Mashtronauts!

[bartzkrieg]

Good piece for the newbies, and a refresher for the rest of us....


Houston, The Brewpub Desert... (February / March 2001)
It’s not that Houston’s a bad beer town. If you look around, there’s a lot of good beer sold and there’s a lot of bad beer sold, but when you boil it all down, there’s a LOT of beer sold, period. In spite of this fact, the Houston landscape is littered with shuttered brewpubs, their kettles cold, their fermenters empty and their brewers unemployed. What is killing Houston’s brewpubs? Houston should be a hotbed for brewpubs, with one of the highest rates of dining out per capita in the country, a blue-collar attitude that favors beer over hard liquor and a booming economy that has put the oil bust years far behind it. It may be careless management, it might be poor marketing, but no matter what the cause, few Houston brewpubs have managed to "get it right" and for a half dozen brewpubs, “getting it wrong” meant going out of business.

Interestingly, bad beer has not been a cause of any brewpub closings in Houston. Similarly, very few of Houston’s brewers, characterize the city as a “bad beer town.” Houston’s beer history is far more interesting than the construction of the Anheuser-Busch plant here back in 1966. Houston’s great beer bars were first brought to national attention when the original Gingerman was listed by Michael Jackson as one of the best beer bars in America in his Beer Companion. Alumni from the G-man have taken that lesson and gone on to found noted tap houses like Falling Rock in Denver. The ultimate result is that Houston beer lovers have had their palates educated by some of the best beers that the world has to offer. Now this is clearly not true for all Houstonians, after all, a lot of Miller Lite and Bud Lite is sold in this town, but it raises the bar for local brewers seeking to win over drinkers from Macro beers and out of state Micros. “It’s not the town,” says Max Miyamoto, “otherwise there wouldn’t be a Gingerman or any of the other beer bars in town.”

