A big part of our philosophy on being a craft brewery is using local ingredients to make interesting recipes. We feel like it ties modern breweries back to the older pre-Prohibition breweries that had no choice but to use what was easily grown nearby and readily available. We’ve already done it to a good extent by using raw Texas honey in La Bestia Aimable, local Texas honey in Lucky Ol’ Sun, and Texas mesquite wood in Mesquite Smoked Porter. Our new seasonal, however, brings the concept to life in a way that we’re really proud of.

Ranger Creek Strawberry Milk Stout uses 500 pounds of Poteet, Texas strawberries to create a delicious and completely unique beer. The result is a dark, rich, creamy stout with a slight roastiness and undertones of rich chocolate, complemented by fresh strawberry flavor and aroma.

The beer was the brainchild of our head brewer Rob and his wife Keely, and it brings to life the ‘Farm to Pint’ concept we strive for. Our assistant brewer Holland actually took Vandito, our van, out to Oak Hill Farms in Poteet, Texas to pick up the strawberries. Holland, Rob, and our Austin sales rep Dan then cut all 500 pounds of strawberries by hand for use in the brew.

After being sliced by hand, the Poteet strawberries were added at two separate times during the brewing process to make sure the taste and aroma really came through. The resulting brew highlights the fresh, sweet strawberries in a way that we feel the farmers that grew them can be proud of.

As a brewery committed to using local ingredients, we must work with the Texas climate. Some traditional brewing ingredients like hops don’t grow well in the San Antonio heat (we’ve tried). However, there are plenty of creative ways to use locally grown products if you have a good head brewer and an adventurous spirit. The concept isn’t new or unique to us, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. We’re calling it Farm to Pint, and we’re proud of the way it supports Texas agriculture in a creative way. It’s not always cheap to do it, but we think it’s worth it.

We hope you enjoy our Strawberry Milk Stout not only as a creative, delicious, craft-brewed beer but also as a product that uses incredibly fresh, high quality, locally grown ingredients. Please feel free to leave us feedback and let us know.

It has been a crazy, fun, exhausting week. After getting the process piping done for the brewstillery, the Hungarians and our contractors got busy connecting the water system, glycol system, steam piping, and electrical. It took countless trips to the pipe stores, returning incorrect orders, driving up to St. Pats in Austin, and learning how to curse in Hungarian. We worked 12 hour days (minimum) and through the weekends. It was exciting and tiring all at once.

Ultimately, we got almost everything hooked up and were able to run some cold tests using water. Very cool! Flip some valves, press some buttons, and bam. CPS energy wasn’t able to get our gas finished in time, so we weren’t able to do an actual brew, but that will come this week. What would an installation be if something didn’t get delayed, right?







After everything was hooked up, the Hungarians took the protective film off of all of our stainless steel tanks. It was the first time we have seen them naked, and they looked gorgeous.



In our spare time this week, we also got a great van and converted our 20 foot shipping container into a malt smoker. We can smoke a lot of malt (or barbecue) in that puppy.

The distillery equipment install has been just as exciting as the brewing equipment. It turns out that our still was too tall for our building. Solution? Cut a hole in the roof and install a skylight that allows the moonlight to shine through. So now when TJ is here at night distilling whiskey he can really be moonshining. Awesome.

Watching the Hungarians work is impressive. Not only do they just man handle really heavy pieces of equipment, they also have to take direction in Hungarian since they don’t speak much English. This is a good example of TJ’s direction being translated via Andrea and the all important hand motions into serious action to get the still into place.



So the column of the still is so tall that our forklift couldn’t lift it above the body of the still. Lesser people would have just waited until the next day and rented a taller forklift. Not us. We built an improvised ramp that got the forklift just high enough off the ground to get the column attached. The sound of cracking wood made us a LITTLE nervous, but hey, we got it done.

Our 1,200 liter still has so much copper on it we don’t know what to do with ourselves. She’s just nice to look at.

Saying that the Hungarians are impressive is an understatement. These guys are not only highly skilled, they are work horses. One moment they are welding a completely new stainless steel frame for our mash tun (it only took about an hour), and the next moment they are grabbing straps to pull a huge piece of equipment across the room. Amazing.

Needless to say, our installation has been going well. The Hungarians work about 12 hours every day, with little more than a lunch break and a few bottled waters along the way. As a result, our brewing system was put into place and piped together in like two days. Wow. It’s starting to look like a brewery in here.

We’ve also had a flurry of activity outside of the installation. We now have all of our barley, hops, and corn. We have cleaning chemicals, glycol, and a shipping container that we’re converting into a smoker. It’s exciting.

Check out some video of the Hungarians putting the stairs to our platform into place and then welding it on. Plus, tons of pics of the install. Seriously, is anyone else excited?

Well, the Hungarians have arrived safely in San Antonio. All 6 of them. This might be the most Hungarians the city of SA has ever seen at one time. We, along our friends at Azar Distilling, took them to the Flying Saucer last night and fed them queso and American craft beer. The conversation was light since they don’t speak any English, but it was great!

