Beer Director Kevin Floyd | Recommendations - Find. Eat. Drink.
Kevin Floyd, Beer Director, The Hay Merchant, Anvil, Underbelly, Beer Recs, Where to buy Beer, Where to drink Beer, Houston, TX, Texas, Dallas, Restaurants, Bars, American Beer, Craft Beer, Draft Beer, Canned Beer, Belgian Beer, Best Beers, Favorite Beers, Bartender, Best Bars For Beer In Houston, Ale, IPA, Liquor Stores, Flanders Red Ale, Pale Ale, Cask Beer, Flying Dog, Yeast, Keg, American Style Ale, Stouts, IPA, Encyclopedia, Beer Resources
Recommendations
SPEC’S LIQUOR WAREHOUSE
Downtown
Liquor / Beer
Dallas, TX
Resources
Find | Markets & Stores - Houston, TX
They’re giant and the Spec’s downtown location is where they keep all of their really good craft beers.
DA MARCO CUCINA E VINO
1520 Westheimer Road, Houston, TX, 77006
T: 713.807.8857 (make a reservation)
High-end Italian, very small, very exclusive, higher price point.
Montrose
Italian
Eat | Restaurants - Houston, TX
FEAST
Fourth Ward
British
It’s rustic European cuisine. They are a couple of Englishmen that had been friends for a long time and they serve simple, country-style English food. It’s very hearty but really, really delicious.
HUGO’S
It is classic Mexican high-end cuisine. It’s some of the best food in town.
Montrose
Mexican
Who
Kevin Floyd is the Beer Director and co-owner of craft beer bar Hay Merchant, cocktail bar Anvil and American restaurant Underbelly in Houston, Texas.
Why
Kevin’s craft beer program at Hay Merchant is one of the most prolific cask programs in the nation.They have 75 drafts and 5 cask engines, and manually clean their lines each time a keg is changed.
Beer Director Kevin Floyd | Recommendations
May 24, 2012
Anvil | The Hay Merchant | Underbelly - Houston, TX
Photographs courtesy of Hay Merchant
LONDON SIZZLER
Sharpstown
Indian
It is an English-style curry house, so a little bit of an English slant on traditional Indian cuisine. It is phenomenal. I go in there and I just order randomly off the menu. I don’t care what it is, it’s always really good, huge depths of flavors and complex spices. Just amazing food.
VIENG TAI
6929 Long Point Road, Houston, TX 77055
T: 713.688.9910
It’s this little Thai place that is super off the beaten path in kind of a scary section of town. It's down this industrial highway, past the factory and it’s BYOB. The food there is just incredible. I'm not sure how to pronounce the names of the dishes and I just order randomly off the menu and get different stuff. It used to be really quiet and then we started tweeting about it and now you see more people in there, so it’s becoming more well known.
Spring Branch
Thai
VINOTECA POSĆOL
1609 Westheimer Road, Houston TX 77006
T: 713.529.2797
Montrose
Wine Bar
It’s a little Italian-inspired charcuterie and wine bar. They've got small plates and really simple food.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
3622 Main Street, Suite D, Houston, TX 77006
T: 713.874.0096
It's this small little bar owned by two women, Robin Berwick and Robin Whalan. Robin Berwick actually worked for us at Anvil for awhile before she left to do her own thing. They don’t have a cocktail program, but Robin buys all the right ingredients. So if you want a cocktail,you can get one. If you want a Lone Star, you can get that. If you want to just hang out, you can do that too. It's a cool spot.
Forth Ward / Midtown
Bar
Drink | Bars - Houston, TX
GRAND PRIZE
1010 Banks Street, Houston, TX 77006
T: 713.526.4565
Museum District
Bar
Grand Prize is more of an industry bar. You'll see a lot of bartenders and chefs hanging out there. They've got a big selection of products and the bartenders go and make a few things.
LIBERTY STATION BAR
Liberty Station was an old gas station and they kept a lot of the original stuff. It's this little diamond in the rough at the very end of Washington Avenue. Washington Avenue is the glitzy, glammy, a lot of money, but no soul kind of place. If you're into good stuff, you don't go to Washington. If you want a good time and party, you go to Washington. Charles, the guy that owns it, only sells craft beer on tap. He does have Bud Light in the bottle, because he's on Washington, so he's gonna have this overwhelming crush of people who want that stuff. But during the week, it's a little slower. They have this big patio when the weather's nice and you sit outside.
Sixth Ward
Bar
PETROL STATION
985 Wakefield Drive, Houston, TX 77018
T: 713.957.2875
Oak Forest
American / Bar / Burgers
It’s like the hippie version of Hay Merchant. As much as Hay Merchant is academic, focused and has a wide range of different options, Ben Fullelove who owns it, doesn't care about anybody's opinion. The attitude is really interesting and I just like hanging out there.
