Live Oak HefeWeizen has been ranked No. 1 of Southwest Beers by 308 reviewers on the Beer Advocate website, but this isn’t a good reason to visit the brewery. Tours are free, you just have to register online and print a ticket, but this isn’t why you visit either. It’s close to central Austin, which is convenient, but you know you’d travel a-ways to go there anyhow. So why would you visit the Live Oak Brewery? Because you can take a look around and know that the people who make the beer seriously know what they are doing.
About the Live Oak tour
Tours are given by a slightly accented German, Jan, a brewmaster in his home country, with a way of describing beers and the way they are created that will make you giggle while teaching you things you didn’t even realize you needed to know. The giggling could be because of the generous free samples, of course, but it could also be for the terminology he uses to describe what passes as beer in America. What does he call it? Fizzy yellow water, or something like that. The Live Oak tour has been given a Best of Austin Award by the Austin Chronicle in 2010.
What to expect on the Live Oak Brewery tour
You arrive with your ticket in hand, nice and early for the Saturday midday tour … and the place looks closed. But at 12 noon the doors will open, your ticket will be exchanged for a plastic cup and you’ll get your first sample. Jan will tell you about the subtle flavors, reserving a little of the mystery in the interest of trade secrets, and will then pour your second sample.
The samples are pulled using taps made from live oak wood, and at some point during the tour he will describe how one of the brewing team goes around the city collecting suitable oak branches from the kerbside, from which to create new taps. After four or five samples and some explanation of the basic processes you will be led through to the back room and then Jan will go into the real detail of the brewing process used here.
No bells, no whistles just beer on brewery visit
This is not a brewery that is set up for touring, it’s a no nonsense, no fancy bits, working environment. There is no air conditioning, so there are no tours in August. There is no special cleaning done in honor of your visit. Various pieces of equipment are left where they will be used next. If you need to use the washroom (remembering that the samples are generous), it will be the same washroom the staff use. The reading material in the washroom is Nature magazine, so you know there is real science going on here.
A last word of warning. Don’t go home to Michigan and ask for a Live Oak Big Bark Amber Lager at your local bar, and expect to get it. Live Oak beer is on tap only, they don’t bottle it, and it’s only available in Texas. This is a truly exclusive experience.
Sally Anne Lewis - Sally has master's degrees in science and journalism, is fascinated to a degree in most things. Always something to learn.
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