TRUE ANOMALY IN LOCAL ROBO-JOURNALISM 
New sour-beer hotspot True Anomaly Brewing Company, which opened last month in the former electrical warehouse at 2012 Dallas St. just west of the main East Village campus in East Downtown (and possibly in the path of the planned expansion of I-45) “seems to be a welcome addition to the neighborhood,” declares a writeup appearing on the Houston Chronicle website. But this is not your average new-place-opening report — well, at least not yet. A note at the bottom indicates the report was “created automatically using local business data” (presumably from the Eater Houston story and 3 Yelp reviews noted in the text), “then reviewed and augmented by an editor.” The source: Local-story bot purveyor Hoodline, “a collaboration between experienced local reporters and innovative data scientists and engineers, combining the latest computational methods and tools with journalistic insights, news judgment, and thoughtful design to develop a new form of news reporting.” Hoodline has been quietly feeding stories and listicles to both ABC News and Hearst Media since last year — but you can skip the middlemen and soak up the company’s regular stream of assembled and ready-for-publication Houston auto-stories directly from this link. [Houston Chronicle; Eater Houston; Hoodline] Photo of True Anomaly Brewing Company: Charles W.
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Tag: Breweries
TAKEOUT BEER SALES AT BREWERIES COULD BECOME LEGAL UNDER NEWLY PROPOSED STATE LAW 
A pair of bills filed recently in Austin aim to let craft breweries across Teas sell beer at their facilities for “off-premises consumption,” reports Houston Public Media’s Katie Watkins. It’s not so unprecedented: According to the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, “Texas is currently the only state where customers can’t purchase a growler or six-pack to-go” at local breweries. (And on top of that, take-out sales of wine and spirits are already legal in Texas at wineries and distilleries.) If passed, the bills, S.B. 312 and H.B. 672 would apply only to breweries making less than 225,000 barrels a year and would set a limit on the amount of take-out product permitted for sale over that time span. Representative Eddie Rodriguez, the House democrat who filed the bill, put it this way to Watkins: “It’s 2019 and people are used to being able to get the things they want.” [Houston Public Media] Photo of Saint Arnold brewery: Marc Longoria
A construction permit filed yesterday reveals that Astral Brewing — the new beer venue headed to 4816 N. Shepherd — is beginning renovations to turn 9,208 sq. ft. of the 27,575-sq.-ft. warehouse building once home to Southern Truck Pros into a hub for brewing and drinking. The structure’s parking lot off Shepherd is shown full of trucks in the photo above, taken back before the auto shop shuttered.
A site plan posted on the brewery’s Facebook page indicates a combination of public amenities and mission-critical brewing facilities included in the redo:
Independence Heights
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN–THEMED BREWERY COMING TO GARDEN OAKS’ BEER ROW 
Construction began earlier this month, reports Jen Para, on a 1,600-sq.-ft. brewhouse for Walking Stick Brewing Co. in Garden Oaks. Also on tap for the 16,948-sq.-ft. site at 957 Wakefield Dr., pictured above from the back, which faces Judiway: a 3,600-sq.-ft. bar and patio featuring the brewery’s 7 beers, each of which is named after a peak in the Rocky Mountains. Walking Stick will sit directly across the street from the volleyball courts at Wakefield Crowbar and its neighboring Great Heights Brewing Co. microbrewery. Petrol Station is at the end of the block, at Golf Dr. [Houston Business Journal] Photo: Walking Stick Brewery
The former North Shepherd Dr. garage of Southern Truck Pros, an auto shop that specializes in diesel trucks, appears to be headed for a second career — as a brewery. The Facebook page for a new company called Astral Brewing, showing off the kick-the-can logo portrayed here, lists 4818 N. Shepherd Dr. as its address — with a projected landing in 2018.
Until this past February, that address served as the Southern Truck Pros HQ. The metal warehouse building sits across the street from pickled pork rib tip hotspot B&W Meat Co., on the eastern edge of Shepherd Park Plaza.
Southern Truck Pros’ new location is further north, at 11549 Brooklyn St., east of the Hardy Toll Rd.
The startup 3-barrel “nano-brewery” carving its ferment-and-serve spaces out of the former Bissonnet Auto Service Center garage on Bissonnet St. between Kirby and Greenbriar is scheduled for a Labor Day Weekend opening, according to a recent report in the Chronicle. New glazed overhead doors have been installed in the 2 garage bays, but according to this photo of the spot from earlier today, there’s still a bit of work going on inside.
