Last night Josh Hare and Jeff Russell introduced Austin to Hops & Grain. The tasting event was hosted by Rogue Equipment on the East side of 5th. There was a solid showing and the place was packed out way before they even rolled out their beers. They fine folks at Rogue generously provided a keg of Live Oak’s Big Bark for us all to snack on before the Hops & Grain beers.

The guys also rolled out their “Brew Biscuits“ line of dog treats made from spent grains. This is very cool. If you homebrew and dont have a compost pile or some other useful thing to do with this yummy biproduct of brewing, it’s very frustrating. This creative reuse of spent grains is all in part of Hops & Grain’s sustainability mission. Hailing from Boulder, CO, it’s not surprising that they are making this a priority in their brewing, and I think it should go over well in Austin. They plan on canning their beers and Jeff mentioned using collected rain water… and they had some literature about it that I picked up… but I lost it (journalism!)

On to the beers!

They began the tasting tour with their Alt. Brave. I don’t know if it was intentional, but I think Hops & Grain made a statement by leading off with a less familiar style, especially in Texas.

Kevin at (512) introduced the local market to the Alt style about a year ago, but we haven’t really seen many other local guys giving it a go.

Josh (the brewer of the two) explained that it was made in the traditional German style of Altbier with noble hops, and munich and pilsen malts. They named it the Downtown Brown.

Honestly, i’m not super familiar with the style, so I don’t feel qualified to offer much of an opinion. At only 5% ABV, I felt it could have been a bit heavier, maybe more of a malt presence. It warmed up well. I’m looking forward to trying this again.

The next Hops & Grain beer introduced to us was their porter.

Yum.

We have some great local porters already with the (512) Pecan and the Real Ale Shade Tree Coffee, but they are going to have to make room for this one.

Brewed with Owl Tree Roasting coffee, this porter is the bees knees. It’s got a nice smooth taste and mouth feel and finishes with an outstanding chocolate and roasted coffee linger. It tastes like s’mores at the end (did my little sister just write that description?)

The porter is not designated as a coffee porter, but it has a nice coffee presence. Josh explained it was cold brewed to keep the roasted flavor. He also explained when he added the coffee into the brewing to get the effect… but I didn’t write it down and forgot (journalism!) If you were there and remember, add this in the comments, please.

Finally, they concluded the tasting with a sour brewed with apricots.

!@#$

Again, very brave. The take away last night was that Hops & Grain are ready to push the envelope right out of the gates.

The beer was crisp and refreshing with the apricots coming in very subtly. Not as sour as I’m accustomed too, but good.

I would have liked to try this before the alt and porter. It was a very pretty beer (as you can maybe tell from my iPhone image).

In conclusion, the Hops & Grain tasting event was a success. Josh and Jeff mentioned a few times they were not expecting the large turnout (100-200 ppl). There was enough beer to go around, and a fair amount of the local brewing community came out to support them.

Josh, Jeff, thanks for the beers and I wish you both the best of luck,

Cheers!