medicinal purposes), though it doesn't appear in Dallas newspaper ads until around 1881. Shipments to Galveston show Guinness being sent to Texas by 1865, but it's not clear when it was first stocked in North Texas. Many times the beer was billed as Burke's Guinness Dublin Stout, due to the fact that Guinness didn't bottle its own products until well after Prohibition. Back then, they used a network of bottlers to package and ship their beer to America. Edward and John Burke, who were grandsons of Arthur Guinness, owned one such distribution company and the U.S. was their largest market.

The Dallas Daily Herald. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. XXIVII, No. 132, Ed. 1 Saturday, April 30, 1881, newspaper, Dallas, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth286467/: accessed November 2, 2016), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu

"Imperial" is the new "stout"

It's true! Well, sort of. During the 1800s, stouts actually grew out of a stronger version of porter usually referred to as "stout porter." Nowadays, whenever a brewery releases a stronger version of a particular style, they add the imperial tag (imperial IPA, imperial saison, imperial brown ale, etc.). So, if you think about it, given the seemingly similar style guidelines between porters and stouts, in today's lingo a stout could also be called an imperial porter. Looking at things in those terms, you might say "imperial" is the new "stout."


Big beers were a part of the '90s boom

In the mid-to-late 1990s, when brewpubs dominated the local beer scene after being legalized in 1993, stouts were actually relatively common. Yegua Creek Brewing Co., the area's first brewpub, was probably the first local spot to brew a stout, but at least a half-dozen other brewpubs offered a stout at one time or another. A couple of them were even award winners:

• Copper Tank - Mocha Madness Coffee Stout, gold medal in the Herb/Spice Beers category at the 1998 Great American Beer Festival.
• Two Rows - Imperial Stout, bronze medal in the Imperial Stout category at the 2000 Great American Beer Festival.

Something worth noting about these two beers is that the brewers involved in their creation are still active in the brew scene today. Jon Sims, formerly of Four Corners, Oak Highlands and Texas Ale Project (but, now working at Wynkoop in Colorado), was an assistant brewer at Copper Tank in 1998, while Mike Kraft, currently the director of brewing operations at Wild Acre, was running the brewhouse at Two Rows in 2000.

The first locally-crafted stout beer and whiskey blend?

Speaking of Two Rows, that brewpub might have been considered ahead of its time based on one beer it produced. Years before barrel-aged beers would become commonplace, Two Rows whipped up a beer and bourbon blend called Wild Turkey Stout. If memory serves, it hit taps sometime around 2003, and much like the stronger beers of today, it was served in a smaller vessel due to its higher ABV.

Moving past the new Millennium

After the year 2000, Fort Worth's Healthy Brew included a stout in its organic lineup, while Great Grains of Dallas was brewing Wildcatter's Crude Stout, a recipe they licensed from the by-then defunct Yellow Rose Brewing Co. of San Antonio. The Covey in Fort Worth had one as well, called Smokestack Stout. That beer won a silver medal in the Smoke-Flavored Beer category at the 2009 Los Angeles International Beer Competition. Then, of course, came Snowmageddon, an imperial oatmeal stout that commemorates the great roof collapse that occurred at Rahr & Sons in 2010.

While still being brewed by Yellow Rose Brewing of San Antonio, Wildcatter's Crude Stout

was singled out as a Gold Medal winner by the Beverage Tasting Institute.

Left: Armadillo's Quakertown Stout won gold in the Imperial Stout category at GABF in 2014.

Right: Sasquatch from 903 Brewers won silver in the Aged Beer category at GABF in 2015.

As for the here and now, North Texas currently has a plethora of obsidian offerings. Most are familiar with names like Community Legion, The Temptress from Lakewood and others, but let's not forget about the two locally-brewed stouts that have brought home major awards during the current craft beer renaissance (see details in the caption above). One, that being Sasquatch from 903 Brewers , is likely stalking your local store shelves as we speak. And, the other? That would be Quakertown Stout, the product of Denton-based Armadillo Ale Works...a beer that will re-appear soon.

Yesterday and today with North Texas IPAs

For many, the IPA is virtually synonymous with the copious use of hops (© Brian Brown/Beer In Big D).

