Spoetzl Brewery - Shiner

My son's girlfriend planned a birthday trip for my son and invited me to tag along. This was so much fun. Sunshine gave an amazing tour. We want to come back during the week so we can see the production line working.

Okay your probably looking at a population of Shiner TX at about 2k and wondering where to get some food before a brewery or distillery tour (do it : this bbq joint is inset to the brewery and is making some knock your socks off bbq. Pictures below is the sausage sandwich combo. They jave salads which you can eat by themselves or add any of the daily meats. Local made and sourced sausage was absolutely killer. Small snack trays to enjoy with an adult beverage and more. Open air dining, but we even had live music on a Friday. Swing in, you wont be disappointed. Brewery tour is great, nice swag bag and great tap beers.

It was very interesting and learned some stuff. The food at the BBQ restaurant was good too, I had the pulled pork sandwich.

Great historic Texas Brewery! Definitely take one of the tours...and learn the history of the lil brewery that put Shiner on the map. Finish up with any of the beers on tap and listen to some live music under the pavilion outside!

First, I will address the hard negative and then will continue below with the great.When you purchase a tour at $25USD you get a roughly 45-minute guided tour in the facility, a reusable shopping bag with some nice branded graphics, a branded keychain bottle opener, a nice quality branded plastic cup molded to look like a tall solo cup, three Shiner chits to exchange for beer, and a sticker to place somewhere advertising your visit.All these items are subject to change, made clear on their website.There are several ‘upgrades’ that you can purchase. The first of which only changes the swag you receive. After seeing the nice black padded cooler bag branded with the Shiner brewery image we decided to ‘upgrade’ one of our tour passes so we could have one of each swag bag. The upgrade was an additional $35USD for a total of $55USD, not exactly chump change.We were encouraged to hurry off to drop the swag in our car as to save room for the beer in our hands that we would carry and sip throughout the tour.Afterwards we were astonished to find in the $35 cooler bag was a 6 pack of beer. That was it, nothing else. Now I like Shiner so I will drink the beer but let’s look at the value. In store I would pick up this six pack for between $6.99 and $9.99 depending on where I was. The actual cost for the brewery where it was canned? Likely pennies per can simply because the packaging costs them something, but the actual beer is negligible for this size operation. No sticker even for my additional $35 much less a key chain or a cup or something? Woof that felt a little scammy.Stick with the basic swag is my advice.Now for some good stuff.We, a party of two, booked a pair of tours for Saturday 2/25. You do not pay up front so I assume that the booking is to manage tour sizes as to keep it manageable for the guide. The revised space that the tour takes place through is very well planned out and it would take a lot of people to feel cramped, do not fear if you are departing for the tour and headed upstairs if it seems your group is a bit large.The tour was fun and aimed at more of a whimsical history of the brewery rather than any kind of insight to the process of brewing, although they do hit the surface points and it is done in an engaging thoughtful manner. Mainly a great perusal through some fantastic Shiner collectibles and a view of its active production facility. For real bottling action you will want to visit during regular working weekday hours.Shiner has a great yard just outside the taproom where there was heat posts for winter, shade for the summer, yard games, and live music. A BBQ business has a permanent home on site now, we did not try it but after sticking our heads in to see some meat being chopped to serve my opinion was it looked good for a BBQ food truck but it would be hard to want to spend money on it when there is no shortage of world class BBQ in South Texas.Should you just want to hang out for the games and music you can skip the tour by buying a glass and using the chits (2) that come along with it for your beer fills.We would not hesitate to visit the brewery again if we are in the area in the future but will stick to maybe buying a glass only ?