Shiner Bock is kind of a legend. In
Texas, years before Stone and
Dogfish Head and so many other major craft brands
were household names, Shiner was King Shit. If you live in or near
Pennsylvania, you know how Yuengling is a mainstay to such an extent that you
need not even order it by name. "Lager" will do. And it's EVERYWHERE.
Shiner Bock is like that in much of
Texas. You can't escape it. I remember visiting Austin in the early 1990s, and even
then Shiner painted the landscape. In many circles, it's just what you drank.
At the time, it was one of the brews that made me realize beer could taste
good.
Along with brews by
Samuel Adams, Brooklyn, and Sierra Nevada, it was an
eye-opener. Drinking a Shiner rather than some can of cold, yellow, tasteless
beer wasn’t just a matter of drinking a beer, it was making a statement.
Fast forward to today. Shiner is no
longer just a regional thing, widely known in Texas and surrounding states but
known only by reputation outside its region. They’ve spread to 43 states,
making them one of the most widely distributed craft beers in the nation.
Shiner arrived in New Jersey about two years ago, and now, just in time for
Philly Beer Week, it has landed in
Philadelphia.
That's kind of a Big Deal.
See, Philly is one of the top beer
cities in America. Few places have a better selection of great beer bars, local
breweries, and strong beer culture. So a legend like Shiner arriving there,
that's no small thing. I suppose you could think, "Who cares?" After
all,
Philly has TONS of amazing beer. The question would be valid. You can
drink a different beer every day of the year in Philadelphia and it would take
a long, long time to run out of good things to drink.
But if you care about how craft
beer got to where it is today, you should care about Shiner, even if only to
appreciate the roots of the embarrassment of riches craft beer fans enjoy
today. Originating from the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas, they were founded
way back in 1909, but barely managed to scrape 1 percent of beer consumption in
Texas in the decades since. Things began to pick up in the 1980s and 1990s, and
exploded in the 2000s. Now, they are the 4th largest craft brewery
in the nation.
Shiner brews a number of beers, but
their flagship is Shiner Bock, a deep brown lager with notes of nuttiness and
molasses, yet with the easy drinking of a pale lager. It is unusual for a bock
beer to be an American brewery’s flagship –
bock is a traditional German style
that tends to be dark and strong – but Shiner Bock has proven to be popular.
Perhaps it’s because it does so well in merging flavor with accessibility. This
isn’t some mind-blowing brew that will change the way you think about beer, it’s
just a beer that tastes nice and goes down just as nice. No wonder Texans
gobble it up.
Others include Wild Hare Pale Ale,
which is a fairly traditional pale ale that leans more towards English
traditions than American – the hopping is nice but not aggressive – Bohemian Black
Lager, a smooth lager with roasted tones that make it nice to have with red
meat, and Hefeweizen, their take on a traditional German wheat beer.
These days, Shiner probably won’t
be life-changing for many craft beer drinkers. Their beers are just too
approachable, too traditional, and too accessible for those who want the envelope
pushed ever further afield. But that’s also what makes them such an attractive
brewery. It’s the kind of beer you have when you don’t want to wrestle with
notes of sugar-dappled plums and lemon grass roasted with chipotle and French
oak barrels. It’s the kind of beer you have when you want a beer.
One would think Philadelphia would
welcome that.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Reps from Shiner sent me a few bottles of their beer. I drank them.