Today is IPA Day, a day set aside each August to celebrate craft beer's most popular style. Founded in 2011, what was once a hashtag holiday meant to bring craft beer drinkers together over social media is now an international event with festivities featuring IPAs occurring at bars and restaurants all around the world.

Looking back, it was 2001 when the American-Style IPA became the most-entered category at the Great American Beer Festival for the first time. The category has held the top stop ever since, as the number of American IPAs entered in the competition continues to grow and set new records annually. In 2015 alone, a total of 336 entries were logged, representing a roughly 20% increase over the previous year.

As for how popular the style is here at home, if the number of IPAs being produced is any indication, then clearly the IPA is king. Survey local lineups and you'll find that well over 60 different IPAs have been created by local brewers in recent years, with beers of American, Belgian and German influence being brewed to match style descriptors for session, single, double, triple and even quadruple IPAs.

Going further inside the numbers, it turns out that nearly all of the 50 active brewing operations in North Texas have brewed at least one IPA. One outfit, that being Division Brewing, has crafted upwards of 10 different recipes. As for the holdouts, North Texans have yet to see an IPA from the likes of 3 Nations Brewing, Armadillo Ale Works, Barley & Board or Wild Acre Brewing.

Of course, what's mentioned above only takes into account where things stand in the here and now when it comes to the IPA. There's more to the story, though, if you're curious about the IPA's place in North Texas brewing history. Granted, there was probably a hundred-year stretch when there wasn't much going on IPA-wise around these parts, but there are still stories to tell about the presence of IPAs in Dallas stores around the mid-to-late 1800s, and when the first IPAs were brewed locally during the 1990s. So, with that in mind, here are few highlights from the IPA's North Texas timeline.

Image credit: Brewers Publications

The one true history:

While the focus will be on local facts in what follows, it should be noted that the complete history of the IPA can be traced back to the late 1700s. Given that, should you wish to delve into the details of how the style came into being, look no further than Mitch Steele's comprehensive work on the subject, IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of the India Pale Ale.


The IPA in early Dallas:

Some variation of IPA was selling in Dallas as early as 1859, when E. Young's liquor store offered "East India Ale" for sale, though no there were no details as to the branding given in order to identify the maker.

Latimer, J. W. Dallas Herald, Vol. 7, No. 52, Ed. 1 Wednesday, June 29, 1859, newspaper; Dallas, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth294078/: accessed August 2, 2016), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu.

A similar story held true in 1870, when listings for the Mays Store advertised "India Pale" ale for purchase in both bottles and jugs. Despite that, newspaper ads in other cities provide clues as to who was supplying IPA to Texas at the time, with brands like Tennent's, William Younger & Co. and Bass being among those appearing for sale in the Galveston Daily News.

Swindells, John W. & Hutchen, Virginius. Dallas Herald, Vol. 17, No. 28, Ed. 1 Saturday, March 26, 1870, newspaper; Dallas, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth294562/: accessed August 2, 2016), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu.

An award-winning brew from a bygone era:

Shortly after the Texas Legislature legalized the operation of brewpubs in 1993, the Hubcap Brewery & Kitchen was open in Dallas and brewing Vail Pale Ale, a beer that won gold in the IPA category at the 1995 Great American Beer Festival. Its recipe was designed by Wayne Waananen, who at the time was the head brewer at Hubcap's original location in Vail, Colorado. Waananen would go on to work at other breweries, including the SandLot at Coors Field in Denver, but he published a homebrew recipe for his award-winning IPA in the October 21, 1995 issue of Home Brew Digest. It's reproduced here in case anyone wants to try their hand at brewing up a bit of history.

Ingredients (for five gallons):

• 10 lbs Baird English 2-Row Pale Malt.
• 1 lb Baird English 2-Row 50-60 Crystal Malt.
• 1.2 oz. Centennial hop pellets (90 minute boil).
• 1.2 oz. Centennial hop pellets (60 minute boil).
• 1.2 oz. Cascade hop pellets (10 minute boil).
• 1.2 oz. Cascade hop pellets (end of boil).
• Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast.

