This week in, The Brew! We had to take a little time off to recover from Denver and the Great American Beer Festival but we were able to celebrate with our friends at Independence Brewing Company last Saturday for their 11^th Anniversary and we congratulate them on all their hard work. This week, we talk about the loss of a Texas brewery, we talk about a week long craft beer celebration kicking off this weekend, we see who is turning 7, I post an article of Austin bucket list beers and lastly we announce an upcoming book signing in San Antonio. Check it out now in this weeks edition of, The Brew!

Wolfforth – When an industry is exploding it brings in more competition and it means that you have to work even harder to get noticed. While the Texas beer industry is seeing a rapid growth in major cities, breweries out in rural Texas towns struggle to make it. Unfortunately, due to the lack of craft beer interest the area and the costs it takes to run a brewery can become a burden for a smaller brewery. With this said, Texas has lost another brewery this week. On Tuesday, Wicked Beaver Brewing from Wolfforth announced that after 6yrs they have decided to close the brewery down. Whether you like their beer or not, you have to respect people who follow their dreams and take on the difficult role to open and operate a brewery. We wish Michael Adams and Che Shadle all the best in their future endeavors and thank them for their contributions to the Texas craft beer scene.

Austin – For all of you Austin beer lovers, it is that time again for the 6^th Annual Austin Beer Week. For those of you that are not familiar with this, it is a weeklong celebration of craft beer and it takes place from Oct 23-Nov 1^st with special events all across Austin. The festivities kick off at one of the biggest Texas craft beer supporters, Craft Pride on Friday evening. They will be tapping rare and specialty beers throughout the night. Draught House Pub was supposed to host their 47^th anniversary on Saturday but due to the expected nasty weather taking over the area, they have rescheduled their party for November 7^th but don’t worry there is still plenty of great events to check out this weekend so be sure to check out the Austin Beer Week website for a full lineup of events by clicking here.

Austin – Fresh of a gold medal win at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival, Austin based 512 Brewing Company has a lot to celebrate. As if winning gold wasn’t enough, this Saturday 512 is celebrating their 7^th Anniversary this Saturday. With a new year means the perfect time to release a new beer. 512 will be celebrating with the release of their 7^th Anniversary English-style nut brown ale and they will have all of your other 512 favorites including the gold medal winner Wild Bear. The event takes place on Saturday from 12-6pm rain or shine. They will have large tents setup so you can stay dry but you might want to dress accordingly for the rain. The cost is only $15 which includes an anniversary glass and eight 4oz pours plus a bonus pour of their anniversary beer. Congratulations to the great folks at 512 for all of their hard work and great beer. Click here for more information.

Austin – A good beer is like a good bucket list: it’s made up of wonderful things, it can add immense enjoyment to your life, and it doesn’t work well in analogies but most importantly, it can be debatable. Because Austin’s esteemed breweries are putting out such spectacular suds, we decided to put together this bucket list of the 20 greatest local brews. Check out my article for the Thrillist here.

San Antonio – Mark your calendars San Antonio, we are headed your way. We will be hosting a book signing for Beer Lover’s Texas at The Twig Book Shop on the grounds of the Pearl Brewery complex on Nov. 21st, which is the same day that the Untapped Festival San Antonio rolls into town. We will have more information coming to you in the coming weeks so be sure to mark your calendars and we will see you next month San Antonio!

As always, if you’re looking to get out this weekend we suggest you visit a local brewery, don’t forget that we have a list of all of the breweries near you so head over to the Breweries and Brewpubs page and go support your local brewers.

We know that we are late to the game but it took time getting these videos edited but better late than never is how we like to see it. As you may know the 2015 Great American Beer Festival took place in Denver Sept. 24-26 and Texas proudly brought home 15 medals. We got to meet a lot of great people, made some new friends and tried a lot of amazing beers. At the end of the day we had one mission and that was to report on the Texas breweries present at the festival. Below are the 15 medals brought home, congratulations to all of the breweries that competed in this year’s festival and a big hats off to all the medal winners.