Max Miyamoto, GABF Gold medal winner, has had the distinctly unpleasant job of shuttering two brewpubs. The Village Brewery was his first brewing job and the beers there rapidly gained in both quality and acceptance under his guidance. The Village was Houston’s first brewpub, opened with great fanfare and with the usual predictions of success and better beer for all. The original interior was a mix of uses, with a small stage area for live music, pool tables and a larger dining room with the requisite big screen T.V.’s. They did the usual marketing promotions, glass clubs, happy hour and so forth, but the business never really took off. It wasn’t long before the business started to splinter conceptually. First came the upstairs “patio” which took advantage of an upstairs deck to create a semi-caribbean atmosphere. Next came the “swing dance” phase, which slowly became their final concept: The Orchid Lounge, a speakeasy type nightclub that happened to make their own beer. Greg Schepens, another brewer who has been through a pair of closings notes, “A brewpub has to capture three of four “periods” in a day to make it. The four periods are Lunch, Happy Hour, Dinner and Late Night.” The Village Brewery was managing an existence on the first three, but with the advent of the Orchid Lounge that window dropped to the last two. “The Village Brewery could have hung around a lot longer if not for the dance change.” Max observes.
Max’s perspective is telling. “Try not to do to much.” is a mantra of his, “Focus on one thing, and do it well.” Hoffbrau Steaks and Brewery seemed to have the focus he demanded, a quality brewery attached to a good restaurant with a proven track record. However, there were actually two parts to the restaurant, a New Orleans themed bistro and the original steak house. That split personality proved to be the undoing of the established Hoffbrau concept, draining vital resources from the successful franchise and eventually killing the entire establishment. Max says it best: “Hoffbrau was doing O.K., but half the concept was running it dry.”
Losing focus is one of the factors often cited in the demise of The Bank Draft. Bank Draft was positioned to be a survivor and the whole brewing community was stunned when they shut their doors last fall. The loss of focus at Bank Draft is traceable to the construction and opening of The Mercantile, an upscale brewpub located in downtown Houston that was owned and operated by the same investors. “The attention of the ownership was divided between the two locales and hands-on management of the day to day business at Bank Draft suffered.” States Lauri Littlewood, co-owner, “Our focus also went toward promoting the new brewpub.” Former Bank Draft and Mercantile brewer Jeff Humphreys was less diplomatic, summing the situation up, “The Bank Draft was sacrificed to The Mercantile.” The Mercantile never really fulfilled its potential, despite the revitalization of downtown Houston. Hordes of baseball fans failed to descend on them during the summer, although many times the brewpub was closed on game days to the consternation of many a thirsty beer lover. Located next door to one of the hottest night spots in downtown Houston, The Mercury Room, it may have suffered from comparison or even because the public’s attention was always directed one door right. Lauri Littlewood summed up the two pub’s fates in a sentence, “Scott’s and my changing priorities led to the decision to close the Bank Draft when its lease expired and we decided to get out of the bar business.” The Mercantile, now closed, is up for sale, brew system and all.
Boondoggles never lost its focus. It is a solid multi-tap and brewpub, with a convivial atmosphere and good pub food. Unfortunately, the partnership that made it all possible, frayed, broke and eventually descended into lawsuits in an attempt to control the pub’s fate. The pub remains open as a multi-tap bar, but the brewery is closed and its brewer, Steve Roberts has been locked out of the premises. Despite the occasional rumor or statement from the wait staff that beer is being brewed on premise, Steve flatly denies it: “On the advice of my attorney, I have not even been on the premises since October sixth.” The legal fight has been bitter and has yet to be resolved, although Steve is hopeful. “In January we start the discovery and deposition phases (of our suit) and we’ll see what happens from there.”
Still, it’s better than having no premises at all. The Bay Brewery was one of Houston’s best and brightest brewpubs when it opened. “We couldn’t keep up at first with the system we had” relates Phil Endacott, the first and only brewer at Bay Brewery, “We settled out at about ten to twelve barrels a week, which is what the system was designed for.” Located on the shores of Galveston Bay, it had a commanding view of the water, high-end food and great beer. It wasn’t until the arrival of tropical storm Francis that the real problems became evident. Poor design of the structure had allowed water from the kitchen and brewhouse to seep into the flooring, causing the wood to soften and rot. “We saw leakage and tracked it down” Phil commented, “We got them to quit washing down the kitchen with hot water and I stopped hosing down the brewery, I mopped instead.” Little cracks in the grout on the floor got bigger, allowing more moisture to seep into the wood beneath. “It didn’t seem that consequential” smiles Phil. The brewery, being the heaviest part of the building was the first to go, being removed within weeks after the storm as the floor began to show dangerous levels of deflection. However, the kitchen was able to remain open for quite some time and despite the obvious absence of the brewery, some commercial beers were marketed as the brewery’s product, even though Phil wasn’t even an employee. “Saint Arnold Wheat was the Blond, Killians was Riptide Red and my dark beer was Honey Brown” relates Phil. Eventually the poor design caught up with them, as employees literally began to fall through the floor of the building. Today only pilings remain at the waterfront.
