Austin’s Best Breweries of 2023, Power-Ranked
Top of the Hops VIII, baby!
By Eric Puga, 7:00AM, Tue. Oct. 10, 2023
Click here to jump straight to the brewery rankings.
The saying used to be: “There’s no such thing as an ex-craft beer drinker.”
The implication was that the small beer industry was so aligned with the desires of its client base that no one would dare turn their back on taste bud detonators like cryo-hopped India pale ales and fruit cobbler stouts in favor of the gateway years of ditch-side keggers and 11am tailgates that demanded the longevity of beer over its flavor. Taste mattered. The beer shelves reflected the creative whims of brewers: oatmeal coffee porters, barrel-aged raspberry sours, Belgian blonde ales inside taxidermy squirrels. The number of American craft breweries bloomed to more than 9,500 at its summit, many of them lapping up the praises and accolades from the casual beer fans, the craft-curious, and the Never-Macros like house cats lording over a fishbowl with eyes on the prize of a legacy brand.
Then we collectively all seemed to learn at once, a lot of this stuff is actually unsustainable: the health detriments of high-alcohol and high-caloric beers, the redundancy of identical taproom experiences, the maturing embarrassment of having stood in line for a beer that tastes like Oreo O’s and maple bacon. And then there were the financial drawbacks. That trifling disposable income suddenly went to other things, like travel soccer and Cybertruck loans. The cost of strange beer came for Gen X and the millennials, and it came at ’em hard. Soon they were dabbling in an on-again, off-again status with craft beer, considering a clean split for Michelob Ultra or maybe even pretending to keep it local with a Lone Star. You know what doesn’t give you debilitating heartburn and back payments to Tesla? Modelo Oro.
But fortunately for us, craft brewers are real people too. They felt the weight of inflation and carrying the extra 10 pounds in a five-a-side league match. They felt the palatal fatigue of saccharine-sweet pastry beers. They pivoted to fewer quirky one-offs and more of the traditional relishes of beer. Lagers. They brewed more lagers. And our Texas brewers absolutely crushed it. A Mich Ultra? Hell no. We’ve got craft Pilsners en masse, bro. In all kinds of varieties: German, Czech, American, Italian. One brewery made a French Pilsner! Do we know what the heck that is? Nope. But we’ll drink it. Because it has flavor! It has balanced alcohol depth! It comes in reasonably priced six-packs! And it tastes like beer should taste.
One might ask, Well, where do we get these refreshing bevs? If you missed the Austin Beer Guide’s annual, exceptionally curated Lager Jam as we did, then you’ll just have to go straight to the source. Right here, loyal readers, is where you will find our annual BREWERY POWER RANKINGS to guide you square and true on which local beermakers are trending the hottest right now.
As in the past, we are generous with our brewery geographics. We include all the good spots bordering Travis County because everywhere is just one giant, overpriced neighborhood anyway. Our POWER RANKINGS scores acknowledge a brewery’s attention to their mainstay lineup (40%), emphasis on their taproom/beer garden vibe (30%), creativity of their seasonal and limited beer lineup (15%), their 2023 collection of beer awards and honors (10%), and an additional 5% to any intangible features, like a notable food truck, excellent branding, live music, live art, or heck, live animals. Ted Cruz has been all humpty lately because he thinks the government is trying to limit Americans to two beers per week when we all know that bum would struggle to throw back a single pint. But you, dear reader, may go out and chug all the damned beers you please, because this is America … and these are Central Texas’ best breweries, POWER RANKED!
Dropped From Rankings: Roughhouse Brewing (15), Central District Brewing (20), Vacancy Brewing (23), (512) Brewing (24), Black Star Co-op (25)
Just Missed: Roughhouse (70.5 points) The remote, 4-year-old farmhouse brewery in the outskirts of San Marcos remains a destination brewery full of lagers and saisons with only 20% of the amount of children running around over at the breweries off Fitzhugh Road… Beerburg (69.25 points) An absolute stunner of a taproom with a beer garden chaser, the Texas Hill Country doesn’t get much better than a Paz Mexican Lager and top-end chicken flautas at sunset… Central District (69 points) Winning gold at the 2023 Texas Craft Brewers Cup for Kayaker’s Kölsch is a good reminder that Central District is a living piece of history and Downtown Austin’s one and only true brewery (R.I.P. Lovejoy’s)… Altstadt (68.75 pts) It would be the funniest thing ever to call this 58,000-square-foot, three-story, cosplay Disney estate an under-the-radar brewery, but nobody really talks about ’em until they’re on their way outta Fredericksburg and someone needs a place to whiz the grape juice. Inside, you will see many shiny awards from events like the World Beer Cup (2023 Gold for Hefe), the Texas Craft Brewers Cup (2023 Silvers for Hefe and Kolsch), and other similar accouterments from recent years. Worth the pit stop, we say!… The Stay Put (68 points) Look, it’s a gorgeous taproom with a back porch second to none. Would it be better off somewhere other than Rainey? Hell yeah. Tasty in-house bevs like Gucci Lucci Italian Pilsner will be completely wasted on the Ben Shapiro bros. We admire their courage, though.
