What’s on tap in Shiner, Texas…

What’s on tap in Shiner, Texas? Why Shiner beer of course! A little over one hour north of Goliad State Park is a small inconspicuous little town one would hardly even notice were it not for Shiner Beer. Shiner Texas is home to the Spoetzl Brewery which produces one of the last remaining beers made exclusively in Texas.

We pulled into the only park we could find close by and it was called Green-Dickson Municipal Park. It was a little hard to find but what a gem it was! The 148-acre facility is located about one mile from the town center. The park is a massive city park considering the size of Shiner, Tx. It has nice, covered picnic tables,each with its own barbecue pit. There are playgrounds, lighted tennis and volleyball courts, a fishing pond, and even a baseball and softball complex.  However the best part were the hilltop spaces for overnight camping for RV's overlooking the pond and park below. These sites don’t have sewer and only have 30 amp service but they were nice sites with one exception. There are only 10 or 12 sites arranged in twos, side by side so if if we had a neighbor the accommodations would have been extremely close.  Luckily after reading the reviews it seems it is rare that many people stay here so we decided to chance it. As it turned out only three sites were occupied while we were there so all of us had the double sites to ourselves.

 

Once parked we headed into town and had a quick lunch before heading over to the Spoetzl Brewery, home of all Shiner beer.  I use to stop by this brewery in the late 70’s and early 80’s on the way to the coast so I have many fond memories of sampling Shiner beer at these detours. We had read that there are two tours each weekday during the non-summer months and we planned to take the last tour at 1:30 pm. We parked and entered into the gift shop where the tours start and more importantly where the sampling room is. Samplers need not take the tour to taste the beer as all one needs to do is walk up to a server, pick out a sample to try,and the server will pour a 7 oz. cup for you.  Better yet, your server will present you with an additional 3 tokens for three more samples. Shiner just may be the beervanah capital of Texas…

We chose to sample one beer while waiting for the tour to start then lingered for the other three after the tour. I won’t bore you with the details of the brewery and how they make beer but I must say the tour guide was very informative and entertaining.  There were seven different beers on tap for tasting on the day we visited and we tried five of them. Sharon’s favorite was the Shiner Blonde and mine was a tie between their Red Hare Pale Ale and a seasonal beer called FM966…yummy! It was fun returning to the Spoetzl Brewery after all these years and we even took a self portrait photo reflecting off the copper vats…

Next we were off to Lockhart, Texas where we are camped at Lockhart State Park for a few days of  eating some fantastic, famous BBQ  and camping with the grandkids…