Texas Ale Project was founded in 2014 (which we wrote about here) on a strip of road outside of Downtown Dallas. And, to be honest, it’s a very big road (N. Riverfront Blvd.), which may be why this is a very big brewery—plenty of outdoor space for drinking, talking, and talking more after drinking. It’s beautiful. You should go there.
The first beer they launched on Dallas was the Fire Ant Funeral, a traditional amber ale that is sensationally drinkable. Each beer thereafter was just as delicious, and, for this edition, we are diving into two beers with brewer Derrick Rima. He’s a veteran with endless warmth and joviality. He has a daughter, a wife, loves beer, and he is a fine gentleman that we are all lucky to have in our city. We are also lucky to have the brewery’s TAP Fest, which you can attend on April 29.
The Brewer: Derrick Rima with Texas Ale Project
The Beer: The Caucasian, a White Russian Imperial Stout
ABV: 9 percent
IBU: 75
“It’s my favorite beer that we’re doing right now, just because it’s so unique. It’s gold in color, maybe a little darker than a pilsner, but it has much more alcohol. We just sent off the barrel aged stuff and it has 11 percent. It’s a really dry finish and it’s really easy to drink. It has $1,200 worth of Madagascar vanilla beans in it and 45 gallons of cold brew coffee from Full City Rooster. It was really cool working with Michael at Full City. He let us come over do some of the roasting with him.
We were working on the ratios and we wanted to enhance the coffee a little more this year, so we were able to bring some of the unfinished beer over and test the ratio to get it just right. It was a great experience connecting with another person who’s a maker. That was a real treat. We’ve now got six Knob Creek barrels filled with The Caucasian, and we’re going to be releasing that here on April 29th at our TAP Fest.”
The Beer: Good to Go, a pale ale
ABV: 5.2 percent
IBU: 32.4
“We wanted to do a beer that helps veteran entrepreneurs, and Brent (Thompson, one of the owners) was kind of the lead on this. He wanted to do a charity beer and since we’re both veterans, it seemed like the right thing to do. HCC is a program for veteran entrepreneurs. It’s an incubator program, and it stands for Honor, Courage, Commitment. They have entrepreneurial classes up at SMU and they help put veterans through the course there. They also have offices and work stations at HCC where people can build business proposals and work toward opening their own businesses. Good To Go will be brewed seasonally, this time in June to support our troops through Texas Ale Project. It’s anticipated to be a year-round beer. The name itself came from a common saying that pulled all veterans together regardless of the branch of military. It’s just something you’d hear in whatever one you were a part of, so it seemed to fit.”
Well, if that doesn’t make you thirsty and a little emotional, then I just don’t know how to get through to you. Texas Ale Project, as noted above, will be hosting TAP Fest to celebrate 2 years of brewing. There will be live music, food, and rare tappings. Tickets are still available, so get moving. That’s all for now.