Trend Tracker: The “AC Power Rankings Trend” moves from oldest to newest. GREEN indicates a brewery moved up in the rankings; RED indicates a brewery moved down; and BLUE indicates a new entry or no movement. Looking for previous Power Rankings? See 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Part I and Part II, and 2017.
Top of the Hops VIII
25 | Hopsquad
2023 Score: 71
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 19, 15, 19
We don’t know if an entire brewery can survive on vibes, but Hopsquad is gonna try. We do know we’re gonna get FIRED UP every time we put Hopsquad on our to-do list because it means we have a secondary reason to just drinking solid beer: soccer. And as of now, Hopsquad remains Austin’s best soccer brewery, while also rapidly becoming Austin’s only soccer brewery with the announcement of the shuttering of nearby Circle. Hopsquad cares enough about the beautiful game to host a bunch of plucky pre-match Austin FC supporters (and console those same dejected post-match fans), flicks on the lights early for weekend and midweek European matches when no other brewery will, and screens an array of international matches for the closet patriots in all of us. Along with on-site food trucks Doughsquad (pizza and corny dogs!) and Botanita Tres Reyes (gorditas!), Hopsquad keeps merrymakers charged up with a variety of Euro Pilsners in French, Italian, and Spanish flavors!
24 | Oasis Texas
2023 Score: 71.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ NEW ENTRY
It’s time to put Oasis back in this discussion, now that their contract brewing phase is over with BIG BEER and they appear to be refocused on dialing in their own beers again. Stuck with the worst brand-name association to another business since the Four Seasons Hotel & Resorts, Oasis B-R-E-W-I-N-G gets an unfair rap for being neighbors with the worst restaurant on a lake ever, while also being a very, very solid restaurant on a lake. Oasis Brewing’s kitchen is throwing haymakers with its pimento beer cheese bacon burger and harvest quinoa bowl and a very diverse selection of taproom beers. Patio Pounder Light Lager is a great addition to the lager pervert scene and Oasis’ Meta Modern Session IPA tastes like old times again! Grab an eyeful of sunset here instead of the other place on the hill.
23 | The Draught House
2023 Score: 72
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 18, NR
The Draught House has been around since 1969 and nary a spec of rust tarnishes this glorious old brewpub that’s perched midblock like an untroubled raven overseeing the health of Austin’s craft beer scene. Their 74 taps have seen many breweries swoop in over time and some of them go in just moments. But one brewery that remains solid and true is their own house beers, served since 1995 and recently ramped up to annex more than 20 of their own tap handles. That’s a heckuva lot of beer for that comparatively tiny brewhouse. But the Draught House is always on their flow, serving up oft-rotating 10s like Blackpool Bitter, a fine sipping ale with a mellow hop profile and a toasty backbone, and Pumpkinhead, their iconic spiced pumpkin ale that wowed drinkers long before Starbucks ever did. And this year, they introduced a full bar to further entice the degenerates in all of us. Step outside of their charming but modest English pub vibe and into their permanent Oktoberfest fixture that sits on the former parking/tailgating area for boisterous socialization, complete with lengthy rows of picnic tables under a striated tent.
22 | Frontyard
2023 Score: 72.25
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 18
Frontyard was recently revoted as the Best Brewery for the second year running by the readers of Austin Monthly, and yes, the people are right, this brewery is great. It’s encouraging to know that absolutely no one out there is sleeping on Frontyard’s Honey Blonde Ale. “A honey blonde?” say the unbelievers. “Is this 1995?” they mock. I try not to get too worked up explaining that, yes, a honey blonde in 2023 plays, but specifically this one because it’s unbelievably tasty. Mock no more! And, if a blonde ale isn’t your flavor, maybe you can appreciate Frontyard’s unseasonable dedication to stouts – their Coffee Milk Stout being amongst the region’s best – which is ambitious given Texas’ proximity to the face of the sun. Lake people from Spicewood seem to love the challenge, regardless. Watch them pound dark beers all day while dorking around the pickleball court on the Frontyard grounds or enjoying one of the best brewery views in all of Texas from the great lawn.
