Top 5 Breweries of Austin, TX – Kind of

We’re going to wrap up the remaining 17 (yes 17!) Austin breweries by doing another Top 5 post because it’s now October and we’re horrible writers. So, just to clarify, this is a Top 5 Austin Breweries post, but only of the remaining breweries. We’re getting less and less consistent, aren’t we? So in no specific order, here’s the last part of our Texas beerventure.

Batch Craft Beer & Kolaches

Batch Craft Beer & Kolaches is a family owned bakery, brewery and bottle shop that was only doing can pours out in the biergarten during our time in Austin. That wasn’t a huge problem for us as their biergarten is massive and dog friendly. The only drawback was that we had to limit ourselves to just two cans of beer out of the wonderful array of choices.

It was a tough decision, but we settled on the Prickle and Wa Da Tah. Prickle was a delicious and light pilsen with strong notes of prickly pear that was crisp, and also a very pretty color. Wa Da Tah is a quick change of pace from the light pilsen to a strong tangerine and sea salt gose. While both beers were well done, the Wa Da Tah brings much more flavor to the table if a bit of pucker is what you’re looking for.

As a side note – we didn’t get any pastries because we just had lunch 🙁

Oddwood Ales

Just down the street from Batch Craft is a gorgeous brewery with a well-balanced blend of tradition and modernity not just in the general vibe of the establishment but in the beers they brew. The brewery houses a small arcade room and wonderful smelling little pizzas. Again, since we had already eaten we didn’t partake in pizzas here 🙁

Even though Oddwood was only doing full pours, the bartender was happy to serve us up a little flight since we were out of towners so – thank you! Of our flight of four, the Relic Hunter and Sunshine the Werewolf were our top two beers. Relic Hunter is a traditional eurostyle pale that was aged in a foeder (pronounced food-er) and produced juicy notes of grape musk and lemon zest. Sunshine the Werewolf is yet another gose style beer with strong tangerine and sea salt flavors; shocking absolutely no-one that this made it on our flight.

Red Horn Brewing Co & Coffee House

So this entry onto the list was a tough decision because it’s technically not in Austin and is quite a ways north in Cedar Park. As we’re wrapping up our Texas trip, it would be a disservice not to tell you about Red Horn Brewing. When you pull up here, don’t let the exterior strip mall shopping center vibe fool you, Red Horn makes several not to miss beers for the average consumer and Beerventurer alike.

Everything was super delicious on our flight of 5, but the two stand out beers were the Miss Edna Blackberry Sour and the Poptart Ravioli? Miss Edna was named in honor of the Head Brewer’s grandmother who made Texas renowned blackberry jams. The beer is fermented on blackberry puree and soured with greek yogurt giving a delicious jammy flavor.

Poptart Ravioli? Is a kettle soured strawberry milkshake IPA was loads of every child’s favorite pastry mashed in and topped off with more strawberry puree. Just like the pastry itself, this kettle sour is not for breakfast, but certainly makes a terrific dessert.

As another side note – we had NO idea they made their own pop tarts and that these brewery made poptarts are apparently a must try according to the beer community – so special thanks to everyone who forgot to tell us that before we made the trip there 🙁

Honorable Mention

If you make the trip out to Red Horn, be sure to spend the extra 8 minutes door to door to visit Whitestone Brewery. If you’re reading this and you’ve made it out that far outside the city limits, you will certainly enjoy the deviation. Also when you do visit, try Hopwater – you will not be disappointed.

Hold Out Brewing

As Beerventurers, I’m sure you’ve had your share of “where the hell is this place?” and “wait, is it back here?” moments, even when navigating with google maps. Hold Out Brewing is another one of those breweries that locals know about, but Beerventurers can only discover with enough googling. When you visit Austin, Hold Out is certainly a place worth hunting down.

Don’t let the unusual exterior across from the dirt parking lot fool you, Hold Out is sitting on some phenomenal ales and lagers. Two of our favorites were the Bent Wookie DIPA, and the Carlita Kolsch. Bent Wookie is a blend of Citra, Centennial and Amarillo hops that make for one dank hoppy boy while the Carlita is a lighter Kolsch in collaboration with the Pink Boots Society.

This is also the first time we’ve encountered Underberg, a 44% Rheinberg herbal digestive. What does that mean in English? Well, it’s a pure alcohol, water and herb experience that cleanses pallets and settles stomachs apparently. Did it do what it’s supposed to? Not sure, but it was funny watching Melissa drink hers.

Blue Owl Brewing

Our very last stop before scrambling to get back to the airport breezed into a top 5 position and we’re happy we made the detour here. All of the beers from Blue Owl are more or less going to knock your socks off if you’re a fan of sours. Our flight was made up of the Jubilberry cranberry sour, Tropical Brut passion fruit + guava sour, StrawBatchy RhuBob sour smoothie and the LimeTastico sour – yes, this was a flight made for Melissa.

If sour beers don’t appeal to you, well you are frankly out of luck because as far as we could tell 9.5/10 beers here are sour or some sort of tart at the very least. Don’t let that curb your visit though because we’re fairly certain you will find something you would enjoy in a small quantity.

This is also where we met our Sticker Hunter winner Tony for a round! Crazy enough, the person who won our Austin Texas Sticker Hunt competition we had met way back in 2018 at the Godspeed Brewery in Toronto! The beer world has grown tremendously over these past few years, but I’m still amazed at how small the world actually is sometimes.