The wait is finally over. On November 19, San Antonio's newest brewery, Weathered Souls Brewing Co., celebrated their grand opening in very grand fashion. With doors opening at noon, the guys at Weathered Souls (located at 606 Embassy Oaks, suite 500) celebrated long and hard until around midnight with eight hundred of their closest friends. Attendees began lining up around 11:00am awaiting the formal ribbon cutting ceremony at 11:30 am and to be first to get a crack at the brew they have been eagerly waiting try.
The décor inside the restaurant side of the brewpub is simple. Sleek concrete floors that are stained a glossy brown matching the marble style countertops, tables and chairs. Comforting earth tones adorn the walls with a tile backsplash accenting the 16 taps available. Next to the restaurant side is a rolling garage door separating the brewhouse that features a 20-barrel brewing system and several 40-barrel fermenters, as well as the cold room and future barrel program.
As the Weathered Souls guys are fond of saying (heck it's even written on the brewery wall), “It's all about the beer” and they held true to that. Tappings which began at noon, featured 11 different brews covering multiple styles. Their core brews: Malterial Girl, a Blonde Ale with Kölsch yeast; Autumn, an American Porter; and Test Batch IPA 002, a West Coast Styled IPA were available, with a few special releases including SpottieOttieHopalicious and Who Got The Juice Now both of which are co-founder and head brewer Marcus Baskerville’s take on the controversial New England Style IPA. This trendy and emerging style is a bit controversial, as the style is typically unfiltered creating a haze, as well as some breweries adding flour and wheat to artificially create the haziness. This often rubs many brewers in the rest of the country the wrong way, as many brewers look at hazy beers as ones that might be brewed poorly.
Production manager Seth Parker said that although all of the beers were popular, crowd favorites were SpottieOttieHopalicious, Malterial Girl and essentially all of their barrel aged beers, including a barrel aged Imperial Stout dubbed Cavernous weighing it at 12.5 percent ABV.
Two groups were key to helping Weathered Souls get off the ground. The grand opening was performed by Michelle Boggs with the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation.
Hours going forward will be Monday through Thursday 4-10 p.m., Fridays 3-10 p.m., Saturdays noon-10 p.m. and Sundays 1-6 p.m. Plans for distribution are pending, as the guys are wanting to get more established before ramping up production.