21 | Family Business
2023 Score: 73
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 16, 17, 22, 21
The disparity between the kind of people who visit Family Business as if it’s a working film set and the people who visit for the top-quality beer that Family Business produces itself often amuses me in the same way as would someone who might go to a Longhorns football game just to eat the stadium nachos and derisively call the event “sportsball.” Sure, Family Business is a destination brewery in every sense of the term and founded by a screen star, but you may as well enjoy one of the most thoughtfully curated mainstay lineups in the entire region while you’re there chewing on the huge mouthful of Americana vibes that FB executes so well. You’ll have your exurb beer moms in broad-brimmed wool-felt hats and your Vuori beer dads noodling air-bass to that week’s roots band playing onstage while cuing up for the constant lineup of FB hits: Heckboy helles; Norway, José! Mexican lager with Norwegian kveik yeast; and 2023 Great American Beer Fest gold medal winner, Chilis From the Grave chili beer. The variety is incredible and there just isn’t a bad beer in the house. For our sportsball viewing however, we don’t stray far from 2019 GABF silver medalist, Golden Age Pilsner.
20 | Fast Friends
2023 Score: 73.25
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ NEW ENTRY
Among the developmental debris of 2023’s new brewery debutants in Central Texas, Fast Friends was the year’s paragon: a polyrhythmic space with a light and airy main taproom; a dim and intimate lower-level lounge with game-watching nooks; a festive, two-story, family-friendly beer garden; a speakeasy-style barrel room; and future plans for a musical amphitheatre carved into the natural hills of its 3-acre lot. Winner of Austin Monthly’s Best New Brewery, Fast Friends glitters with promise from head brewer Keith Shaw, formerly of brewing titan Modern Times in Anaheim, which means more lagers and IPAs eventually written into Austin’s craft beer canon. We love that. All of it goes down smooth with FF’s unmissable jalapeño-swirl pepperoni pizza. Beyond that, Fast Friends features one of the catchiest brewery names in town and one of the best brewery logos, designed by the perennially gifted Helms Workshop.
19 | Hi Sign
2023 Score: 73.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 15, 13, 15, 17, 13
Last year, Hi Sign did the ol’ home run trot over from the aluminum shed on the banks of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and into a skyrocketing neighborhood like a proper modern brewery. It’s been a fantastic fit for them in a walkable, starter-home district full of all that yummy disposable income. All that handsome wood throughout! The steel! The glass! The deliriously delicious Hi-C hazy IPA! It’s what zoomer fantasies are made of. Hi-C debuted in a proper, 16-ounce aluminum vessel this year to go along with Hi Sign’s stellar mainstay lineup, including one of Austin’s supreme summer beers, Violet blueberry blonde ale.
18 | Flix Brewhouse Flagship
2023 Score: 77
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ NEW ENTRY
Back when we used to luxuriate over downing a burger and beer while watching a first-run feature in an actual cinema, we used to wonder how a movie-watching experience could possibly get any better. Well, now that this full-sensory experience has been monotonously regurgitated by a number of movie houses both nationally and locally, the astonishment has been dulled by overpriced draft pours and prepackaged foods. But now I’m a Flix man, as this Texas-based chain has reset the moviegoing standard with overstuffed, extra-wide reclining armchairs that go back further than the dentist’s; an appetizing, made-from-scratch menu; and freshly brewed house beer – all at (gasp!) very reasonable prices. I mean, it’s downright all-day happy hour at Flix compared to the other local beer-and-a-movie joint. Additionally, Flix has one of the best seasonal beer programs in town (a tip-top rauchbier and coffee porter!) and often gets topical with its current run of movies (Hazy Peach IPA for Super Mario Bros.). And let’s be real: Who can boast a better taproom than a wholeass movie projector showing Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in 4K? No one.
17 | Southern Heights
2023 Score: 77.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 9, 9, 7, 9, 11, 14
The selection wall has been a bit slight lately and the to-go cooler almost completely empty, but that’s about the only negativity that y’all will ever hear from us regarding SHB, because talking bad about a brewery we’ve unabashedly ranked since its inception is considered hate speech in our opinions. When we’re there, we’re there for all the bitchin’ IPAs: Tahitian Dreamin’, It’s Probably Awesome, Evergreen Terrace, Still Tippin’, and all of the other dozens of expertly hopped selections that rotate through the taproom over the course of a year. They serve ’em up, and we knock ’em down. And if you love Southern Heights, then you gotta go right to the source where it’s freshest, as distribution is notoriously sparse around town (a SH tap will let you know you’re at a really kickass bar) and buying their beer from a retailer is impossible. But that’s cool with us because Southern Heights’ taproom remains the leading standard for what Hollywood thinks a brewery would look like, making it a real treat for you and your dirtbag friends to cosplay as overly handsome dock workers.
