Real Ale Brewing Company

Summary

Real Ale Brewing is a regional-sized American brewery founded in 1996 in Blanco, Texas. Their beers can only be found in Texas.

Real Ale Brewing Company
Handcrafted beers from the Texas Hill Country
LocationBlanco, Texas
Coordinates30°06′48″N 98°24′46″W / 30.113255°N 98.41274°W / 30.113255; -98.41274
Opened1996
Annual production volume60,000 US beer barrels (70,000 hL)
Owned byBrad Farbstein
Active beers
Name Type
Rio Blanco Pale Ale English-style Pale Ale
Full Moon Pale Rye Ale American Pale Ale
Brewhouse Brown Ale Brown Ale
Fireman's #4 Blonde Ale Blonde Ale
Devil's Backbone Tripel
Lost Gold IPA American IPA
Hans Pils German Pilsner
Sisyphus Barleywine Ale Barley Wine
4-squared American Blonde
Seasonal beers
Name Type
Shade Grown Coffee Porter Porter
Phoenixx Double ESB Extra Special/Strong Bitter
Real Heavy Wee Heavy
White Witbier
Oktoberfest Oktoberfest/Märzen
Hefeweizen Hefeweizen

History edit

The Real Ale Brewing Company was established in 1996 in the basement of an antique store in Blanco, Texas by Philip, Diane and Charles Conner. The Conners sold the brewery to Brad Farbstein in 1998. The brewery relocated in May 2006 to a brand-new facility in Blanco, that allowed increased production from 5,500 barrels a year up to 72,000 barrels a year.[1] The owner credits the local Blanco River as "some of the best brewing water for the styles of beer that we make," making Blanco an ideal location for the brewery.[2]

Local partnerships have included Austin-based Fireman's Texas Cruzer, a BMX cruiser bike manufacturer, for which Fireman's #4 Blonde Ale, perhaps Real Ale's best known beer, is named.

In October 2016 Real Ale Brewing Company announced it was issuing a "precautionary recall" of 11,000 cases due to a potential glass defect. [3]

Mysterium Verum edit

Mysterium Verum is a line of beers produced by Real Ale Brewing Company in which the beers are aged in barrels. Some of these beers are additionally inoculated with wild yeast and/or bacteria. A list of these beers follows:

Name Name before aging Base Style Wild Beer?
The Highlander 00 Real Heavy Scotch Ale No
Scots Gone Wild 00 Real Heavy Scotch Ale yes
The Devil's Share 00 The Devil's Backbone Trippel no
WT3F!? 00 The Devil's Backbone Trippel yes
The Kraken 00 Sisyphus American Barleywine no
Empire 00 Lost Gold American IPA no
Imperium 00 Lost Gold American IPA yes
Morgul Ale 00 Porter Robust Porter no
Shipwrecked 00 Real Heavy Scotch Ale no
Benedictum 00 N/A Flanders Red yes

[4][5][6]

Brewers' Cut edit

In 2012 Real Ale Brewing Company started the Brewers Cut product line. The Brewers' Cut line focuses on developing new recipes to put out to the public, and then relying on customer feedback through social media to determine whether the recipe will be bumped up to a year-round product, a seasonal product, or set with plans to be brewed at a later date again in the Brewers' Cut Series. This is a limited-release product; the releases are as follows:[7]

