Dallas Brew Riot 2015: Home Brew At Its Best

Last Sunday, the CSTX guys attended Brew Riot in the Bishop Arts District of Dallas. The Texas Homebrew Society has been organizing the homebrew beer competition since 2009 featuring teams of brewers from all over North Texas.

We had the opportunity to try some amazing new and imaginative beers and talk with some of the competitors and drinkers about their favorite brews of the day. We, uh… also drank quite a few ourselves.

Brew Riot gives its attendees the chance to sample beers from all the competing brewers and then vote on their favorite by giving the team their wooden chip for the beer of choice. The voting is made incredibly difficult by the vast variety of different beer styles to choose from. There are some of the craft and home brew go-to’s like a hoppy India Pale Ale or a fruity seasonal saison. Then there are the, shall we say, wackier brews that can get rather creative, for example, the peanut butter porter or the cucumber gose (one of my favorites).

Such a variety of brew styles in turn attracted quite the variety of beer lovers. The Brew Riot features beers for every snifter-sipper and chugger alike brewed up by and equally diverse crowd of brewers. Competitors ranged from the casual home brew hobbyist to master brewers of established craft breweries entering their off-duty side-projects up for judgement. There were, of course, the modern day craft brewers as we think of them, with their tattoo sleeves emerging from a mechanic’s work shirt completed by the requisite long-but-kempt brewer’s beard. On the other hand there were the clean-cut, businessman-away-from-the-office home brewers who didn’t have the look, but could more than hold their own as far as their beer went.  And everyone drinking wonderful beer and everyone happy to do it.

All in all I had a blast. My hat goes off to the Texas Homebrew Society for putting on such a well-organized celebration of beer in Texas that is also, I might add, very reasonably priced for an event where one can sample so many different styles of beer in one location.  We’ll absolutely be back next year. You should too.