16 | Nomadic Beerworks & Outpost
2023 Score: 78
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 20, NR, NR
Like a handful of other breweries around town, Nomadic got a second taproom glow-up that absolutely purrs with the 1970s architectural geomancy that South Austin is known for with its converted ranch-style, open-flow interior that blends right into a massive outdoor beer garden through its posterior wall of picture windows and French doors. The space is a fitting union between its late-modernist liveliness and Nomadic’s (intentionally!) exploratory menu of American beer styles: hazy IPAs, American Pilsners, fruited sours, and West Coast IPAs. We’ve been really digging Nomadic’s festbier, Süper Über, that pays homage to Oktoberfest along with on-site pork dealer SLAB BBQ as a de facto introduction to the best season of the year: fall. Screw off, summer.
15 | The Brewtorium
2023 Score: 79
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 15, 16, 14, 17
When it comes to dark and deliciously toasted Vienna-style lagers, Brewtorium’s Electric Lederhosen is the one brewed in Austin that slaps the most for me. When social media tells me the new batch has dropped, I’m like Pep Guardiola loading up his Shein cart with all the deep V-necks he can handle. I’ll take all of them, please! And while I like to fancy myself at Oktoberfest everytime I walk into their boisterously deafening beer hall, I also like to take a quiet moment out back while the MetroRail zips by with 13 commuters and pretend I’m waiting for the U-Bahn. The Brewtorium took home bronze for La Dame Rouge in the American & European Sours category at February’s Texas Craft Brewers Cup. Just an overall good-timin’ solid brewery.
14 | Vista
2023 Score: 80
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 11, 12, 11, 13, 10
The 21-acre Vista Brewery is only 5 years old but feels like it’s been around for centuries with its fruit orchards, vegetable plots, apiary, restaurant grill, and 450-foot limestone well that sources each and every one of their beers. It feels like the inevitable setting for the characters in whatever doomsday movie comes out next. This French-style saison is our only hope of repopulating the world! Coming out to this Driftwood beer ranch, you know you’re gonna have a chillass festivallike weekend full of delicious terroir beers, fancy-tasting burgers, and live Americana music (unless of course it’s one of the two weekends per year in which Vista hosts its actual festival, the wonderful Outside the City Limits). Vista continues to dazzle with its beer program, headlined by mainstay superstars Dark Skies black Pilsner and the vivacious Adair Kölsch as well as riveting seasonals like Laissez Faire Sangiovese-barrel-aged Brettanomyces beer and their Good Food Award-winning Hive Mind honey ale that uses 130 pounds of Texas honey in a Pilsner base malt.
13 | Batch
2023 Score: 80.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 14, 19, 22
Oh excuse us, Batch. We were unfamiliar with your game. Let’s talk about this brewery that GOT HOT since last year after a covert makeover. Led by head brewer and Live Oak lagerman Ryan Monahan, Batch reconceptualized its beer program in February from pithy double IPAs and peculiarly flavored milkshake beers to beautiful, bright, highly smashable golden lagers. It’s a beer program that complements Batch’s magnificent, fluffy tufts of klobasnek and kolache dough, as well as the tacos, tortas, and mulitas from LOTE, chef Javier Montesinos’s on-site scratch Mexican food truck. Having said all that, show us a better cinnamon roll in town than the one behind the glass case at Batch. A dunkel and a cinnamon roll at 10am is some kind of paradise. And when not randomly brunching on sweets and dark lagers, find us by the wall of coolers between 4 and 7pm on weekdays gazing at the fridge full of freshies to crush without a corkage fee.
12 | Real Ale
2023 Score: 87.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 2, 6, 6, 9, 11, 10, 4
Not many entities can combine beer, whiskey, and world-class quality of product into a single operation – apart from Chumbawamba, but we’ve come to know Real Ale as their equally accomplished counterparts. Fresh off Great American Beer Festival medals of gold and bronze for their Real Heavy Scotch ale and Cruzer German-style Kölsch, respectively, Real Ale continues their legendary status as one of the region’s most consistent breweries. Real Ale also claimed gold for Scots Gone Wild in the Wood and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer category at the 2023 World Beer Cup and, more locally, a bronze for Hans’ Pils at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup. Go on, name one bad beer from Real Ale. Impossible. And this coming from a brewery that likely boasts the healthiest rotational beer release program in all of Central Texas between their mainstays, seasonal releases, bomber series, and the Mysterium Verum program. This year we enjoyed Real Ale’s debut of Three on the Tree rice lager to go along with our autumnal fridge staples, Coffee Porter and Blakkr imperial black ale, and no summer is complete without a bottom drawer of Hans’, Swifty, and Crispy Business. That’s drinking clean!
