On Tour: Dallas Trip Day 2 (Intrinsic Brewing, Bankhead Brewing Co., Lakewood Brewing Co., Deep Ellum Brewing Co., Legal Draft Beer Co., Division Brewing

DallasTripDay2

Day 2 of our trip to the Dallas area for my birthday back in November 2016. Yes, I know, fuck off! At least I am still posting this up and showing support for these great breweries. So on my previous day in the area, we visited four breweries, and on this day we went to six different places. We did a better job this day than the day before, because we ate food during the day, instead of waiting until the end of the night. Read about Dallas Trip Day 1 here. Alright, without wasting more time, let’s get right into our day.

We took the 45 minute drive from our hotel room in Arlington over to Garland, TX where we went to our first stop, Intrinsic Brewing. We were very excited for this place, as this brewpub serves up unique craft beer, and slow cooked BBQ. What else could one Texan ask for? From the photos we saw of this place and their food, we drove there hungry and thirsty.

Upon arrival we were met with the awesome aroma of BBQ as we walked up to the old historic building hosting this beloved brewpub. As we walk in, of course the overall smell now gets a great mixture of their brewery and the BBQ. I send my wife to the food ordering counter as I sit comfortably at the bar, reading over their beer selection. I don’t remember the exact reason, but we did not order a flight of beer this visit. I am not sure if they offered them at the time we visited or not. Either way, we went through four of their beers while we enjoyed our delicious BBQ. By the way, the beers were outstanding too!

After stuffing our faces with some great food, and washing it all down with some delicious in-house Craft Beer, we were treated to some homemade raspberry ice cream. Honestly my day could have ended here and I would have been satisfied. Here is a list of the beers I was able to try this day:

Hibiscus Wheat, Witbier, 7.2% ABV, Rating: 5/5
Wet Hop Red Ale, American Amber/Red Ale, 5.3% ABV, Rating: 4.5/5
Back to School, Peanut Butter & Jelly Beer, brewed with raspberries and PB2, 6.0% ABV, Rating: 5/5
Lunch Date, American Blonde Ale, 3.0% ABV, Rating: 4/5

I really wish we could have tried more beer from Intrinsic, but we still had a whole day ahead of us. We will be back for sure. You can count on that! You should go here too!

Intrinsic Brewing
509 West State Street
Garland, TX 75040
intrinsicbrewing.com

Next up, we traveled a short 5 miles over to Rowlett, TX to visit another brewpub by the name of Bankhead Brewing Company. The history of Bankhead is pretty interesting. The Bankhead highway was one of the first transcontinental highways built in 1916 that ran from Washington D.C to San Diego. The route included 850 miles through Texas, including a span through downtown Rowlett. You can even see the three original three bridges from the old highway peeking out of Lake Ray Hubbard, just south of Highway 66. Bankhead Brewing is a destination along the modern-day Bankhead highway, providing quality beer with a rustic 1920s atmosphere. Yes, the decor around this place has an old time feel to it, but the food and beer are very modern. If we hadn’t just gorged on some delicious BBQ over at Intrinsic Brewing, we would have dove right into some fancy as fuck food from Bankhead.

As we stared at all the food being served all around us, we sat at the bar right in front of an old, I’m assuming 1920’s Ford car grill, which housed the taps for their in-house beers that we were thoroughly enjoying. They did offer a flight of 5 different beers, and here is what I was able to enjoy.

Wheels Off, American Pale Ale, 4.7% ABV, Rating: 4.5/5
Hidden Highway, Witbier, 5.2% ABV, Rating: 4/5
Struggle Buggy ESB, Extra Special/Strong Bitter, 6.5% ABV, Rating: 4/5
Hop In, American IPA, 6.5% ABV, Rating: 4/5
Doohickey, Oatmeal Stout, 5.8% ABV, Rating: 4.5/5

Since out visit to this brewpub, I have been following them on social media sites such as Instagram, and the photos of their food is enough to make me wish I had some sort of teleportation device so I could go there everyday and eat. No, I’m not moving there. I love San Antonio and will never leave this city. Plus, I am too big of a Spurs fan to live within Mavericks country. Yuck! Check out their photos to see what I mean about the food. Trust me, you will wish the same thing as I just did.

