St. Arnold's is taking it to the capitol

It’s tough to make a microbrewery successful in the state of Texas. Brock Wagner, founder and owner of Houston’s St. Arnold’s microbrewery, is hoping to change that. Wagner has teamed up with other microbrewers in the state to form Friends of Texas Microbreweries, which will lobby the states legislature to enact laws that would help microbreweries flourish, like the micro-wineries have in the past decade.

The skinny on the issue is the current inability for microbreweries to sell directly to the consumer. As it stands, microbrewers can only sell to wholesalers, making it tougher to make a profit and stay in business (14 out of 19 microbreweries that have started in Texas have failed). The law was altered for Texas wine makers a while back, giving them more opportunities to sell their product. Off the Kuff has a great article explaining how the current law stands.

St. Arnold’s has started their own blog to help drum up support for their issue. They even have a photo of a St. Arnold “action figure” with the state flag in the background on their site – which reminds us a lot of Kinky’s political advertisements. Knowing Kinky, if he won the governorship, this legislative matter would have probably been moved to the top of the stack.

You can tour the St. Arnold’s brewery on Saturday’s at 1:00 p.m. The cost of the tour is $5, which includes the sampling of their beers. The brewery is located on the northwest side of town, at 2522 Fairway Park Drive.