Chris after a wonderful day at Shiner Brewery
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Carlos and I took off on a Wednesday to make our pilgrimage to the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas. We decided to make a whole “guys day” out of the trip. First, we stopped for lunch at Black’s Barbecue in Lockhart. Great barbecue at Texas’ oldest barbecue restaurant continuously owned by the same family. After having our fill of bbq, we drove onto Shiner and made it in time for the 1:30 tour. They don’t run tours on the weekends so you have to make a trip during the week for this treat. The brewery is not that big but has a lot of history. We spent more time in the gift shop though because they give you tokens for 4 glasses of draft beer.
After the tour, we made our way to several local sites in Shiner. To absolve our sins from our midday beer drinking, we visited Sts. Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church. Absolutely beautiful church with some wonderful brick work designs. Next, we headed onto “Antiques, Arts, and Beer”, an antique shop that serves cheap draft Shiner Bock beer. The shop is located on the downtown strip and after looking through the store packed with a bunch of crafts and antiques, we drank our beers on the beer garden patio. After finishing our beer, we drove on down the road to Howard’s Convenience Store. Howard’s is just a gas station/convenience store that happens to have beer on draft. Howard’s also has a very extensive selection of VHS movies to rent (very dusty though). So after drinking a couple more glasses with the afternoon crowd of old farmers enjoying some beer as well, we decided to head on back to Austin.
Beer tap decorations at Howard's
Since we had to pass through Lockhart again and since it was nearing time for dinner, we just had to stop for some more barbecue. We pulled into Smitty’s Market for one last round. You can go wrong at any of the bbq joints in Lockhart. Superb barbecue once again.
The Shiner trip was a great day trip for anyone in central Texas and I highly recommend it especially if you are a fan of Shiner Bock beer.
Na zdraví (to your health, “cheers” in Czech)
