WHAT'S BREWING

What's brewing in San Antonio: Beer Week taps into October

Idle Beer Hall will be among the local breweries celebrating San Antonio Beer Week.

It’s the most chuggable time of the year as Alamo City brewers get ready for the San Antonio Beer Week marathon of breakfasts, spooky screenings, and a grand tasting at Hemisfair. Elsewhere, local homebrewers are perfecting their pale ales for Verano Braü as a Fort Worth brewery prepares to bring Cowtown to the Rim. Yeehaw! It’s time to rope in October’s beer news.

Breaking down Beer Week
We don’t know if we have Ninkasi, Silenus, or Mbaba Mwana Waresa to thank, but the beer gods are smiling on this year’s San Antonio Beer Week (SABW). With (slightly) cooler days forecasted October 10-18, no one will have to suffer heat stroke to sip a barrel-aged stout.

The frothy celebration of craft brewing came together in 2011, after local beer writer Travis E. Poling proposed the idea in a San Antonio Current column. Now, area brewers have made it one of the city’s most anticipated excuses to pop open a cold one.

While imbibers can chart their own course with the annual passport program, they won’t want to miss the parties. Among this year’s festivities are a beer breakfast at Dos Sirenos, an anniversary party at The Friendly Spot, a spooky screening at Wild Barley, a tap takeover at Roundabout, and a toast to Idle Beer Hall.

It all comes to a crescendo at Hemisfair’s Civic Park for the annual San Antonio Beer Festival, where brewers from across the nation serve their best. Groggy head or not, the real ones will want to stick around the next day for the annual Brewers Olympics.

More information on all of the events can be found online.

Kunstler Brewing Verano Braü competitors will show off their American pale ales at Künstler Brewing.Künstler Brewing/ Facebook

Hopping into the ring
While the pros show off for Beer Week, homebrewers will have their chance to flaunt their own American pale ales during the sixth annual Verano Braü.

Beer nonprofit San Antonio Cerveceros is taking 12 competition entries through October 23, and the winner will be announced October 26 at Künstler Brewing. The final boss will be sold at the Southtown brewery.

ICYMI
San Antonio-based fuel company VP Racing is adding some octane to Alamo Distilling Co. The company has purchased the struggling distillery at 2030 E. Houston St. to produce its newly launched Grand Tour Collection of roadtrip-inspired whiskies.

Meanwhile, buzzy Fort Worth brewery Second Rodeo is eyeing its first San Antonio location. According to a property flyer, the beer garden will take over the former home of The Rustic at 17619 La Cantera Pkwy in the Rim.

Lastly, City Brew Tours has rolled out new guided excursions through San Antonio breweries. Local franchise owner Michael Lerch says he doesn't just want guests to taste Alamo City beers, but also meet the people responsible for their favorite ales and IPAs.

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COMING ATTRACTIONS

Austin bakery chain makes San Antonio debut near Alamo Heights

Swedish Hill/ Facebook

Swedish Hill is coming to San Antonio.

The scent of freshly baked bread will once again fill the former T win Sisters Bakery & Cafe space. Austin-based mini-chain Swedish Hill is opening its first San Antonio location in the Sunset Ridge shopping center at 6322 N. New Braunfels Ave. near Alamo Heights.

The current version of the café first debuted in 2019, but its history stretches back to the ‘70s. Original owners Patricia Bauer-Slate and Tom Neuhaus first opened the bakery as Sweetish Hill in 1975, converting a Victorian-era house in East Austin. The business later moved closer to downtown in 1991 with Jim Murphy on board as a partner.

In 2018, it looked like the business was going to close for good, but prolific Austin restaurateurs MML Hospitality (then McGuire Moorman) took over the reins. Though the group revamped the decor and the name, it kept the basic formula the same — with some new additions from an opening team comprised of baker Jennifer Tucker, acclaimed Austin pastry chef Alex Manley, and Page Pressley, now the proprietor of The Newstand on Broadway.

Each of the locations stocks dozens of baked goods such as bagels, croissants, flaky kouign-amann, cookies, and tarts. Swedish Hill also serves lunchtime fare such as salads, sandwiches, rotisserie chicken, and deli salads. The menu is a little more contemporary than the original incarnation, selling ginger tahini kale bowls and chia seed pudding, but it keeps Bauer-Slate’s famed chicken tortilla soup.

Swedish Hill will be MML’s first foray in San Antonio, but it is arguably Austin’s most ubiquitous restaurant group, owning more than a dozen concepts, including Clark’s Oyster Bar, Jeffrey’s, and Perla’s. Swedish Hill itself has four locations in Austin and one in Aspen, Colorado.

MML has not formally announced the opening, but George Wommack, president and CEO of San Antonio real estate firm Headwall Investments, the owner of Sunset Ridge, confirmed the signing to the San Antonio Business Journal. Neither Headwall nor MML returned requests for more information by deadline. We will update this article with any further comment.

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