Tenth Stop - Real Ale Brewing

I’m only putting up a mini post about Real Ale in Blanco, TX because truth be told, it was a mini visit. I don’t want to say that my trip to Blanco wasn’t an afterthought, but it wasn’t really at the forefront either.

After spending the early afternoon at Independence Brewing Company I knew I was going to be cutting it close to make it in time for Real Ale’s last tour of the day. As I waved goodbye to Amy and Rob Cartwright at Independence I slammed on the accelerator to try and get to Blanco by four o’clock. The problem was that I only hit the accelerator for 2 of the next twenty minutes; the traffic in Austin was horrendous.

When I pulled up to Real Ale the final tour had started a few minutes before I got there. I saw the last couple people in the group walking into the brewery so I ran along and joined in. The tour was easily and without question the worst brewery tour I’ve been on to date.

No, not because the guide was uninformed or anything like that. Despite my late arrival I was a far cry from being the last one to arrive. First it was a bus from a retirement community that unloaded 10 or so octogenarians that shuffled over to us. Besides moving slowly and one persistently whistling hearing aid they weren’t bad.

The second was a group of seven twenty-somethings. They spent the entire tour standing directly behind me loudly talking. Never once did they whisper or say something under their breath, they just kept talking in at full volume. I couldn’t hear the guide so I politely turned around and asked the pony-tailed asshole to please quiet down. He apologized and said they would stop talking.

That didn’t do a thing, they incessantly kept at it. One little known fact about me is that when I’m angry I get eloquent. “Hey dude. I can’t believe you dudes keep talking. I mean dude, its just not cool, I can’t hear anything dude.”

I don’t believe I’ve said the word dude in normal conversation since the late nineties. For some reason though I thought it would be best way to address my problem would be to drop it a half dozen times in two poorly crafted sentences. The response was an appropriate “sorry dude.”

One of the few things I actually heard was that like many breweries Real Ale disposes of their spent grains by giving them to a local cattle rancher to use as feed. I’ve heard rumors at other breweries and I know some like Independence in Austin occasionally get some meat in exchange for the grain. From the sounds of it Real Ale has a deal for big thick T-Bones for their grain. Not too bad for getting rid of their waste product!

Despite a lame tour the tasting room was still a lot of fun. I got to speak briefly with a couple brewery employees that were hanging around. I also got to sample a few of their beers and get the full story about why their Fireman’s 4 Ale has completely different packaging from the rest of their beers. It was something I had always been curious about and one of the main reasons for my trip.

In the book I’ll tell you all about the Fireman’s 4 Ale, their tasting room, and some history of Real Ale Brewing Company. Oh, and I forgot to take pictures until I was driving away. Sorry they’re terrible.