Podcast: From Frontier Brews to Ice-Cold Craft Beers

Hey, where can a fellow get a beer around here?

Yeah, I know I can go to the nearest corner store and grab a case of cold ones, but what if I wanted something a little more curated and cold and convenient? At least we don't have to make beer ourselves anymore. Getting a hold of a delicious local brew hasn't always been so
easy on Galveston Island. Let's look into a little bit of island beer history.

All right, so we've got the thirst. But before we crack open that cold one, we're tying in a little bit of German United States beer history, ice history, all of which leads into modern-day Galveston. Alright, let's get into it. Let's take it back to the late 17 hundreds and early 18 hundreds.

While Texas was still Spanish territory, most Americans were brewing beer at home or even in small taverns. Before massive industrial brewing operations took hold. Beer was made in kitchens and barns, usually using local ingredients or things that could be easily found and
fermented. It could be barley if it was available, but often corn.

These homemade brews were usually unfiltered, low in alcohol content, and meant to be consumed quickly. In the early United States, as communities grew and German immigrants began arriving in large numbers, they brought with them the techniques and tastes for lager
beer. Clearer, crisper, and brewed in larger batches. That shift laid the foundation for commercial breweries. Now bringing this back to Texas and Galveston.

Early Texans made homemade wines and malt beverages. And they were often made from whatever fruits and flavors people could get their hands on. Before grocery stores and Amazon delivery, foraging was a big thing. Many people grew or found their ingredients with native
grapes, persimmons, plums, and blackberries being prime pickings here in Texas, and these usually made their way into early 19th-century homemade wine; however, beer was a bit different.

True beer requires malted grains. Like barley or wheat, on the Texas frontier, barley wasn't widely grown, so settlers improvised with corn and sometimes potatoes as starch substitutes. Those German immigrants are the ones who firmly established grain-based brewing and the
lager tradition in Texas. Ocean-going vessels were bringing in alcoholic beverages as early as the Republic of Texas era, but for many early Galvestonians and mainland Texans, beer was still a do-it-yourself frontier drink.

Galveston wasn't just another Texas town. It was the busiest port in the state. Ships from Europe, Mexico, and the East Coast docked every day, unloading people and goods... also tastes traditions and ingredients, and yes, that includes alcoholic beverages. The global traffic
shaped what people in Galveston were drinking, including beers that wouldn't last long enough to make it inland.

In the early 18 hundreds, as Anglo Americans moved from the Eastern United States into the Galveston area, they typically used local ingredients for various types of fermented drinks, not just beer. Germans were arriving in Texas in large numbers, bringing their favorite beer recipes with them. Their styles of beer and methods of brewing spread, driving changes in taste across the state. As the Texas population grew, so did the market for beer.

Breweries sprang up to meet local demand. Preservation and shipment were difficult for these brewers, so most beer was sold locally. Large-scale brewing didn't come to Galveston until the 1890s, but small home brewers and saloon keepers had been importing kegs of lager from Houston and San Antonio before then. For commercially brewed beer to reach Galveston in the mid 18 hundreds, large-scale breweries would've relied heavily on the mighty Mississippi River or on horse-drawn wagons traveling on rough, unpaved roads.

In Texas, New Braunfels in San Antonio saw early lager breweries in the 1850s. Historically, beer was brewed warm and drank quickly, but lager was different. It required cold storage and slow-working yeast. That means brewers could only make it during cooler months unless they had access to ice. Okay, so Galveston gets the beer, but it would probably taste better if it were cold, right?

How do we get it cold? You could always try burying it in the sand to get it cool-ish. I guess it depends on how deep, or you can just grab some ice or put it in a shiny, modern refrigerator. Right. Well, it's convenient now and we even take it for granted, but even ice was a hot
commodity in the 18 hundreds.

It wasn't until the 1920s that electric refrigerators began their rise to dominance. So how do we get that beer cold? Ads from the Galveston Daily News in the 1860s indicate the importation of ice from New England, and ice storage houses, known as ice houses, began popping up near the strand. Ice boxes or refrigerators, as they were sometimes called, even then, became a familiar fixture in American homes, or at least those who could afford it. This early form of cooling appliance, first patented as a butter transport device in 1803 by Thomas Moore, evolved over the decades into insulated wooden cabinets, lined with Tin or Zinc, holding large blocks of ice at the top to cool everything below.

By the 1840s, companies like Baldwin Refrigerator Company and Raney Refrigerator Service began mass-producing these ice boxes. By the late 18 hundreds, ice boxes were widespread in American households, enabling families to store perishable foods and, yes, beer for longer than ever before.

While doing research for this episode, I found an ad in an 1867 issue of the Galveston Daily News, and they're advertising the Louisiana Fair Premium Zero Refrigerator Icebox with a water cooler combined. Without reading this entire long-winded advertisement, they essentially break down five points on why you should buy this icebox.