Procedure:

• Mash at 68 °C for 90 minutes. Boil 90 minutes. Force cool and ferment with your favorite ale yeast (1056 works well). Rack into secondary, add finings and 1.2 oz. of Cascade whole hops. Let sit in secondary for three weeks, rack into serving vessel and force carbonate.

Targets:

• Original Gravity - 1.055.
• Final gravity - 1.016.
• IBU - 62.

Dallas' first brewery-produced IPA was a San Antonio original:

Cactus Queen's label tells the story of Belle Starr, a.k.a. the "Bandit Queen" (click to enlarge).

Another borrowed recipe was likely the basis for the first IPA brewed by a production brewery in North Texas. Great Grains Brewery of Dallas began producing Cactus Queen IPA in 2001, after the company purchased the recipes of the defunct Yellow Rose Brewing Co. of San Antonio.

An award-winning brew in the modern era:

Image credit: Rahr & Sons Brewing Co./GCG Marketing.

There may be 60 or more locally-brewed IPAs, but only one has brought home a medal from one of the industry's two major competitions. Stormcloud, which was first produced by Rahr & Sons in 2007, won a silver medal in the English-style IPA category at the 2014 World Beer Cup. It's billed as a German-style IPA, due to its incorporation of native hop varieties like Tettnanger and Perle. In addition, Stormcloud is brewed with Vienna malt, an ingredient found in many traditional German-style beers (Vienna lagers, Oktoberfests, bocks).

Smithsonian launching initiative to document brewing history

Image credits: Smithsonian, Brewers Association.

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has announced the launch of a three-year initiative to collect, document and preserve the history of brewing, craft brewing and the beer industry to explore how beer and brewing connects to larger themes in American History.

This effort, which is part of the "Smithsonian Food History" project, is being made possible through a donation from the Brewers Association. The work will seek to examine beer's connection to significant social, cultural, economic and environmental movements across the country, as well as how the beverage ties in to different aspects of advertising, agriculture, innovation, business and community life.

"Brewing has a long and deep connection to our country's history, and the museum's collections explore the history of beer from the late 19th to early 20th centuries," said John Gray, director of the museum. "The Support of the Brewers Association allows our staff to collect the more recent history, including the impact of small and independent craft brewers who continue to advance the U.S. beer culture and inspire brewers worldwide."

Museum staff have researched and documented American food and beverage history for more than two decades and will work with the Brewers Association, American brewers and beer historians to document and collect the stories of the modern industry. The museum currently houses several small, but important collections dating from the 1870-1960s, but as American brewing continues to expand in scope, scale and impact, the museum is uniquely positioned to collect new industry material for the future benefit of scholars, researchers and the public.

"The craft brewing revolution in American has had a profound social, cultural and economic impact on this country," said Bob Pease, president and CEO of the Brewers Association. "America is a beer destination. We are honored to support this effort and work with the National Museum of American History to chronicle and showcase the significant achievements small and independent brewers have made throughout this nation's history."

For more information on the initiative and a link to the museum's digital collections relating to beer history, visit http://s.si.edu/BrewHistory.

Throwback Thursday: Go behind the curtain at Carling

Aerial image of the completed Carling Brewery in Ft. Worth (May 1964).

If you've got some free time and are looking to turn back the clock while taking in a bit of North Texas brewing history, the Special Collections division of the University of Texas at Arlington Library has made available an online database of images depicting the former Carling Brewing Company of Ft. Worth.

Carling, as you may know, predated Miller Brewing Company on the site where MillerCoors now operates on I-35W, just south of I-20 in Ft. Worth (the physical address is 7001 South Freeway). The Canadian brewery began construction on the property in January 1963, but what was to be "The World's Most Modern Brewery" never managed to get fully up and running due to production issues. This led to the eventual buyout by Miller in 1966, with various expansions and upgrades over the years leading to the facility we see today.

Images of Carling (dating from 1963-1965) are archived at UTA as part of the W.D. Smith Photography Negatives Collection, with over 140 entries providing a glimpse of both the interior and exterior of the plant at various stages of its construction and development. In addition to numerous aerial shots of the outside of the building, images of the inside capture views of employee common areas, as well as virtually all aspects of the manufacturing process.

