Torma Take

I just got back from a great weekend in Shiner, Texas. My long-time colleague and dear friend Theresa Parker sponsored a weekend visit to the little town that beer built. She founded polkabeat.com two years ago to promote Texas polka music and heritage in honor of her late father, Willie Cernoch. He called polka music his happy music, and by the smiles on the faces of the people who spent the weekend in Czech country, he was right! It’s hard not to smile when you’re listening to a polka!

Our first event of the weekend was a tour of the Shiner Brewery. Unfortunately, they don’t allow cameras inside for the brewery tour, but you can check out the fun we had before and after in this video.

Some interesting facts about the brewery:

• Only 90 employees make all that Shiner beer you see in grocery stores!
• Shiner Blonde sold today was the original Shiner recipe made by Kosmos Spoetzel in 1909.
• Some of Shiner’s seasonal beers are only available in Shiner Family Packs.
• Before being put in bottles or kegs, Shiner beer is aged for at least 30 days in storage tanks.
• The brewery bottles 15,000 cases per day. An impressive automated bottling line fills 625 bottles per minute. The crew then cleans the equipment before bottling another type of beer.
• The current brew master has been with the brewery for more than 30 years and promises some new things in 2012, so stay tuned!

After the brewery tour, we drove to nearby Moulton and had dinner at Kloesel’s Steakhouse, while listening and dancing to the polka sounds of Chris Rybak, whose live recording of the Shiner Polka is featured in my video. (Chris will be performing December 10-11 at the German Christmas Market in Tomball.) Theresa’s son Will Seegers, who is a music composer and French horn player, picked up the miniature trumpet for the first time and jammed with the band. Willie Cernoch would have been so proud!

Watch for more on the weekend in upcoming posts, including a Night in Old Pearl City.  And for the Thanksgiving weekend, I just picked up a six pack of Shiner Holiday Cheer. I highly recommend it.  Cheers!

Cheers!