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This up an coming brewery nestled in the heartland is quickly becoming nationally known! Expansion!

Pennsylvania Press Release

Article was orignaly published on June 27, 2010 20:24 – By: Jeremybanas on UpTake.

Texas is a big place. I know.. you are shocked. So would it be any surprise to find that their is a little town tucked away in the Texas Hill Country, known as Wimberley? I thought not. Although Wimberley, Texas was home to many Native American tribes over the last several thousand years, it wasn’t until the mid 1800’s after Texas won it’s independence and received statehood in 1845 that we first see a written record. Wimberley has remained small over the last 150 years or so and certainly not lost it’s Hill Country charm. Located within a two hour drive of both San Antonio and Austin, Texas, it has quite a lot to see and enjoy. For the spring and summer, you can enjoy their market days; head over to nearby Cypress Swimming Hole in Woodcreek. Much of the area remains unchanged over the years from its humble origins.

A sign of the times however is the recent addition of the Wimberley Brewing Company. The self proclaimed smallest micro-brewery in Texas has a down home feel, hand-crafted ales and pure Texas hospitality.

The Wimberly Brewing Co

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Originally published in The Gazette By Jay Price

RALEIGH, N.C. • The very soul of beer, the ingredient responsible for its wonderful bitterness, is now being grown in North Carolina.

Hoping to build on the craft-brewing and localfood movements, N.C. State University researchers in Raleigh and a handful of farmers in the mountains are growing experimental plots of hops, the coneshaped flower clusters that brewers add to beer for bitterness, aroma and as a natural preservative.

Rob Austin, Deanna Osmond and Jeanine Davis at NCSU got a $28,000, oneyear grant this year from the Golden LEAF Foundation to investigate the commercial viability of growing hops here. In March, a couple of volunteers from a soon-to-open Durham brewery called Fullsteam came to help researchers plant a small plot of about 200 plants at a university field laboratory near Lake Wheeler, south of Raleigh.

Davis, an extension agent, had already been working with four farms in the mountains that are trying to grow hops. The goals, Austin said, are to test the plants’ ability to grow in North Carolina and to monitor potential diseases, particularly mold, which drove hops production out of the eastern United States and Midwest in the 1920s. Now most hops grown in the United States come from arid parts of the Pacific Northwest.

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Originally published by me on May 29, 2010 on UpTake.com.

These days San Antonio, Texas is quite the vacation destination for many people. We’ve hosted both the men’s and Women’s NCAA Final Four; tear up the town each year with Fiesta; and then there’s the world famous Riverwalk. When traveling, I think most of us look to hit the tourist spots, see as much as we can of what we think we are supposed to when visiting a new city. While I love that philosophy, you really can’t go to Rome and not see the Vatican, I firmly believe in living like a local when on vacation.

San Antonio, Texas has many historical areas of town, many dating back two to three hundred years: The Missions, San Fernando Cathedral and of course The Alamo. Not quite as well known outside of San Antonio, but just as historic, is the King William District. The  area started as farmland, getting it’s water from the San Antonio River, owned by the 1718 Mission San Antonio de Valero. In the  the 1800′s each of the missions were controlled by the Catholic Church. One of the missions, Mission Concepcion, was divided into various pieces in the mid-1800′s, creating what became the King William District.  Although not around quite as long yet, the King William District is now home to a restaurant that everyone can call their own; The Friendly Spot.

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