Heather and I went down to Grapevine Craft Brewery to check them out and try some tasty brews. They’re still in their Farmer’s Branch location, but are expecting to be moved in to the Grapevine facility by April 2015. They do tastings on the first Saturday of the month, and this one happens to coincide with North Texas Beer Week, which meant that we got special pint glasses with our tickets. The tour is pretty standard for a craft brewery, with a discussion on how beer is made and what the equipment does. They jazzed it up a little with some trivia questions throughout the presentation. I happened to know the term for chilling beer to get the yeast to settle out: cold crashing. I shouted it out and won a gift certificate to Finley’s Barber Shop, who were there doing shaves for Movember.
The first beer I tried was Sir William’s English Brown Ale, which was the subject of some controversy earlier this year and has subsequently vindicated itself by winning a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival. It’s a really nice brown ale, light and fruity with a good malt finish and a gentle hopping. Plus I got to hold the actual gold medal, which was pretty cool.
My second and final beer was the Bourbon Wood Aged Nightwatch Oatmeal Stout. I’m pretty picky when it comes to oaked or barrel aged beers, especially bourbon barrel aged beers because most of them just taste too unbalanced to me. This was one of the exceptions, and a delicious exception it was. The oak and bourbon balanced nicely with the oatmeal stout flavors to create a delicious beer.
We spent some time enjoying the beers, talking to the staff and the guys from Finley’s, and nosing around the brewery. I picked up a shirt, and we got a couple koozies as freebies, plus our pint glasses. After that, we headed out to finish our Saturday errands.