It’s much harder to determine why one of the city’s most successful brewpubs, Houston Brewery, didn’t make the cut. Located on the popular Richmond strip, they opened with a combination of craft brewed beer and Nouvelle American cuisine. Brewer Tim Case had long been a fixture on the Houston brewing scene and is well respected by his peers. The beers were good, the food was good, so what went wrong? The management team at HB was experienced at multi-tap bars, owning some of the oldest and most beloved tap houses in the city, the Richmond Arms and the Ale House, so the fault wasn’t likely to be there. “If you look at our beer sales and our food sales” says Tim Case, “the product was there. But it couldn’t pull the note on the setup we had.” In short, it was a numbers game, and the numbers weren’t big enough. The Richmond strip, an expensive location, suffered a decline, with high turnover in clubs and other venues in the area. “The street looked like it was going to get better and better, but it didn’t” Tim comments. That “here today, gone tomorrow” atmosphere certainly didn’t help Houston Brewery turn it around. A final ploy to save the brewpub involved cutting the kitchen back to “pub grub” as the beer became the focus, but it was too little, too late. “Once you’ve built yourself into a ten thousand square foot place, you’re locked into a high overhead effort.” Tim explains, “You can’t turn it into a four thousand square foot pub.” Investors tired of sub-par results and eventually abandoned the effort. “It turned out to be a five year breakeven investment.” Tim says, “We were close, but no cigar.”
Perhaps the ultimate lesson in how not to succeed in Houston Brewing was given by one of the brewpub industry’s brightest lights, Rock Bottom brewery. Flush with cash from going public, they built an enormous facility on the Richmond strip, a short distance east of Houston Brewery. That facility was plagued with problems from the start. Houston thrives on the personal car and being short of parking is a sure invitation to disaster, which is what happened at Rock Bottom. “You looked at the number of tables and the number of parking spaces and the numbers didn’t add up” says Greg Schepens, who was an assistant brewer there. The managerial staff, hand picked and imported from Colorado, failed to make the transition well, as many hated Houston and promptly requested a transfer back home. Finally, there was the sheer cost to operate the facility. A vast, open space, it required lots of money to heat and cool and the rental cost of the land it was located on required the restaurant to perform at unsustainable levels of productivity. The quick closure of Rock Bottom sent a shock wave through the brewing community, a foreshadowing of the shakeout to come.
Other small scale operations have come and gone in Houston, some of which were flawed concepts, such as the Brew on Premise / Brewpub concept of Brew U. Others, such as Huey’s Brewpub were seen as prototype restaurants that were abandoned when the brewpub concept failed to generate the excitement or income the investors had expected.
The survivors are brewing consistently good and interesting beers, and above all, retaining the focus on the product that is required to survive. Bradley’s is a stellar example of that commitment to good beer and a quality restaurant. Brewer Gary Heyne opened Bradley’s with the help of brewery consultant Dr. Paul Farnsworth and soon had Houston’s first GABF Gold medal for his Midlands Mild. Gary also became the premier lager brewer in the city, which proved to be a great hit with the German and European consultants working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center nearby. The proximity to a stable, high income, worldly group of consumers has proven to be an ideal combination for Bradley’s. Current brewer, Phil Endacott observes, “The location is top notch. Thousands and thousands of cars pass by every day.” Gary has since moved on to found Sneed Wheeler’s Texas Roadhouse in Huntsville, giving Gary the chance to combine his love of music with his passion for brewing. Phil, who honed his skills at the defunct Bay Brewery and St. Arnold, took over the brewery , bringing a steady stream of new and exciting beers to the taps, establishing Riptide Red as a local favorite and crafting unique brews like Hopzilla, whose fame has spread beyond Texas’ borders. One thing has remained constant throughout the years, a unwavering focus on providing quality beer, a commitment to good food and a watchful eye on the bottom line. However, competition is intensifying, pressuring Bradley’s to keep up. “There weren’t many restaurants here when they opened,” Phil comments, “There are now fourteen restaurants in the area, a big increase in competition.” Even so, Bradley’s is a survivor that is well on their way to being a fixture on Houston’s brewing map.