Above and below, I've put together a preview of what can be found in the collection, which is accessible at the following website: http://library.uta.edu/digitalgallery/. Once there, click "Search" at the upper right and enter "Carling" as your search term.

Cheers!


Click thumbnails to link directly to the gallery at UTA where you can view full size images (clicking will open a new tab/window):

     

Early and late-stage construction (left: March 1963, right: October 1963)

Left: Brewing system control board (1964).

Right: Liquid adjunct tank with a capacity of 400 barrels (1964).

Left: Fermentation tanks with a capacity of 1000 barrels (1964).

Right: Storage room lined with 1000-barrel tanks (1964).

Above: Packaging line, including a bottle washer (upper right) capable of processing 14,840 bottles at a time, and a label machine (just out of view to the left) capable of labeling 270 bottles per minute (1964).

Note: All images are the property of University of Texas at Arlington and are used here in accordance with the terms of the non-commercial license found here.

Throwback Thursday: A past and present look at the old Dallas Brewery

Since Throwback Thursday seems to be a thing these days, I thought it might be interesting to play along while looking at some images of the old Dallas Brewery. The business, which originated at the hands of Anton Wagenhauser in 1885, was the largest pre-Prohibition brewing operation in the city, and it was located on the site currently occupied by the present-day Dallas Brewery Building at 703 McKinney Avenue.

Present day Dallas Brewery Building (left: Google Maps, right: Brian Brown/Beer In Big D, click to enlarge).

One reason to bring up the topic is because co-author Paul Hightower and I weren't able to locate any images of the original structure or brewery advertising for inclusion in our book on local beer history, entitled North Texas Beer. The search didn't end with the book's publication, however, and I'm happy to say I've since found a few usable images in the public domain.

Ad from the 1894-5 Dallas City Directory showing the brewery's Texas flag-inspired trademark.
The flag appeared in promotional materials and on glassware available at the time (click to enlarge).

Another reason to look more into the history of the building is to perhaps set record straight on the origins of the Brewery Building as it stands today. While there are remnants of the old Dallas Brewery on the site in question, despite what you may read in area newspapers or real estate ads, the four-story structure at the intersection of Woodall Rogers and I-35E wasn't built in 1890.

To start, no four story structure other than a portion of the brewery itself is shown on Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps up to the year 1905 (the number of stories is indicated in the upper right corner of each rectangular section of the buildings in the map below).

1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Dallas (University of Texas Libraries, click to enlarge).

While the physical plant reaches upwards of four stories at different points (not counting smokestacks and/or flagpoles), no support building nearby rises higher than two stories tall. This can be seen more clearly in a rendering of the full site from the 1906 Dallas City Directory.

Image of the Dallas Brewery site from the 1906 Dallas City Directory
(rotate 90 degrees counter-clockwise to compare to Sanborn map, click to enlarge).

Okay, so when was the Dallas Brewery Building actually built?

Evidence to answer that question can be found in accounts from the Dallas Morning News, which tell us that the site was cleared "for the construction of a four-story and basement warehouse building for the Morgan Warehouse and Industrial Company" in March 1925. Morgan Warehouse was a distribution business run by those behind the Dallas Brewery after Prohibition shut down the brewing industry in 1920 (the group failed to stay afloat as a soft drink manufacturer prior to 1925). Anything remaining after the initial demolition was removed in 1930, also according to the News, with other refurbishments over the years leading to building we see today. Regarding the basement mentioned in 1925, it just so happens that two modern-day breweries operated in that space during the 1990s (these were the Dallas Brewing Company and the St. Andrew's Brewing Company).

As for what's left from around 1890, that's limited to a 50-foot artesian well that was uncovered by workers in 1983. Up until 2011, visitors to the building could actually see the well, which was left exposed inside Newport's Seafood Restaurant. It must have created some level of intrigue, since a 1999 story in the Dallas Observer says that waiters would actually dive into the murky waters during the summer in order to explore the well's depths. Alas, once Newport's closed and Draft Picks Sports Bar moved in at the end of 2011, the well was capped for liability reasons, essentially locking away one of the last bits of history from the city's bygone brewing era.