If future passers-by do a double-take after seeing drinkers out on the front patio of the single-story structure at 2322 Bissonnet, it might be because the brewery-bar will be next door to the former Kay’s Lounge, also a single-story building serving drinks on a front patio, which was demolished last fall. These homes are scheduled to go up on that site.
- Houston’s Baileson Brewing edges closer to opening later this summer [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot: Baileson Brewery Planned in Former Auto Shop Next to Emptied Kay’s Lounge Spot
Photo: Swamplot inbox
A fresh batch of renderings from the Office of James Burnett have been filed with the city planning commission this month as part of Saint Arnold Brewing Company’s request for a setback variance for that previously mentioned beer garden next door. Early permits have been trickling in since last fall for the ex-tow lot at 2104 Lyons Ave., across Semmes St. from the brewery’s new-ish downtown headquarters in the former HISD Food Service building (even more formerly the home of the Bemis Bag Company).
The new designs show what might be the site’s intended layout, including a restaurant structure which dissolves into an outdoor patio and garden space, a set of bocce courts, and more parking, including an area set aside for display of art cars (as shown up top featuring the company’s own tie-dye vehicles). Here’s the full tentative layout:
Gardens of Fifth Ward
A few sketches show the gist of Method Architecture’s plans for converting the former Bissonnet Auto Service Center at 2322 Bissonnet St. into Baileson Brewing Company. The auto shop’s original carport structure looks to be incorporated into the plans for the space as a patio shade-provider, while the 2 former garage bay doors look to be getting glassy replacements. The brewery will enter the area beer niche vacated last year by no-longer-next-door Kay’s Lounge, which met its end in October, and by Hans’ Bier House half a mile a way (last seen bearing signage announcing a planned coffee shop). Here’s a few more angles on the potential redo:
Brewing on Bissonnet
The latest sketchup of the site plan for Ancorian’s East Village project in East Downtown shows what may be a second distillery nestled into the 2 blocks of warehouses now in various states of conversion between Polk and Lamar streets along St. Emanuel and Hutchins. Meanwhile, a group of rum distillers going by the name Revolution Rum has laid claim to an address next to the development (in a warehouse just north of 8th Wonder Brewery’s, across Hutchins from the planned Houston location of chain craft vodka distillery Our/Vodka). It’s not clear whether the spot marked on the leasing flier is a separate project, or if one of the 2 potential liquor operations might have a satellite storefront in the complex, facing St. Emanuel St.
Other additions to the siteplan include the name of Agricole Hospitality, now on the map at the corner of Dallas and St. Emanuel (and embellished with the logos for the group’s existing Heights trifecta of Revival Market, Coltivare, and Eight Row Flint). Fort Worth-rooted beer and burger joint Rodeo Goat and Dallas-based trailer-bar Truck Yard have territories staked out as well, next to a thin slice of retail space labeled Poku. The architects at mÄk have also released another few renderings up of design ideas for various parts of the 2 block complex, including a shiny restaurant mockup depicted along Polk St. near the now-silver-skinned Secret Group comedy club:
Spirits of EaDo
Here’s a peek at what the old Delta Fastener warehouse at 7122 Old Katy Rd. might look like once Braun Enterprises gets done with it. The property — located just inside the W. Loop in that wedge of industrial parks hemmed in by I-10 and Hempstead Rd., west of Cottage Grove — was snagged by Braun at the end of November. A handful of renderings from Tipps Architecture (also behind the design for another of Braun’s not-in-its-namesake-neighborhood redevelopments) depict the 57,845-sq.-ft. warehouse done over in brown and bearing the label Heights Market.
The renderings show some new windows, large and small, sliced into exterior of the 1940s warehouse, and an existing loading dock redone as a cafeteria space:
Changes for Delta
KARBACH SALE: SPRING BRANCH INDUSTRIAL STREET NAME TO BECOME ANHEUSER BUSCH BRAND 
Word comes from both parties this morning that local craft beer staple Karbach Brewing Co.will be bought by global beer conglomerate Anheuser Busch-InBev (also currently in the process of buying parts of fellow megabrewer SABMiller’s holdings). The 5-year-old microbrewery, which rapidly outgrew its original warehouse setup on Karbach St. in the industrial sliver between 290 and Hempstead Rd. just outside the Loop, added a new restaurant and more brewing equipment (with room for further future increases) as part of a 2014 overhaul of the property. The brewers told Chris Crowell in April that the annual output had reached around 55,000 barrels by the end of last year; based on their estimated expansion capacity, it doesn’t look like AB-Inbev’s plan to bump up production to 150,000 barrels per year by 2019 would require any major property changes or a move — just some retrofitting. [Anheuser Busch; Previously on Swamplot] Image of new brewery building at 2032 Karbach St.: Andrew M.
