Beer Travels: O'Bannon's Taphouse - College Station, TX

Written by special guest writer Dustin Davis, thanks Dustin for your contribution!

A couple of weeks ago I hit the road to follow the LSU Tigers to College Station for their matchup with the Texas A&M Aggies.  Having never been to College Station, I decided to do a little research on the best place for craft beer in the area.  The results were clear.  O’Bannon’s Taphouse (facebook) was the place to go.

I arrived at O’Bannon’s on Friday afternoon and met with owner, Chris Steele, who was nice enough to stick around and let me bug him with some questions.  O’Bannon’s has a great Irish pub look and atmosphere, but it was apparent that the beer selection was far greater than that of your average Irish pub.  With 50 beers on tap and around 80 beers total, there were the Irish pub musts, Guinness, Harp, and Smithwick’s, but what set O’Bannon’s apart was their American craft beer selection, specifically Texas craft beer.

 Chris had a sampler of Texas beers brought over with beers from Rahr & Sons Brewing Co., Live Oak Brewing Co., Karbach Brewing Co., and Saint Arnold Brewing Co.  Some of the highlights of the sampler were the Karbach Rodeo Clown Imperial IPA, Saint Arnold Oktoberfest and Live Oak HefeWeizen.  The Live Oak HefeWeizen is an exceptionally good beer and is currently the 2^nd highest reviewed hefeweizen on BeerAdvocate.

A sign of a bar owner who really cares about a beer is a number of seasonal offerings.  This shows me that I’m drinking fresh beer and attention is paid to beer selection and tap rotation.  This was all evident at O’Bannon’s, with many fall selections, from Oktoberfest beers to pumpkin beers.   I was also impressed when Chris told me they regularly host cask nights, though I was saddened to discover that I would be missing a Saint Arnold Pumpkinator cask night by just a few days.

 After some friendly conversation with some Aggies and a couple more pints of beer it was time to say “Slán go foil” (goodbye for now) to O’Bannon’s Taphouse, with plans in the works for a return in the spring for the LSU vs. Texas A&M baseball series and many football games in the future.

Review: Rahr & Sons Snowmageddon Imperial Stout

Time for something other than an IPA as I had been going a little crazy with the ultra-hoppy reviews.  This one is from Rahr & Sons Brewing Company out of Fort Worth, TX.  Rahr & Sons is a relatively new brewery, opened in 2004, but with a lot of history.  The great great grandfather of the brewery's founder originally founded the Eagle Brewery in Wisconsin in the mid 1800s and eventually became the Rahr Malting company which claims to supply about 90% of the breweries in the United States.  Well, alright then... certainly a brewing lineage to live up to.

I've had Rahr & Sons beers before on previous trips to Houston, but always on draft at places like The Flying Saucer or The Petrol Station.  I found this Snowmageddon Imperial Stout in a bomber at Spec's, so bring it on! 

 

Poured into a pint glass, this brew is a deep brown color with a large off-white head. Very nice looking beer! The aroma is rich and chocolatey, malty and strong. Another high mark here.

The taste is more of the same, bitter rich chocolate. It's a very nice imperial stout and the alcohol is well masked.  There is nothing overly complex about this one, but it's a damn fine beer and if I see it on tap when I'm out I wouldn't hesitate to order one up and see how the draft compares with the bottle.

My Rating: B+

BeerAdvocate: B

Beer Events: ARToberfest in Ruston - October 13th.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to pass the word on about a Louisiana beer festival and homebrew contest.  It's called ARToberfest and is put on by the North Central Louisiana Arts Council.  Here's a link to the facebook events page, and I've been told they will have a few beers from Texas that aren't readily available in the state yet, so it's always good to have new beer options to try! 

I think, like many beer festivals in our area, the real beers to try first are the homebrews.  They tend to be the most exciting and different of all the beers available as the local "beer artists" show off some real brewing creativity.  There will also be some Rahr & Sons gift packs available as a raffle to anyone there!

Plus, proceeds from the event will benefit NCLAC's 13th Holiday Arts Tour, with an estimated economic impact of $64,480 in 2009, according to the event page. This year's tour is set for Nov. 18-20.  Nothing wrong with some beer for a good cause, right?

 

Cheers!