11 | The ABGB
2023 Score: 88
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 8, 1, 1, 5, 6, 7, 12
The decade-old ABGB features the best core lineup in town: Hell Yes Helles, Industry Pils, Day Trip pale ale, Superliner IPA, and Rocket 100 pre-Prohibition Pilsner. There are six GABF medals and three GABF Brewpub of the Year trophies between ’em, and if the ABGB never offered an ounce of anything else beyond these beers, it would still be one of the best breweries America has ever produced. Industry Pils recently took gold in the Pilsner category at February’s Texas Craft Brewers Cup, which is essentially the equivalent to the Best Picture category of Texas beer. The ABGB’s three mainstay lagers and two perfectly balanced, hopped-up ales are deeply satisfying. Destroying several of these mid-ABV scoundrels in a single Saturday evening is light work while watching one of the many free (or cheap!) gigs that the ABGB so generously offers the community it loves so deeply. Have you seen what concert tickets cost these days?! One might also dabble in a seasonal brew or two, Captain Ivan Drago Russian imperial stout and Negra Royale dunkel on chilly nights in particular, or the ABGB’s GABF silver medaling honey lager, the BEEginning, on the other 363 days. It’s been really nice seeing cans of Hell Yes Helles and Industry Pils popping up about town like little adult Easter eggs.
10 | Lazarus 1 & 2
2023 Score: 88.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 20, 16
Lazarus has been on an impressive tear lately, opening a second (and equally thriving!) location integrated into the North Loop district not far from their East Sixth urban taproom counterpart. This helps cater to two entirely different generations of people and, frankly, keeps the experience personalized in a way that lets both Gen Z and Gen X enjoy Laz 1 & 2 to their fullest potential. Laz 1, the ever-present mid-Sixth tacos-and-beer quick stop, continues to sparkle with its Mexican street food from breakfast tacos to tortas and a 15-tap beer wall to boot. Equally considerate, Laz 2 impresses with a significantly expanded food menu of enchiladas and carne asada, along with some fantastic appetizers like queso fundido con chorizo and corn ribs. Food for people who can use a fork. In February, Lazarus brought home a remarkable three medals from the Texas Craft Brewers Cup: a bronze each for 40 Days & 40 Nights West Coast IPA and Oris Don oatmeal stout and a gold for Free Will American pale ale. Prodigal Pils, Lazarus’ landmark Pilsner, brought back Great American Beer Festival gold this past September in the hotly contested German-Style Pilsner category. It’s coming home! The GABF committee also seemed to dig Lazarus’ Bohemian-Style Pilsner Crazy Horse, awarding it gold as well. Are we seeing the dawn of Austin’s new Pilsner overlord? It’s unclear, but what we do know is that we’d like to see that kickass frozen boozy horchata thing return to the menu on a permanent basis.
9 | St. Elmo
2023 Score: 88.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 7, 7, 5, 4, 4, 3, 7
It is a natural human instinct to want to impulsively swerve through five lanes of traffic and over into the St. Elmo district or the Yard (or whatever they’re calling it this week) whenever you crest I-35 and see the gigantic South Austin Nissan flag alerting you that you’re about to pass up a cold, crispy one on the back patio of St. Elmo Brewing. That Pavlovian response toward juicy IPAs and a plate of juicy bird from the Spicy Boys truck out back is totally normal stuff. We don’t know how the flavor scientists at St. Elmo make the numbers work, but few other breweries in the state make the ABV-to-taste profile work better than these NASA-trained scholars: Easy Helles at 4.4%, Canopy double dry-hopped IPA at 6.7%, Dad American Pilsner at 4.9%! The precision! The nuance! Ready for liftoff, comrades! So yeah, St. Elmo is still kickin’ ass making some of the most consistent and diverse beers in Austin. We’re super amped for their second location on Springdale Road, optimistically opening by the time the next POWER RANKINGS drop. They’ll need a giant flag. In the meantime, the legendary 2023 International Beer Awards gold medal winner, Carl Kölsch, remains a measly two bills all day Mondays and during Longhorns games at their DA YAWD spot.