A few twists and turns up Little White Oak Bayou from N. Main St. and the White Oak Music Hall complex, work is underway on a bayou-side brewery on another piece of land owned by W2 development (and going by the name Black Page Brewing Co.) The city issued a few more permits for the brewpub this week (fast on the heels of the permit issued Tuesday for the music venue’s permanent outdoor stage — a few days after construction allegedly got rolling, though not quite in time for tonight’s planned outdoor The Head and The Heart concert). Owner Anthony Heins tells Swamplot the pub is just leasing the land from W2, which country records show bought the property in April of last year. And builder KUEHN Inc. has been snapping photos of progress at the former warehouse, which sits near the stretch of waterway where an area resident took those videos of chainsaw aftermath back in May; that area is down beyond the orange fencing below on the left:
Near Northside Neighbors
A clearer picture is emerging of Ancorian’s East Village development, headed for 2 blocks along St. Emmanuel St. in East Downtown between Lamar and Polk Sts. A Houston branch of the Swedish Our/Vodka distillery project plans to move in at the corner of Lamar and Hutchins St.; a block of office space in the complex has been claimed by Three Square Design Group, whose past work includes projects for Buffalo Bayou, Fort Bend, and Karbach breweries. On Polk St. at the other end of the development, The Secret Group’s not-so-secret comedy club has been under renovation for some time.
Investor-geared materials on the development also name Dallas’s Truck Yard as a planned occupant — the food-truck friendly beer and cocktail bar currently sells drinks out of an open-air building, an Airstream trailer, and a treehouse at its existing location up north.
Meanwhile, renderings have been released of the Chapman & Kirby gastropub, headed for the warehouse at the corner of Lamar at St. Emanuel St. The building was occupied until the start of this year by Asian-American restaurant supplier Kitchen Depot (which has moved out to a location on Harwin Dr. at S. Gessner Dr. near Beltway 8); the East Downtown space will be renovated and made over per designs by MÄk Studio.
The front of the building is depicted with nearly a dozen new windows or entryways:
Added To The List
Eureka Heights Brewing Company employees will get to work on beer as soon as they’re done “powerwashing the hell out of this warehouse” — that 22,000-sq.-ft. one formerly occupied by Jake’s Finer Foods on W. 18th St., half a block west of N. Durham Dr. (and even closer to the border of the Height’s historically (nominally) dry zone.) The brewery’s webpage also proudly touts its proximity to the trace of the Eureka Heights Fault, which crosses White Oak Bayou about where Ella Blvd. does (just a few blocks to the west of the newly leased space).
Other beer endeavors currently fermenting in and around the Greater Heights area include Platypus Brewpub (preparing to slip in behind the Tacodeli and upscale barbershop on their way to Washington Ave), Holler Brewing Company (planned for the Artists Alley section of the Sawyer Yards Development), Allen’s Landing Brewing Company (3540 Oak Forest Dr., a few blocks west of Petrol Station), and the seemingly-yet-unmoored Great Heights Brewing Company, which claims a numberless address on Heights Blvd. on its Facebook page.
Shady Acres at Fault
From the folks currently in the process of bringing you Heights Mercantile: plans for East Village, a 2-block mixed-use complex planned along St. Emanuel and Hutchins Sts. between Polk and Lamar in East Downtown — a few blocks south of the Dynamo’s BBVA Compass Stadium, and across 59 from the George R. Brown Convention Center and Discovery Green. New real estate investment and development firm Ancorian (founded by Finial co-founders Neil Martin and Michael Sperandio with Matthew Donowho) is behind the development; as of two months ago, land for the project (across the street from the Yen Huong Bakery and the now-closed Kim Hung Supermarket) was still being acquired.
A few renderings are up on the Ancorian website — the view above is of a Lamar-facing courtyard and a renovated version of the warehouse currently housing Kitchen Depot. But a presentation dated late November shows many additional angles, siteplans, and renderings of the planned development, one block of which is credited to the design firm of Austin-based Michael Hsu, and the other to MÄk Studio Architecture:
Beer Before Liquor on Hutchins
