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Beer Now 21 SMTX Excursion
We had so much fun hanging out, drinking good beer and exploring San Marcos' craft beer scene with y'all and we hope you did too! We created an SMTX craft beer hub to relive the brews and provide any resources you might want in the future. Of course, if you have any questions, or just want to say hi, feel free to reach out to Sarah Smith.
The Breweries
Our first stop of the excursion was Roughhouse Brewing. Roughhouse Brewing focuses on farmhouse ales, traditional lagers, and of course, spontaneous cave-aged beers. The brewery is housed on the Pasternak Ranch and is owned by Davy, Alex and Andy Pasternak. Alex made sure we all had our beers before her husband, Davy, took us on the tour of the brewhouse and the cave.
Our second stop, and conveniently located right down the road from Roughhouse, was Middleton Brewing. Middleton is a "small but mighty" (shout out to Sterling for that) brewery, and also the first one to begin brewing in San Marcos (Est. 2011). They are a 10 barrel brewpub focusing on ales and sometimes lagers. Middleton hosts high-end food and beer pairings that are always themed and focused on a particular region. They have culinary experts and master beer brewers there to pair everything just right. While we weren't able to enjoy a pairing dinner this time if when you come back to visit us, I would say this is something to add to your to-experience list.
AquaBrew was our final brewery to visit on Wednesday. AquaBrew's beer is inspired by the crystal-clear San Marcos River: light, fun, friendly, refreshing and absolutely legendary. On the tour, they talked a bit about why the hardness of San Marcos' water (thanks, Edwards Aquifer) is great for brewing beer. I don't know about y'all, but I am still thinking about that Praline Porter Float. The two beers we had on our Glass-Bottom Boat Tour were also from AquaBrew: San Marcos Blonde and Swine Dive IPA.
The Boat
Bright and early on Thursday morning we made our way to The Meadows Center for a Glass-Bottom Boat Tour. The Glass-Bottom Boats have shown visitors around Spring Lake since the early 1950s, back when the site was Aquarena Springs. Spring Lake is considered one of the longest continuously inhabited sites in North America with artifacts having been discovered from every era of human inhabitation for the past 12,000 years. Aquarena Springs had an underwater theater that submerged visitors for underwater shows performed by Aquamaids (hence how we eventually became the Mermaid Capital of Texas) and Ralph the Swimming Pig, among others, like Glurpo a terrifying clown we would like to forget about completely. Spring Lake has, what do you know, springs along the bottom that you got to see from the window in the bottom of the boat. Those springs form the San Marcos River, which runs through San Marcos and is what makes our river clear, clean and 72-degrees year-round.
The Food
The two restaurants we ate at during your stay were Industry (Wednesday for dinner) and Ivar's River Pub (Thursday for lunch).