Bankhead Brewing
3840 Main St.
Rowlett, TX 75088
bankheadbrewing.com

Or next stop was to a Texas brewery hot spot, Lakewood Brewing Company. It was about an 8 mile trek back into Garland to hit this place up. This brewery is very popular, especially down here in San Antonio, as their distribution doesn’t really come down here. Known mostly for their variants on The Temptress, their Imperial Milk/Sweet Stout. I was really looking forward to tying what else they offer, even their more tame beers if available while the at the brewery. The main thing that caught our attention was the actual building that this brewery is in. Everything about this brewery’s appearance just screamed big money, big money, no whammies, hey big brewery come buy us when you have the chance. I’m sure their attitudes aren’t like that though. I mean, shit, if you have the money why not spend it on a nice looking place, right? I don’t know why though, but I was expecting a much smaller, how do I say, more independent looking brewery. Don’t get me wrong, this is an Independent brewery, and not owned by Big Brewery. It’s just their look. I am happy they have grown to this size, as it proves their success. Let me paint this funny picture for you. I thought it looked like the inside of a call center. You know, like the entrance way into a corporate building or something. Ha ha ha!

OK, so let’s get to the beers. We were able to get a 6 beer flight that was served up in a muffin pan looking thing.

Troll Toll, Imperial/Double IPA, 9.6% ABV, Rating: 4.5/5
Holiday Bonus, English Porter, 6.6% ABV, Rating: 3.75/5
Red Wine Barrel Till & Toil, Saison/Farmhouse Ale, 8.5% ABV, Rating: 5/5
The Witch, Imperial Milk/Sweet Stout, 11% ABV, Rating: 4.75/5
Thread Spinner, American Barleywine, 13.5% ABV, Rating: 4.25/5
Brandy Barrel Temptress, Imperial Milk/Sweet Stout, 11% ABV, Rating: 5/5

As you can see, my opinions on their beers are great. They are all rated pretty high. These guys really do make excellent product. Please do yourself a favor and go visit this brewery, or pick up some of their stuff if it’s within your distribution area.

Lakewood Brewing Company
2302 Executive Dr.
Garland, TX 75041
lakewoodbrewing.com

Our next stop for the day brought us to Deep Ellum, the entertainment district of Dallas, near downtown. Here we went to Deep Ellum Brewing Company. Idalia, The local San Antonio rep for this brewery is my friend, and she hooked this shit up! She told me to get a hold of the manager while there, as he was aware of us going over there. At the time of this visit I was working at a local bar, as the bar manager, so I was the one buying the beer for this place. I was in their cool book at the time. Anyway, yes, the manager came up to us and chatted for a bit, hooked us up with a couple of samples of beer besides the flight we ordered, he gave us a discount on our ticket, and even hooked us up with some merchandise. It was an awesome experience while there, for sure.

We were hungry by the time we arrived there, so we ordered some food from their menu. I ordered a mac & cheese burger, and the wife and I shared an order of elote tots. Yes, you read that right, elote tots. Mexican street corn mixed in with tater fuckin’ tots. God damn were these amazing! Oh yeah, and the beers we tried on our flight were equally as good.

