I know, I’m cheating. We had Sunday Funday one day early (I’ve resorted to rhyming now). We visited the Fetching Lab Brewery on Saturday for their open house and brewery tour to enjoy a few brews and check out their facility.
First things first, this brewery is on property of owners Brett Bray and Theresa Hutchings. Honestly, it’s genius to place the brewery on property since they have a beautiful piece of land right where Alvin meets the Galveston County line. Plus, the process of getting your TABC approval isn’t exactly what you would call easy, so if you’re going to pay for property, you might as well pay yourselves.
That being said, since the brewery is on their property, it’s not one that you can tour anytime you would like. Therefore, Brett and Theresa make sure to open up the brewery on select Saturdays (when the weather is nice) to the general public so they can enjoy the freshest variety of their wonderful brews.
Upon our visit to the brewery, we learned that our favorite beer of theirs, the Bound & Determined Chile Stout, was not available for consumption this visit. It was a bit of a disappointment at first, but they did make sure to have several test brews available for sampling to make up for the absence. Their test batches of different porters included their Midnight Watch Vanilla Porter, Midnight Watch Hazelnut Porter and a Baltic Vanilla Porter. With the changing of seasons, darker beers tend to be more within my wheel house, so these were my beers of choice.
For $15.00, I got three beer tokens and a Fetching Lab pint glass to take home, which is one terrific deal. To start out, my first choice was the Midnight Watch Vanilla Porter. This darker porter had a very slight hint of vanilla in the finish, but overall was a beautiful porter with a chocolate malt flavor. Second round, I chose the Baltic Vanilla Porter which was a bit stronger and more robust. Similar to the Midnight Watch, the Baltic Porter had a very slight hint of vanilla flavoring, but this stronger porter was a bit better in taste than the Midnight Watch. Finally, to get my chile fix that I was craving, I chose the Omega Chile Ale which tasted like their Round Up Amber with a slight kick at the end. While a very satisfying beer, it did not hold a candle to the Baltic Porter that was simply stunning.
Overall, the setup out at Fetching Lab is perfect for meeting locals who love craft beer and love to enjoy a beautiful day at their great outdoor setup. Fully equipped with a cornhole game, washers game, ladder ball, and giant Jenga set, you can really understand how bonding and making new friends is easy to achieve here. Plus, getting some of the best beer made in the area is certainly a perk.