A short history of beer in Texas

The people who settled Texas were thirsty. They arrived thirsty and stayed that way. Since most of them came from Europe, they were thirsty for beer as much—or more— than anything else. In its absence, they resorted to concoctions like potato beer and persimmon beer but soon recognized in themselves a preference for beer that tasted good. 

Beer has a long history in Europe, sparking a “chicken-or-the-egg” type debate between beer and bread over which one came first. Science is split on the issue, but beer drinkers are certain the world’s first accidentally brewed beer tasted better than the first accidently baked piece of bread. 

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” Ben Franklin wrote and we note that Ben was no stranger to ale houses of the day, a trait he shared with many of his fellow founding fathers. 

Early day beer drinkers in Texas drank local beer from local brewers. At first they drank ales, the oldest kind of beer in the world. Ale is brewed with top-fermenting yeast that works best at warm temperatures. Detractors call it “that warm British beer.” 

Germans and Czechs started arriving in Texas in large numbers in the 1840s with their own ideas about beer. They preferred lager beer, which is cold brewed from yeast that ferments near the bottom of the tank. About 95 percent of the beer sold today is lager. Thank the Germans and Czechs. 

But lager presented a problem for early day brewers in heat-brutal Texas— spoilage. To compensate, the first Texas home brewers usually brewed their beer in the winter months and stored it in cellars or caves. William Menger originally used the cellar at the Menger Hotel in downtown San Antonio to store beer from his brewery, which he built in 1855. The hotel, which is still in operation, came four years later. 

Beer, as a Texas industry, began in 1883 when German brewer Adolphus Busch and a group of local businessmen built the original Lone Star Brewery in San Antonio. The mechanized, large-scale operation enabled Busch to sell more beer at a cheaper price and transport it on wagons over longer distances. That brewery lasted until Prohibition, but another San Antonio brewer took up the name Lone Star in 1940 and that’s the one that bills itself today as the “National Beer of Texas.”

In the meantime, the San Antonio Brewing Association bought a small local brewery and launched its own lager. The association also bought its brand name from a brewer in Germany who mused that the bubbles in beer resembled tiny “perlen, ” or pearls. In such a manner Pearl Beer was born in 1886. By 1916, Pearl was turning out 110,000 barrels a year and was the best-selling beer in Texas by a wide margin. 

Otto Koehler managed the Pearl brewery until his death in 1914, when his wife, Emma, took over and kept the brewery solvent even as various temperance and anti-saloon leagues lobbied to shut down breweries and saloons across the country. Emma kept Pearl going through Prohibition by selling ice, dairy products, and soft drinks. And maybe a little beer when nobody was looking. 

Prohibition ended one minute after midnight on Sept. 15, 1933, at which time Emma started dispatching beer to the still- thirsty Texas masses. By the 1950s, Pearl and Lone Star battled it out for the Texans’ loyalties and dollars and expanded their respected brands to other states.  

The Shiner Brewing Association formed in 1909, but the local men who founded the association had trouble making beer and an even harder time preserving it. Enter Kosmos Spoetzel, a Bavarian native and brewmaster, who answered an ad in a San Antonio newspaper for someone to lease the little Shiner  brewery in 1914. He exercised an option to buy it in 1915 and operated the Spoetzel brewery until his death in the 1950s, at which time his daughter, Celie, took over the operation.  

The Pearl Brewery closed in 2001 but the old building is still one of downtown San Antonio’s most iconic and recognizable structures. Today, the Miller Brewing Company produces both Pearl and Lone Star beers. The Spoetzel Brewing Company, now owned by the Gambrinus Company of San Antonio, still produces the beer that made Shiner famous along with several other brands. 

Texas also has hundreds of small craft breweries that produce beer for local people, same as it was in the early days, because Texans are still thirsty.