Hope For A Brewpub In Houston: City Acre Brewing Co.

After a not so subtle entrance onto Houston’s social media scene, via a Twitter storm last week, I knew I had to sit down and chat with the person behind the account for the hopeful new Houston brewpub, City Acre Brewing Company. I sat down with Matt, the founder and head brewer of City Acre at Petrol Station over a lovely (512) Pecan Porter to get the run down on their plans to bring Houston a brewpub.

A Galveston native, and current Houston resident, Matt, along with help from his wife and friends, plan to turn a gorgeous, 30 year-old, 2700 square foot, Victorian-style home into Houston’s only brewpub. The house (see pictures below) is sitting pretty on what is roughly a “city acre” (hence the name) with extra structures that will be the brewhouse and offices, a garden for the kitchen, plenty of outdoor hang-out space, and ample parking. Matt wants the inside to be a cross between a coffee house and a restaurant, with both couches and tables for seating, with a counter-style ordering system. The custom-built home and accompanying land is located on the northeast side of town, between Parker and Tidwell on the west side of Highway 59, which has already caused people to doubt their success, due to perceived distance issues. I feel like I drive 20 minutes everywhere I want to go in Houston anyway, so I don’t mind making the drive, especially for great beer and food.

City Acre Brewing's house- it's like a beer castle!

Interior: beautiful wooden, winding staircase

Matt and his team, The Carnies, won one of Saint Arnold’s One Pot Showdowns (and placed in a few others) with beer-battered fried cookie dough, made with Saint Arnold’s Winter Stout. Wow. Wish I had gotten to sample some of that! Matt is clearly a foodie, as well as a long-time homebrewer, and wants to incorporate beer in as much of the restaurant’s menu as possible. Matt plans to grow as much of the food for the restaurant in his 1/8 acre (and growing) garden located on the property, he really values the idea of being a self-sustaining brewpub, which fits in nicely with the Houston food scene.

Even with the limitations that starting a brewpub provides due to the laws in Texas, Matt felt it was essential to not only incorporate food into brewing, but to own a place where people could hang out at, whereas most breweries only have guests certain times during the week and weekends. Matt also wanted to be able to distinguish himself from other start-ups in our ever expanding craft beer scene; that’s also why he has abandoned using the name Skull Creek, the name of his family farm near Brenham, because of the association it may cause with the Creek empire in Houston (Dry, Onion, Canyon, and Cedar), plus the questionable Kreuz Creek brewery in Sugar Land (their website is not working anymore, but their Facebook is still there).

As far as paperwork goes, they are still working on getting everything submitted for the TTB and TABC, but with an anticipated opening in October of 2012, there’s not too much of a rush. Matt plans to have a 2-3 barrel system that he is in the process of designing himself, being a mechanical engineer and all. Matt designed the City Acre Brewing logo himself, it has been a work in progress for a while now, featuring nods to both the Houston skyline and the large pecan trees on his property.

City Acre wants to open up with at least three styles that he has already brewed several times, and of course, rotate two seasonals eventually. The first three styles are: an IPA, a wit/blonde hybrid, and a stout. Matt describes his Girl From IPAnema as a “Texas” style IPA, not as hop aggressive as many west coast beers of the same style, with an ABV of around 6.5%. The Hitchcock Blonde is a sessionable 4.2% ABV and features fresh lemon peel and coriander. The stout, yet to be named, will be a cross between a sweet and dry stout and incorporate oatmeal, though Matt is still tweaking the recipe. As far as seasonals go, he has a saison in mind for the first half of the year, and a weizenbock for the last half. Matt is considering packaging his beers, but probably not in the immediate future after opening, though he is foregoing serving liquor so that he can fill growlers of his beer for patrons to take to go.

Since October of 2012 seems so far away, City Are is planning to have around five “open house” style events to introduce Houston to their beer and food. The first event will be an Oktoberfest themed event, homemade brats, beer-jalapeño-garlic to be exact, sauerkraut and all, on October 22nd and feature two of their beers, the Girl From IPAnema and the Hitchcock blonde. However, he has thrown a little twist onto things, he has brewed two different batches of each of the beers with different yeast strains and wants the attendees to tell him which they like better. More info to come, but please note that the event will be limited to a certain amount of people and an RSVP will be required. Also keep an eye out for future events leading up to their planned opening next year.

Overall, I am impressed with the amount of planning and organization that Matt and his crew seem to have accomplished, as well as excited for their business model. I shouldn’t be surprised though, Matt is an engineer and home brewer, a combination known to obsess over every last detail. I am always supportive of anyone saying they want to help expand and improve Houston’s craft beer scene, and City Acre is definitely no exception.

You can follow City Acre Brewing Company’s progress on Facebook and on Twitter, also keep an eye out for their website launch soon.