Region & History

Beer from the Texas Hill Country traces back to immigrants. Starting in the mid-19th century, Germans arrived—many after failed revolutions in Europe—followed later by Czechs. The hill country west of Austin and San Antonio offered affordable land. Germans founded Fredericksburg in 1846, naming the town after Prince Frederick of Prussia.

Brewing first took place at home. The state's first commercial brewery opened in 1872 when Heinrich Kreische set up shop in La Grange. By 1870, Texas already counted twenty-seven small breweries, all in areas with large German populations, including Fredericksburg. There, Charles Nimitz—grandfather of the future Admiral Chester Nimitz—brewed beer.

The most famous founding came in 1909. In the town of Shiner, southeast of Austin, German and Czech families joined forces to form the Shiner Brewing Association. They hired the Bavarian Kosmos Spoetzl as brewmaster, who had previously worked in Egypt and Canada. Five years later he bought the operation and gave it his name. The Spoetzl Brewery survived Prohibition on ice and alcohol-free near beer.

Kosmos Spoetzl died in 1950, after which his daughter Celie ran the brewery into the late 1960s. Today Spoetzl belongs to the Gambrinus Company, a family-owned business based in San Antonio.

The young craft scene began with the 1993 law. Under HB 1425, Texas permitted the brewpub, allowed to brew up to 5,000 barrels a year—roughly 5,900 hectoliters—and sell on-site. Real Ale opened in Blanco in 1996, Jester King near Dripping Springs in 2010. The Texas Craft Brewers Guild counted 447 craft breweries in 2024, placing the state sixth in the US. For the first time in a long while, more breweries closed that year than opened. Unlike in the EU, there's no protected designation of origin for beer from Texas.