Christmas Beer, Texas Style

For those who have visited Texas and gone in search of good beer you know what a difficult search that can be. Now they're nowhere near as bad off as the southern states to the east but when you come from a beer rich environment like Portland, or even Minneapolis-St. Paul for that matter, the difference is immediately noticeable.

That isn't to say that there isn't good beer to be found, it's just much harder to find. It is, however, reassuring to see some old favorites - Summit Brewing (St. Paul, MN) is available as is Deschutes - and then there are some other well known breweries like Ska and Harpoon. While I didn't find a wealth of beer, there was enough to make it through the short, three-night visit over Christmas, including a thoughtfully purchased six pack sampler of Shiner my dad picked up in advance of our arrival.

An unintended "experiment" also yielded good results. Upon opening the extra fridge to store the beer we had just purchased we ran across two bottles of Harpoon Leviathan Imperial IPA and two cans of Ska Modus Hoperandi. While they might have been better a year ago when I first purchased them, time hadn't treated them too badly and they were still quite tasty.

Hopefully wherever your holidays were spent, be it beer rich Portland or beer poor areas of the country, you were able to find something tasty to accompany your celebrations.