Remembering Waterloo

This weekend to celebrate my birthday we went to Freetail in San Antonio www.freetailbrewing.com/ for their anniversary party and saw brewer Jason Davis. One of the things we talked about was their porter recipe he had brought with him from the long defunct Waterloo Brewing Company. www.waterloobrew.com/beer.html I fondly remember the place and the role it and Billy Forrester played (along with others like Tim Rice) in helping legalize brewpubs in the state of Texas. The next day back in Austin we went to my favorite watering hole, the Draught House, for one more celebratory round. Later that evening my thoughts about Waterloo came full circle as Billy Forrester stopped by. Billy once owned several pubs including the Waterloo and the Dog and Duck and now owns Billy’s on Burnet www.billysonburnet.com/. As a strange side note, I first met Billy at the Dog and Duck roughly ten years ago when I went in the men’s room and found him changing a toilet roll holder. Billy is a great source for anyone interested in the history of Texas legislation pertaining to brewpubs having spearheaded H.B. 1425 in 1993, although he is quick to remind you that there were many others that put a lot of time and effort into passing the law. So next time you stop in your favorite brewpub be sure to make a toast to Waterloo and Billy Forrester, it’s because of early efforts made by pioneers like him that you can enjoy that pint in front of you.

This entry was posted on 30. November 2009 at 19:19 and is filed under Central Texas Beer Happenings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.