8 | Pinthouse Empire
2023 Score: 89
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1, 2
Look, it isn’t necessarily Pinthouse’s fault, But the cost of Electric Jellyfish is too damned high! Almost every chuckleschmuck operation that has decided to carry this magnificently tropical liquid has decided to exploit the levy on it up to $1.25 PER OUNCE. Indeed, Jellyfish is a goddamned Austin treasure, but sometimes a captive audience has no choice but to throw a couple of Andrew Jacksons just for a sip of the good stuff. At that rate, we demand triple the number of Pinthouses for our pizza and beer cravings! But hey, cheers to Pinthouse for concocting the highest-selling (by volume) beer in a finicky craft capital like Austin despite the price. Me? I’ll just stick with a Joe’s Magical Pils, a cipher I continue to use to let the bartenders know I’m part of the O.G. Burnet Mafia. But storefront snobbery aside, the Ben White store continues to thrill with its fantastic taproom energy. We enjoy the massive backsplash windows allowing us to see the fairy dust that’s folded into the EJ batches while the other brewing elves make my new favorite limited lager series in Cold Classics. And Pinthouse has been collecting hardware from all over the country: bronze at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup for Nomura double (Jellyfish) IPA in the Strong Hoppy Beers category, a platinum Crushie Award at the Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville for Coolest Taproom Design (with the assist from Austin’s OPA Design Studio), and a gold for Best Can Design to Pinthouse’s entire core series lineup. They were also voted by the readers of Craft Beer & Brewing magazine as the ninth favorite Small Regional Brewery in the United States, along with the 13th favorite American Hazy IPA Brewer, beating out fellow IPA giants like Trillium, Cellarmaker, and Toppling Goliath.
7 | Zilker
2023 Score: 90
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 7, 6, 5, 5, 5
Zilker beer has taken up residency as my consistent weekday fridge beer, which is one of the highest positions any brewery can manage from a consumer standpoint. I mean, not MY fridge beer specifically (although it’s a lot of Icy Boys I’m tossing back, friends!), but generally becoming known as a fridge-beer brewery for midweek imbibers can really scale up the repute. Right now, I can’t get enough of Zilker’s robust, early fall, seasonal dark lager Future You into my delighted hemoglobin molecules. Before that, it was the can’t-miss flavor raid of mainstay babe Marco IPA. Zilker’s impressive rotation of Friday new releases ensures that I will be freshly accommodated and genuinely pleased with my dynamic adventure through Zilker’s creative mental inventory of beer recipes. But don’t just take our word for it. In February, Zilker took home three Texas Craft Beer Cup medals with a gold for La Beer lager, a silver for Zilkerator doppelbock, and a bronze for Heavenly Daze hazy IPA. More recently, the brewery brought home additional hardware from the North American Beer Awards with a gold for Icy Boys and another bronze for Heavenly Daze, while nicking another medal, a bronze, for La Beer at the U.S. Open Beer Championships. Expanding the Sixth Street-fronting patio was totally necessary in accommodating the city’s endless pursuit of cold beer and Spicy Boys’ fried chicken snacks.
6 | Austin Beerworks & Sprinkleworks
2023 Score: 91
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 3, 5, 4, 1, 3, 4, 9
Can you even believe it? Our local beerworks is already 12 years old, which makes total sense given the seventh-grade wit and hubris of this beloved Austin concoctor. True story: Every beer that goes through the production line at ABW is serenaded to the Rocky IV training montage featuring Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” on a vintage Sanyo 660 audio component stereo system. This brewery pushes everything to the limit [EXPLOSIONS/F-16s SCREAM THROUGH THE VAPOUR], including scoring a brace with their newest (and chilliest!) taproom yet at the foothills of the Austin Community Landfill off Springdale Road. No worries, because like their O.G. cargo bay taproom, this one also kicks a weird amount of ass (who’s this brewery’s real estate broker, anyway?). All your favorite main characters are here, including two new mainstays: Floaty hazy session IPA and Smalltime light lager (R.I.P. summertime bestie Sun Shovel, we hardly knew ya!) weighing in at a svelte 3% ABV. How did they pack so much flavor into that small beer? Rocky IV is how. And along with that amazing core lineup comes the best seasonals program in Texas: two-time GABF medalist Super Awesome Helles, GABF and World Beer Cup medalist Black Thunder schwarzbier, and the Austin Beer Guide’s (remember that!?) Best Limited/Special Beer of 2014, Sputnik coffee oatmeal stout, just to name a few. If you’re really lucky, 2023 World Beer Cup silver medalist Golden Sour might be on the tap wall. And if the beer isn’t enough, ABW’s new 64-acre spread features a playground, a fenced dog run, and the world’s first brewery cry room. I mean, ABW is doing all the heavy lifting here. The brewery also promises a future lazy river, a Ferris wheel, and an 18-hole disc course where you throw a fancy Frisbee around similar to the game of golf, but we can’t tell if they are serious or not. They did open a lightly branded satellite taproom in the airport, after all.
