Craft beer years are like dog years, and eight years is a lifetime and a half for most microbreweries. But each market develops at a different pace, and even though Rahr & Sons broke the seal on Fort Worth eight years ago, till now they have been the sole craft brewer in Tarrant County.
Of course, all that is about to change. The spike in new breweries opening in Dallas this past year is about to infect the cities to the west and northwest (For the geographically impaired, these include but are not limited to Fort Worth, Denton, Grapevine, Justin and Sherman.) The first of these new-generation craft brewers is Martin House Brewing, who just brewed their first commercial batch last weekend.
With a warehouse location that overlooks the Trinity Trails floodplain and with an unblocked vista of downtown Cowtown, Cody Martin, Dave Wedemeier and Adam Myers have stepped in as the second (and by far not the last) cleverly eponymous craft brewery in Tarrant. Martin and Myers' background in environmental engineering suits them well for working with big tanks full of biology and chemistry connected by lots of plumbing. Saturday saw them brewing their River House Saison, a dry, unspiced traditional Belgian farmhouse ale that should play well with our long, hot Texas summers.
Dallas craft beer fans have already had a small taste of Martin House at events like Brew Riot and Deep Ellum Brewing's Brew-B-Que (where lead brewer Martin interned for a while). Other beers to round out their opening salvo include an imperial red ale, a "pretzel stout" and a unique "breakfast" beer called Day Break that tastes curiously like a milk-and-sugar bowl of whole-grain cereal.
Ever environmentally conscious, Martin House will forgo bottling and already has a small canning operation in place. Their official launch will come later this month at an as-yet undisclosed craft beer site the Sundance Flying Saucer in Fort Worth, but Dallas folk may not get their first taste of their beers until the upcoming Big Texas Beer Fest on April 6th. Look for taps soon after.
Martin House Brewing Company
220 South Sylvania, Suite 209
Fort Worth, Texas 76111
www.martinhousebrewing.com
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