POISON GIRL
1641 Westheimer Road, Houston, TX 77006
T: 713.527.9929
The owner Scott is really into bourbons and has an insanely big whisky selection. It’s a hipstery bar with a bunch of pinball machines and a dirt patio in the back with half-broken chairs. It's right across the street from one of the most high-dollar, fine dining restaurants in town, which I think is funny. If you don't go and stare, you'll never find it.
Montrose
Bar
Eat | Restaurants - Dallas, TX
COMMON TABLE
Oak Lawn / Uptown
Bar / Gastropub
It’s a little restaurant in downtown Dallas. They have a good beer list and good food.
OXFORD COMPANION TO BEER
Buy on Amazon.com
A must-have for anyone interested in beer.
Encyclopedia
Beer
Find | Beer Resources
Find | American Beer
512 BREWING
USA / Texas / Austin
Beer
One of the most exciting and they’re making super consistent beers.
AVERY
Avery is a small producer in Boulder. They are known for big American style ales, Russian imperial stouts, big barleywines, and big double IPAs.
USA / Colorado / Boulder
Beer
BUFFALO BAYOU
USA / Texas / Houston
Beer
The owner literally puts his cellphone number on every keg he sells and if you ever have a problem, just call him and he’ll show up at like two in the morning with a keg in the back of his truck. He’s putting out two beers, one of them is called 1836, which is the year that Houston was founded. It’s a copper ale, kind of a sessionable English-style pale ale, a very approachable beer. Then he’s putting out a series of beers he calls Secessionist and Secessionist Number One, a big old gingerbread stout and really good.
JESTER KING
Farmhouse breweries are more old school. They allow the natural yeast that’s present in the environment to begin fermentation and that always leads to unexpected results, and a lot of times those beers are sour. They’re kind of dry. They’re aggressive. They’re kind of similar to the Flemish red ale in a slightly different way. It’s very uncommon in the world to see this kind of production. The reason why it’s so interesting is because you lose control and so if the yeast is not with you, you will lose all of the beer you’re trying to make. It’s a hugely risky venture, but if it’s successful, it’s really an interesting beer.
USA / Texas / Austin
Beer
KARBACH BREWING
USA / Texas / Houston
Beer
They just opened this year in Houston and hit the ground running. They hired Eric Warner as the brew master, he was the head brewer of Flying Dog. He’s like one of the top 10 brewers in our country, easily. He literally wrote the book on German-style hefeweizen, incredibly knowledgeable guy, so Karbach hired the best they could find and they’re putting out some pretty stellar beers at a decent amount, a decent size volume, and they’re super consistent. I mean every beer they make is good.
LEFT HAND
They’re known for really setting a new standard in nitro-draft technology. Nitro draft technology was developed by Guinness and was actually developed to simulate the experience of a cask beer. Left Hand has taken that kind of technology and really started doing interesting beers with it.
USA / Colorado
Beer
SAMUEL ADAMS
USA / Massachusetts
Beer
He’s still craft. He embodies the idea of what small business entrepreneurship was from the ground up and taking a risk in doing things.
SIERRA NEVADA
It is the quintessential example of the American pale ale style and it’s a good beer.
USA / California
Beer
Find | American Canned Beer
DALE’S PALE ALE
Oskar Blues Brewery, 1800 Pike Road, Unit B, Longmont, CO 80501
It’s one of my favorite go-to beers. You can take them in a bag hiking to the top of a mountain, sit there and have a beer, and you can’t do that with a bottle and you definitely can’t do that with drafts.
USA / Colorado
Beer / Pale Ale
SOUTHERN STAR
USA / Texas
Beer
They’re in Conroe and have been canning, but only locally available.
Find | Belgian Beers
BROUWERIJ VAN EECKE
One of my favorite breweries is Brouwerij Van Eecke. It’s a little brewery in Poperinge, in a tiny town in Flanders, outside of Bruges. The only thing Poperinge does, basically, is grow hops. Van Eecke is a multigenerational brewery, with the 7th generation brew master in charge now. They’ve been making the same beer for all these generations in one of the richest hop regions, so all of their beers have really interesting hop complexities to them that for most American craft drinkers, we associate with the big American IPA, hugely citrusy, usually piney. I love those beers, but the Belgian hop experience is different. It’s still hoppy, but it’s a lot more subtle and complex and intricate.
Belgium
Beer
CUVÉE DES JACOBINS ROUGE
Belgium
Beer / Flanders Red Ale
Bockor is a family-owned brewery. I think it’s in their fifth or sixth generation of family ownership. The brew master that was alive during the war, sought shelter at a monastery and the abbot’s name was Jacobin. When the war was over, he went back to brewing and he brewed a line of beers called Jacobins, in honor of this friar that protected him and the family has carried on the tradition. Jacobins Rouge is sweet and sour. It has almost a vinegar quality to it.
VAN STEENBERGE
Belgian beers are just wildly complex and deep in flavor and they range in styles. Van Steenberge does a lot of one-off productions for bars around the world.
Belgium
Beer