Play Date, Dallas Blonde kettle soured and fermented with Medjool dates, 5.4% ABV, Rating: 4.5/5
Praline Porter, Brown porter with pecans, vanilla, milk sugar and molasses, 5.8% ABV, Rating: 4/5
Coconut Biscotti Coffee Ale, Oak Cliff Coffee Ale with Biscotti and Coconut, 7.0% ABV, Rating: 4.75/5
Hop Seeker, American IPA, 5.6% ABV, Rating: 4.5/5
Fascinating Bellman, Oak Smoked Imperial Irish brown ale aged in Jameson Whiskey barrels. We selected fresh hops and smoked a portion of malt with Texas post oak, 7.8% ABV, Rating: 5/5

I have been drinking beer by Deep Ellum Brewing since 2013, when we went to The Texas Frightmare Weekend that year. Dallas Blonde and their IPA made for perfect hotel room and Horror Movie festivities. I will continue to drink their beer, as I think they make excellent product. Check them out if you haven’t yet, or keep drinking them if you already have. Either way, cheers to you!

Deep Ellum Brewing Company
2823 St. Louis Street
Dallas, TX 75226
deepellumbrewing.com

Stop #5, and by this time, I remember feeling pretty good by this point, but we wanted to keep on going. There’s still one more brewery to visit after this one. By this one, I men, Legal Draft Beer Company in Arlington, TX, which was right by our hotel room. t the time we went to visit this brewery, they were barely being distributed to San Antonio, in fact the brewery had only been open about 4 months. It was exciting to visit this brewery at such an early age. Right now as I am posting this, Legal Draft is all over San Antonio. Their local distributor does a fantastic job in getting their beer all over the fucking place (Shout out to Tristan and Adan and the Hops and Vines team) Anyway, let’s get back to this brewery visit.

This large warehouse building was set up very nicely. They have an excellent looking tap room. It is very inviting and comfortable. The wife and I decided to share a flight since the night is winding down. Pretty nice looking flight carrier. Check out what I had.

Waldmeister Apple Radler, Shandy/Radler, n/a ABV, Rating: 3.5/5
Hung Jury Hefeweizen, 5.0% ABV, Rating: 3.75/5
Lawktoberfest, Märzen, 5.2% ABV, Rating: 3.5/5
Presumed Innocent IPA, American IPA, 7.2% ABV, Rating: 4/5
SMaSH and GRaB, American IPA, 6.2% ABV, Rating: 4/5

Since this visit, I have had several other offerings from them, and enjoyed them all. These guys are doing good stuff. Please be sure to check out Legal Draft when you are here in Texas.

Legal Draft Beer Co.
500 E. Division St.
Arlington, TX 76011
legaldraftbeer.com

Finally, we are now to our last stop, #6 of the day. Damn, were we drunk at this time. Not too drunk to visit one last brewery. We found ourselves ending our night at Division Brewing Company. This place was only a quick 5 minute drive away from Legal Draft Beer Co., so that was helpful and awesome. This place is more of my kind of place. It was a small converted garage shop into a brewery. I loved that this place had a backyard brewery feeling. I felt right at home! I kind of got a Rock ‘n Roll or Metal vibe there.

They had, I believe, 20 taps of their own beer. Tons of options to choose from. The only problem I had is that they did not offer flights at the time I visited there. I have seen some pretty nice flight paddles there now that holds 7 of their beers. I will definitely have to revisit Division so I could try a lot more options. Now, considering we were at the final stop and were closed to feeling tanked, I ordered 1 beer and my wife ordered 1 beer, and we shared them, so we could at least try 2 options each.

The Onion Man, American IPA, 6.7% ABV, Rating: 4/5
Nor’easter Punch, American Pale Ale, 4.9% ABV, Rating: 4/5

Trust me when I say this, there was a lot more funky looking options, and some big beers as well. We went with something simple. The patrons and the staff there were really fun people. They seem to have a great local following over there.

Division Brewing Company
506 E. Main St.
Arlington, TX 76010
divisionbrewing.com

FUCK! Finally I am done with this post about one of the longest drinking days of my entire life. Six different breweries in one day, tons of flights, and some full beers thrown in. Remember though, this post might be uploaded here in February 2018, this brewery adventure was from back in November 2016. I am happy to finally have this content up to show support to these breweries. I am now trying to get the content for day 3 ready, which is another 6 brewery day. Until next time. Enjoy this “On Tour” post!