Similarly, Two Rows is located in the heart of a microbrew friendly environment, with the Texas Medical Center attracting worldly beer drinkers and supplying the lunch, happy hour and dinner crowds needed to survive. Brewer Ian Larson has made a practice of securing unique seasonals from their Dallas home office and brews them, along with his regular beers, to perfection. Here again, the focus is on the beer and the food, while watching the bottom line. Many of Houston’s brewers were openly skeptical of Two Rows ability to survive. Their location, while good geographically, is not ideal, tucked up on a second floor balcony of a high-end retail strip center. They do have several things in their favor though: Extensive parking, a precious commodity in the Village and a family friendly menu featuring a Root Beer made in house. Add a host of televisions tuned to sporting events from across the country and it’s easy to see why they attract a lot of Dads tired of shopping. According to Ian, the successful restaurant is the key to keeping the brewery. “A good restaurant acts as an anchor to the brewery, allowing us to push beer instead of food.”

Houston’s longest surviving micro, Saint Arnold, inherently avoids the pitfalls of being a brewpub. However, they must pit their product against every micro tap and six pack available in the city, a formidable challenge. However, the formula here remains the same: They do one thing and they do it well. . Brock Wagner, owner and founder of the company attributes their survival to the effort s of their team. “We’re making a good product and doing so consistently. It represents a huge amount of hard work in making it, selling it and constantly going out and fighting the battle.” The results have been spectacular, as they have begun to garner increasing recognition on a local and a national level. Three GABF medals this past year served notice that St. Arnold is a brewery to be reckoned with. Lacking the funding to mount extensive advertising campaigns, the brewery has relied on word of mouth and what founder Brock Wagner refers to as “Guerilla advertising.” The brewery owns a tie-dyed 1958 Bentley which is used as an attention getting mobile billboard. It literally turns heads everywhere it goes and has appeared in Houston’s annual Art Car parade. Other promotional ideas continue to emerge from the brewery as do new beers, with more on the way. Despite the challenges of marketing against both Macro brews and out of state Micros, there is always an eye on the prize… survival. “We started with a good plan and have been pretty efficient about executing it.” Observes Brock, “One thing about this business is that you’re always learning. We didn’t assume we knew everything and that has helped us.”

Thanks to the closings, a lot of brewing equipment remains in Houston. No fewer than 4 complete systems are either in storage or remain in place at the brewpubs they once anchored. This gives rise to an ever shifting mix of proposals, some geared toward re-opening old venues, others new ventures in new locations. “I don’t think that any brewpubs have been done the way I’d do it.” remarks Brock Wagner. That feeling is echoed by Tim Case: “Everybody built a restaurant with a brewery and in that respect, it flew in the face of where you see most of the beer sold, which is a pub with food.” Scott Birdwell is arguably the one person with the longest perspective on Houston’s beer culture. “I think Houston’s a great beer town” he comments “just look at the number of multi-tap bars, and I mean 20 or more taps per bar, within walking distance of this store.” Indeed, within the confines of the Rice Village there area baker’s dozen of multi-taps. “It’s certainly not an easy town to succeed in” Scott says, “but this town could support eight or nine brewpubs and a couple of micros easily.”

Others are less convinced. Phil Endacott argues, “It’s not a good beer town, otherwise you wouldn’t have all these places going under. My biggest sellers are my lights. You watch, St. Arnold’s biggest seller is going to be their Lawnmower Beer.” Brock Wagner agrees to an extent, “I think they (Houstonians) drink a lot of beer. Not all of it is ‘good beer.’ I think they appreciate good beer, but get into a rut of ‘light’ beer. Light is so pervasive it almost becomes a reflex and the culture of ‘good beer’ isn’t necessarily there.” Still, the niche market for craft brewed beer exists in Houston and the breweries that fill it can make a go of it, if the numbers are right. Tim Case sums it up best: “About five percent of the beer sold in Houston is ‘good beer’ and that’s a lot of beer. Amen, brother.
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It's funnier than you think!

[Mr. Weather]

This was a fantastic post. Where did it originally come from?

[bartzkrieg]

I don't recall....
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It's funnier than you think!

[Mr. Weather]

I ran across the original post when doing some research on Houston and Houston-area brewpubs. Any idea if there's a comprehensive list of brewpubs that have come and gone?

[bartzkrieg]

Check with Bev Blackwood...you can contact him through the St. Arnold's brewery site, or through the Mashtronauts/Foam Rangers...
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It's funnier than you think!