5 | Live Oak
2023 Score: 91.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 1, 3, 8, 8, 7, 6, 3
If ever there was a low-risk endeavor, it’s going out to drink beer all afternoon beneath the shaded groves at Live Oak Brewery, voted the 12th favorite Small Regional Brewery by the readers of Craft Beer & Brewing. It’s the New York Yankees of brewery options: methodical, predictable, you’re gonna be forced to endure a little bit of history, and there’s only old man flavors of beer available. But this is THE grandfather of Austin brewers; heck, this is Austin brewing. The comfort of this kind of experience is a heartwarming anecdote from this 26-year-old monolith that has seen it all; a living testimonial of this town’s beer chronicles and the brewery whose history and influence echo through just about every big time player in the local beer scene. Visits to Live Oak are almost rote at this point: Start with a crisp lager, hit the turn with a smoked beer, and see out your straight flush on the river with Live Oak’s world-class hefeweizen (or if you’re feeling cheeky, another lager!). My Live Oak color palette goes: Pre-War Pils, Grodziskie smoked wheat, and then one of their scrappy seasonal lagers, like Schützenliesel rice lager, Schwarzer Rauch smoked black lager, or their hopped-up Kleines Bier. Or sometimes I’ll just stick with three straight pours of Pilz, Austin’s original bohemian-style Pilsner and silver medalist at this year’s Texas Craft Brewers Cup.
4 | Jester King
2023 Score: 91.75
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 4,2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1
Jester King has never fallen out of the Top 5 since the AC Power Rankings began as a dinky Top 10 list back in 2017, so you really don’t need to hear me mew about how AH-MAAAZING the 13-year-old, 165-acre Emirates Air of fucking breweries is for the eighth straight time. We all know Jester King is luxury at its finest: global-class spontaneously fermented beer, top-bins beer and food festivals, private label wine and cider, a four-star inn to crash in after a felonious amount of imperial stout, and more medals than a North Korean general. But, you already knew all that. What I might be able to inform you about is a perfectly jammy little cherry juice nuke made by Jester King: Montmorency vs. Balaton. MvB is sex poetry. It’s gorgeous weather on a Memorial Day. It’s ’Bama losing a perfect season on a kick six. Utter. Delight. It’s perhaps the most perfect beer in town. And in true JK fashion they expanded that concept of perfection into a reimagination of the beer, two single-cherry varietals of the beer with the spent fruit, creating both a Montmorency and a Balaton. Pals, not foes, with six walloping pounds of fruit per gallon. Go ahead and give ’em all the medals, who says no? Add them to the collection of three new medals from the 2023 Texas Craft Brewers Cup: a silver for bourbon barrel-aged Moderne Danske and a bronze each for SPON Tulle and the brewery’s legendary Atrial Rubicite raspberry ale. Jester King was also recognized by Craft Beer & Brewing as the readers’ third favorite Saison Brewer in the United States, the third favorite Sour or Wild Ale Brewer, and the ninth favorite Small Brewery. With the recent news of JK returning to self-distro, expect more opportunities of canned/draft like Le Petit Prince and La Vie en Rose around town.
3 | Oddwood
2023 Score: 92
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 10, 10, 8, 8, 8
You’d think the third-ranked brewery in Central Texas would be full of flashy playmakers like the ’22 Chiefs, but Oddwood’s lineup of beers is more like the ’78 Steelers: salt-of-the-earth punchers with backbone and grit. These are laborer beers, Pool Dad Pils and Adelita Mexican lager, Asleep in the Deep helles and Pro Tip American Pilsner. Future Utopia West Coast Pils is Lynn Swann over there, finessing someone’s sobriety like Mark Washington. Hectic stuff. That said, if there ever was a Travis Kelce on this Oddwood team, it’s Ethics & Standards, a genuinely game-changing IPA and likely the finest mainstay IPA in town. Hide your pop superstars, folks. And what better way to complement all that delicious beer than with an equally brilliant on-site food truck, KG BBQ, serving up Central Texas-style ’cue with an Egyptian twist? Name a better duo than a pomegranate-and-za’atar-glazed pork rib and a dry, tart saison from one of Oddwood’s foeders. Yep, this brewery comes at us restlessly, and we’ve yet to even mention their free-play arcade, where one could hold court on NBA Jam as the Barkley/Majerle Suns (and not Barkley’s later game replacement, KJ), if said person was me. Yep, I roll hard with Phoenix here, baby, come at me. Oddwood also does a fantastic job filling in as a de facto sports pub, because oddly (puns aside) this town lacks any great sports bars. We get our sound-on fixes here for soccer and other big games in front of their large projector only feet away from access to award-winning nugs like Texas Craft Brewers Cup silver medalist Cold Night for Alligators.