Release Number Name Release Date Style Packaging size ABV
01 00 Signature Hop Pale Ale 2012 Herkeles American Pale Ale 6-Pack 5.5%
02 00 Black Quad 2012 Black Quadrupel 4-pack 9.6%
03 00 Dry Hopped Porter 2013 Porter 6-pack 6.4%
04 00 Imperial Red Ale 2013 American Double / Imperial IPA 4-pack 8.8%
05 00 Altbier 2013 Altbier 6-pack 6.6%
06 00 Blonde Barleywine Ale 2013 American Barleywine 4-pack 9.3%
07 00 Kölsch 2013 Kölsch 6-pack 5.2%
08 00 Maibock 2013 Maibock 4-pack 7.6%
09 00 Witbier 2013 Witbier 6-pack 4.6%
10 00 Double IPA 2014 American Double / Imperial IPA 4-pack 7.5%
11 00 California Common 2014 California Common / Steam Beer 6-pack 5.9%
12 00 Grand Cru 2014 Grand Cru 4-pack 8.5%
15 00 Signature Hop Pale Ale 2014 Ultra American Pale Ale 6-pack 5.9%
13 00 Oyster Stout 2014 Oyster Stout 6-pack 6.8%
14 00 Kriek 2015 Kriek 4-pack 7.5%
17 00 Helles 2015 Helles 6-pack 4.5%

Awards and recognition edit

Real Ale Brewing Company was awarded their first Great American Beer Festival Medal in 2010. They received a gold for the Rio Blanco Pale Ale in the English Bitter category.[8] Real Ale Brewing Company was awarded two silver Medals at the 2012 Great American Beer Festival; one for the Fireman's #4 in the Golden/Blond Ale category, and the other for the Hans Pils in the German Pilsner category.[9] In 2011 Real Ale Brewing Company ranked #49 in the Brewer's Association annual list of the top 50 Craft Breweries by sales in volume for the year of 2010. In 2012 Real Ale Brewing Company ranked #45 in the same list for the year of 2011.[10][11][12] In 2013, the brewery won silver at the Great American Beer Festival for their Brewers Cut Altbier in the German-Style Altbier category.[13] In 2014, Real Ale won a gold medial at the Great American Beer Festival for Benedictum from their Mysterium Verum series in the Belgian-Style Lambic or Sour Ale category.[14] In 2019 Real Ale was named as the number 4 best brewery in Texas in the Texas Craft Beer Report published by the analytics organization Hopalytics.[15]

References edit

  1. ^ Bitchbeer.org (September 3, 2013). Austin Beer: Capital City History on Tap. Charleston, SC: The History Press. pp. 52–56. ISBN 9781626190948.
  2. ^ A Taste of Texas for American Beer Month
  3. ^ Kendall, Justin (October 21, 2016). "Real Ale Brewing Recalls 11,000 Cases of Beer in Texas". Brewbound. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  4. ^ "Advocating for Texas Craft Beer". Texasbrews.Org. May 19, 2011. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  5. ^ "Mysterium Verum". Real Ale Brewing. Archived from the original on May 2, 2013. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  6. ^ "Ben E. Keith: Beverage : Products". 208.131.137.152. Archived from the original on November 30, 2012. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  7. ^ Nason, Adam (October 18, 2012). "Real Ale Brewers' Cut series debuts with two new releases". BeerPulse. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  8. ^ "Advocating for Texas Craft Beer". Texasbrews.Org. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  9. ^ Gubbins, Teresa (October 15, 2012). "Texas snags 9 medals at 2012 Great American Beer Festival, including gold for Real Ale, Uncle Billy's and Spoetzl". Culturemap. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  10. ^ "Releases Top 50 Breweries in 2011". Brewers Association. April 12, 2012. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  11. ^ "Releases 2010 Top 50 Breweries Lists". Brewers Association. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  12. ^ Nason, Adam (July 3, 2012). "Real Ale Firemans #4 Blonde Ale coming to cans". BeerPulse. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  13. ^ "Great American Beer Fest 2013 Winners Announced". Huffington Post. October 13, 2013. Retrieved March 12, 2014.
  14. ^ "Great American Beer Fest 2014 Winners" (PDF). Great American Beer Festival. October 14, 2014. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  15. ^ "Texas Craft Beer Report". Hopalytics. December 17, 2019.

External links edit

  • Real Ale Brewing Company - Official Real Ale Brewing Company site
  • Fireman's Texas Cruzer