Like improvements to the previous models, it excludes moisture. The icebox is square and will hold more ice than the previous model, and the ad even touts how easily the icebox can be cleaned. Now remember, this is an 1867 ad, and iceboxes have been around for commercial
and private use since at least the 1840s, but cooling down that imported beer still faced one big problem.

No one on the island was making ice for many years. In order to get ice to Galveston, huge blocks of it had to be shipped from areas with colder climates. In the winter, ice built up on lakes and would be cut out in huge pieces and packed into ships bound for port cities like Galveston. Once these large blocks reached the island, they would then be taken to ice houses designed specifically to hold this frosty cargo, keeping it as cold as possible for as long as possible. Then, from the Ice Houses, the blocks would be broken into smaller pieces and sold to restaurants, businesses, or for personal use and households in the city and surrounding areas.

In many places, including Galveston, ice house operators saw an opportunity to expand their businesses by selling cold groceries and cold beer to locals and tourists.

Even today, across the country, you can find bars and restaurants that use Icehouse in their name. Reflecting this unique period of history. With Galveston's first commercial ice plants coming online in the 1870s, ice could finally be enjoyed year-round. However, as railroads and
industrial manufacturing made their way into Texas during the 1870s and 1880s, the practice of brewing beer at home declined.

As commercial breweries grew and technology improved, and pretty soon, large-scale companies like Anheuser-Busch of St. Louis were able to produce more beer at a faster pace and at a lower cost than traditional brewing. They also had the scale and the money to use
expensive and innovative technology to brew, bottle, package, and ship their products.

Commercial breweries were able to provide a more consistent product at a pretty reasonable price, and the booming port city of Galveston was the perfect emerging market.

In 1895, Adolphus Busch and William J. Limp of St. Louis petitioned local businessmen and investors to help build a brand new brewery on Galveston Island. With the help of these Galveston investors, $400,000 was raised. That's nearly $15 million today. This established the
Galveston Brewing Company. That same year, the Alta Loma freshwater line was run from the mainland to the island, allowing the brewery to turn huge quantities of water into, well, liquid gold, also known as beer.

The building was completed in October of 1896 and had its grand opening in February of 1897. The newest technology and large-scale industrial brewing were brought to Galveston by the historic Anheuser-Busch Company. The new facility was impressive and innovative. It consisted of a large ice plant that could produce a hundred tons of ice daily and a modern brewery that could produce up to a hundred thousand barrels of beer annually. This wasn't just any brewery; it was a symbol of Galveston's ambition. With its own ice plant, it didn't just make beer. It made the ice to keep it cold. The bottling plant had a capacity of 30,000 bottles per day, and at its peak, it employed well over a hundred men.

After the devastation of the 1900 storm and a short hiatus, everything was going okay until the 1920s, until nationwide Prohibition against alcohol went into effect. Galveston Brewing Company had been sold and renamed several times. In 1917, the Galveston Brewing Company
was sold to the Southern Beverage Company, which survived Prohibition by producing near beer and Triple X root beer. When Prohibition ended in the 1930s, the state's brewing industry rebounded. Though it looked a little different this time around. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, it reopened as the Galveston Houston Breweries Incorporated, and in 1955 was purchased by Falstaff Brewing Company. Falstaff operated the plant until it closed in 1982. However, by the 1980s and 1990s, the people were ready for a more authentic, localized, and unique beer drinking experience. Small-scale local craft breweries began growing in popularity and profitability.

In the mid-2010s, the craft beer industry was booming across the nation, and Texans began opening small breweries and tasting rooms to serve their local communities.

And of course, the same thing happened here in Galveston. But by the early 2020s, COVID-19 changed everything, consumer spending habits, tourism, and even local travel. In the aftermath, the craft beer culture and industry struggled to recover. To combat this, the Texas Craft Brewers Guild launched the Brew City Texas program in 2024, which helps connect, promote, and further develop the craft beer industry, the first of its kind in the country. The program provides an important platform for local breweries to advertise and connect with
customers, both new and returning. It also helps local breweries to coordinate events with local governments and other area businesses, bringing to the forefront the economic and community benefits for everyone.

Today, the craft beer industry contributes over $5 billion to the Texas economy and employs over 30,000 people. As a pioneering city of the Brew City program, the island's local craft beer scene is positioned to continue growing. As of 2025, our small island has packed in four local breweries: Galveston Island Brewing, Naked Iguana Brewery, Beerfoot, and Devil in the Deep, and even two distilleries, Texas Tail Distillery and Galveston Distilling Co.

So next time you're ready to crack open your favorite cold one or looking to try something totally new, check out what Galveston Island has to offer. You're sure to find some of the island's best brews waiting alongside plenty of interesting stories. Galveston has always had a thirst for beer. And today, that history lives on through the island's modern breweries, each crafting its own take on Galveston's centuries-old love affair with beer.

Galveston Island, part of Brew City, Texas, a craft beer destination.