Eighth Stop - 512 Brewing Company

The 512 Brewing Company is located in a nice new warehouse park. As has been typical on these trips so far I got there fine but thought I was in the wrong place. 512 has absolutely no signage in front of or on their building. If it had not been for the half open garage door I could see the fermentation tanks through I wouldn’t have found it.

When I did manage to find it 512 it didn’t even matter for a bit. No one answered when I knocked so I went around to the open garage door and hollered in. Even then, no response. It took a few minutes of silence before something blared from the speakers. It was the video series “drunk history.” If you’ve never seen it I highly suggest checking it out. It’s just some drunk guy trying to explain events in history. I’ve got a lot of respect for any brewery willing to take a break in the middle of the day to watch funny videos of drunk people.

At the brewery I spoke with the owner/brewer Kevin Brand. We had a long conversation about how he got started, how things have gone in the two years they’ve been in operation, and how 512 is going to expand.

As it currently stands 512 can barely make enough beer to keep up with the orders they get. And that’s after they had just expanded. Luckily that means that 512 can continue to expand and not worry about overproducing. In fact, Kevin told me that he is going to be expanding into the rest of the warehouse he currently shares as soon as possible.

Every successful brewery has to have something unique. Something that sets them apart or makes them different from the thousands of other breweries in the world. If they’re the first brewery in a city, that can be a gimmick. They’re “Houston’s brewery” or something like that. In Austin, a town with quite a few small breweries cropping up in and around town, you really do have to make a statement if you’re going to get notice. I think 512 has done that with one of his beers, the pecan porter.

The pecan porter comes off extremely well. It is made from locally grown pecans, organic 2-row and Crystal malts, and some black and chocolate malts. It has a nice aroma to it, but I couldn’t really smell much in the way of pecans. That didn’t come until I actually took a sip. The flavor was full and malty with some of the taste of pecans leaking through the malts. When tasting this beer I thought about how it would be an excellent starter beer for someone who thought they didn’t like porters/dark beer.

Since my visit to 512 I’ve gone to Independence Brewing Company in Austin and Real Ale in Blanco, TX. Today I’m headed up to Fort Worth so watch for either or both of those posts to be coming soon.