The last week or so has been a sprint to get the place ready for the Hungarians. The guys at Beyer Boys plumbing, Francis electric, Cowboy grating, and our landlord, the owner of Pugh Constructors, have been busting their tails to finish up their work. They are good guys and hard workers.

The guys from Scobey helped us out with standing all of our equipment upright and moving it into place. If you enjoy looking at really nervous guys, you should have been here as we watched these guys do a delicate dance with their forklifts and our equipment. It was impressive. And nerve wracking.

We hit a minor snafu when we realized our fermentation tanks were too tall. Woops! We finally determined that if we temporarily removed some of the ceiling support beams and light conduit we could get them into place. Luckily, Lamar welding and Francis electric were on hand to make quick work of it.

Things are starting to take shape. Much more to come…

Well, our mill room is pretty close to being done. It will house our mill (obviously), which we use to crush and/or pulverize our grains before adding hot water. Crushing them helps make sure we extract all the sugar, which will eventually turn into sweet alcohol nectar. The milling process generates a lot of dust, so the mill will be completely enclosed.

Our plumbers have also been hard at work. We’ve got a pretty cool water system going on. Our water is limestone filtered from the Edwards Aquifer, so it already comes to us in pretty good shape. We can use untreated city water for things like cleaning. Then, we can carbon filter it to keep all of the nice minerals but remove the iron and other potential bad stuff that can be detrimental to brewing. Last, we can run the water through an RO (reverse osmosis) system to make it pure. By flipping a few valves, we can use any combination of water types for our beer and whiskey. Sweet!

Our first new power box also got installed, and we got a computer and desk in the office, plus a badass Texas-sized picnic table for the tasting room.

The Bavarian-Holstein guys will be here on Thursday to install everything. Plenty of pics to follow while that is going on. Also, our permitting looks like it’s in pretty good shape (knock on wood), so we are close to being an official brewstillery!

Wow, it’s been a crazy couple of weeks at Ranger Creek! Things are humming along at an exciting pace. Since our equipment arrived a couple of weeks ago we’ve got a few more toys. We got our hand pallet jack, a glycol condensor, a few kegs, and a forklift. Rob is nicknaming everything, including the forklift, which has been deemed Mustang Sally. She is pretty rough, so let’s hope we don’t have to take her to the glue factory. We also got a microwave and coffee pot! Yes, Rob and TJ have been spending a lot of time at the brewstillery.

Our floor drains are all but done, and we have some great pics of the process. We also poured a slab of concrete out back to hold our heavy ass boiler!

Coming soon: plumbing installation, boiler installation, power boxes, cold room, and mill room!

We are excited to announce that our equipment has arrived! It took 3.5 containers and 4 eighteen wheelers to deliver it all, but it made it safe and sound. Our beautiful copper still was made in Germany, then shipped to Hungary where our beautiful stainless steel brewing equipment was made. It all shipped together on a giant boat that thankfully was not raided by pirates.

We have a 30 bbl brewhouse and a 1200 litre still from Bavarian Holstein, along with some custom modifications since we’re a combined brewery/distillery. Special thanks to Lewis, Volker, and the entire crew at B-H for some really well made and gorgeous stuff – we’ll see you in a few weeks for installation! And a shout out to U.S. Stars who made unloading equipment with a couple of forklifts look like an art form.

As we posted last week on Facebook, we’ve secured a location for Ranger Creek! We’re pretty excited about our new headquarters, and we can’t wait to show it off. It’s a total of about 6,000 sq ft, which is broken out into about 1,000 sq ft of office/tasting room space and 5,000 sq ft of warehouse space. It’s a little more space than your average start-up brewery or distillery, but since we’re doing both we need a little extra room. We also want to make sure we have plenty of room for growth. Check out a few pics of the raw space. Next steps – modifications, build out, and decoration. Nice!

Last week Team Ranger Creek was up in Louisville at the American Distiller’s Institute Conference, and we saw and tasted plenty of things we want to share.

The first day consisted of tours of a variety of cool places, including Vendome (one of the premiere still manufacturers around), Kelvin Cooperage (they make the barrels), a combined brewery/distillery in Lexington, and more! If you’ve never seen the inside of a cooperage, PLEASE take a look at the videos. It’s pretty darn interesting to see the charring process and how water tight barrels are made using just wood staves and metal hoops.

VIDEO 1: Barrel Charring

VIDEO 2: Barrel Assembly

A replica of George Washington’s still (yes, that George Washington) at Vendome

The combined brewery/distillery in Lexington that makes Kentucky Bourbon Ale

The trip also consisted of plenty of great bourbon. The requisite trip to the Seelbach Hotel was made, along with a superb tasting of MANY craft whiskeys at the ADI conference. This was perhaps the most craft whiskeys that have been in one place at the same time. It was almost overwhelming.

The bar at the Seelbach. Great bourbon selection. Make friends with the bartender and order your bourbon neat.

Just a sample of the many craft whiskeys for tasting at the ADI conference.

Finally got to sample some of the Buffalo Trace experimental collection.

Tutthiltown’s unaged corn whiskey.

A delicious rye moonshine from Corsair.

Wasmund’s single malt – they actually do their own malting.

Moonshines were big at the conference and are hot in the market.