2 | Hold Out
2023 Score: 92.25
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 10, 9, 11
Hold Out’s killer slogan is “Save Austin Drink Beer,” and if that’s all it takes, we’ve been personally attempting to keep Austin afloat through the consumption of Ol’ Gil Euro Pils alone for the past three years of Hold Out’s existence. We too have mottos of our own that we always bellow out everytime we talk about Hold Out. 1) They continue to collect the best back-of-house and front-of-house squad in all of Austin beer. This is a brewery filled with the best people, and through them comes much of Austin’s best beer. It sorta always works that way, it seems. 2) Ol’ Gil is the best Pilsner in Austin. When you get an Ol’ Gil freshie in a pitted glass with the aroma of some 1850s Bohemian Kingdom wafting below you, you know that you’re in for a delightful half-hour experience. It’s a real masterpiece that belongs in whatever Austin Beer Hall of Fame currently exists, probably none, because everyone’s too drunk saving Austin with this masterful liquid. But truthfully, there’re no misses at all on Hold Out’s beer wall. There’s light lager House Beer, which is just a lovely thing to get to order as if you were in the last pub on earth at the edge of the world and alls they’ve got is the one beer. The house beer. “Yes, I’ll have the House Beer,” you’d say. And you’d enjoy it. Then there’s Hezky Czesky, Hold Out’s malty, bready, toffee-flavored homage to dunkel; Lagerface, the silver medal winner for Smoke & Chili Beer at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup; and Leaf Peeper hazy IPA, which also took silver at the same competition. But perhaps the most underrated feature of Hold Out? A free parking lot, inviting you to enjoy all of this experience hassle-free without worrying where to park your Kia.
1 | Meanwhile
2023 Score: 94.5
AC Power Rankings Trend! ▶ 13, 12, 6
Everyone is sprinting to Meanwhile for the lagers these days. But not all that long ago, people used to sprint here for the IPAs, given the brewery’s Northwestern pedigree for delicious bitter bombs under the tutelage of Breakside Brewery in Portland. Now imagine if, say, you can get both of those diamond-grade experiences at the same joint. Presenting: Meanwhile Brewery. The fan favorite McLaren has usurped Jester King’s Team Ferrari and Pinthouse’s Team Mercedes to snag its first checkered flag and become the first unique brewery at the pole position of our POWER RANKINGS in four years. With the keys to the kingdom, Meanwhile is building its Austin legacy as an inclusive beer adventure for all different kinds of fun-seeking groups: elder-millennial families, live-music emos, hipster sports fans, hoppy beer snobs, small-sided footy yearners, rich-wisdom grandpas, dentist conventioneers, bachelor party tour groups, food truck enthusiasts, false-fall tourists, Pilsner-only romantics, and so on. Meanwhile is a true community public space, a grove where folks from all walks of Austin culture can come together under the finest comprehensive beer program in all of Central Texas, starting with former GABF golden girl, Meanwhile Pilsner. From there, the lager program swells to a number of very special seasonal lagers: Vienna-style Texas Blue Corn, Texas Craft Brewers Cup silver medalist Royal Tannin jasmine lager, Japanese-style citrus corn lager Blue Blazes, 2023 World Beer Cup silver medalist Fore! Arnold Palmer-style Kölsch, and, well, at least two dozen other kinds of amazing varietals in their lager holster. People feel the same way seeing more canned varieties of Meanwhile beer at their local H-E-B as South Floridians feel seeing Leo Messi at a Publix. Of course, one can’t go wrong with any of their mainstay beers in tallboy aluminum: 2023 Texas Craft Brewers Cup gold medalist Secret Beach, the aforementioned Meanwhile Pilsner, and the esteemed Tender Robot hazy IPA. Besides, who are we to disagree with our own Chronicle readers who voted Meanwhile as the Co-Best Brewery in Austin last year and nominated it for the repeat this year? Meanwhile, you are our top-rated brewery! Meanwhile, you are our top-rated brewery!
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March 8, 2024
March 8, 2024
Austin breweries, Drinks Issue 2023
