Texas Debut of Alpine Beer Company

Another week, another out of state brewery makes its debut in Texas. This time it's Alpine Beer Company from Alpine, California (sort of).

Alpine was founded in 1999, but initially had their beers contract brewed at AleSmith Brewing Co until they opened their own brewery in 2002. Alpine's beers have been highly regarded, particularly their IPA's, but were difficult to find as they had a maximum production of around 1500 bbls a year and distribution didn't reach far from home. But that started to change in November 2013 when Green Flash Brewing Co. began brewing some of Alpine's beers (Nelson, Hoppy Birthday and Duet) at their facility in San Diego.  The increase in production and sales of Alpine beers would help raise capital that Alpine desperately needed in order to expand. Apparently that relationship worked out pretty well because in November 2014, Green Flash bought the Alpine Beer Company. And with the production capabilities and resources of Green Flash, beers from Alpine are now finding their way to Texas.  The Flying Saucer in Downtown Houston is tapping a different Alpine beer every night from March 9th to the 13th, including the highly sought after Nelson (apparently the Flying Saucer is the only location in Houston to receive a keg). The following is the tapping schedule:

Mon, March 9: Duet
Tues, March 10: Hoppy Birthday
Wed, March 11: Alpine Ale
Thur, March 12: Nelson
Fri, March 13: Irish Red

I'm happy to see that Alpine was able to find help from within the craft brewing industry.  I'm sure we'll be seeing more mergers and takeovers in the future as the older craft breweries continue to expand and seek new markets and revenue streams.  And this is definitely preferred over a takeover by ABImBev.