Texas Craft Brewers Festival 2025: Highlights, Top Beers & Breweries

The Texas Craft Brewers Festival remains one of the most anticipated beer events in Austin and across the state, drawing thousands of fans to celebrate the best in Texas craft beer. The 2025 festival brought together more than 75 Texas breweries, over 240 beers, and a growing number of new and innovative styles that reflect the evolution of the Texas beer scene. From barrel-aged sours to creative lagers, rare collaborations, and small-batch releases, the festival continues to highlight why Texas remains a powerhouse in regional craft brewing. Below is a full recap of the standout beers, brewery debuts, festival atmosphere, and trends that defined the 2025 Texas Craft Brewers Festival — along with my picks for the must-try beers from this year’s event.

The State of Texas Craft Beer, Poured in One Place

It has, beyond a shadow of a doubt, been a rough couple of years for Texas craft beer. Like the rest of the US, the industry is feeling the pinch of contraction, with closures outstripping openings in 2024 – the first time since the Texas Craft Brewers Guild began keeping records. But this is being Texas, our beer community won’t be kept down and continues to put its best foot forward and keep up the enthusiasm and drive that has raised our brewery numbers from just 59 in 2011 to 447 in 2024. Spirits were high as approximately 4,500 beer lovers came together in a joyful celebration of the Lone Star State beer industry and the Texas Craft Brewers Guild on a beautifully sunny November Saturday.

Over 75 breweries from across the state joined the festival, with 14 breweries making their festival debut and more than 240 beers available. The Guild took a gamble moving the festival from guaranteed sun in September to our most changeable month, but it paid off in abundance with temperatures reaching the upper 80s mitigated by a pleasant breeze, ie perfect beer-drinking weather – and far preferable to sweaty Texas summer weather in this writer’s opinion. But luck had nothing to do with the event’s seamless organization, headed up by the Guild’s Education & Events Manager Sheila Garcia. Her team of dedicated volunteers kept beer flowing, lines short, bathrooms clean and security well-placed to ensure a safe and positive experience for all attendees – a much more difficult job than it may appear, but one that is an essential component to a good time (as anyone who’s been to a less well-organized festival will know).

But on to the beer! It was supremely gratifying to be greeted by a list stoically subverting current industry trends and encompassing a wide range of styles, including eclectic and hyper-local offerings – such a breath of fresh air in comparison to events lazily filled with tent after tent of hazy IPAs. Exciting fresh flavors included Saisons with beet (Hold Out Brewing) and butterfly pea flower (Slackers Brewing), a gin BA Belgian Golden Ale (Nomadic Beerworks) and sticky rice and mango lager (Obsidian Brewery). There was also happy preponderance of high quality sours, including Ghost Note Brewing’s Double Barrel Delight BA blended sour red ale with blackberry, True Anomaly’s Flanders Redux BA Flanders red on cherries, 512 Brewing’s Wild Bear sour brown ale and Vector Brewing’s BA sour with boysenberry and blackberry, plus Jester King’s multi-award-winning Atrial Rubicite – more than enough to keep the keenest sour aficionado happy. Reds also showed up in numbers, with a total of eight red ales/IPAs available, including Grain Theory’s massive 16% ABV 40 Watt Reserve BA old fashioned red imperial ale and Live Oak Brewing’s pleasingly autumnal Punishment Ale cold red IPA. Kveiks, Kreiks, coconut beers, honey ales and winter spices all made appearances, and the breadth of choice helped to ensure that, timed tappings aside, few beers kicked early in the day.

The festival’s special collaboration Partners in Craft and Pink Boots tents also boasted impressive selections, top picks from each being Denton County Brewing Company and Peticolas Brewing’s Penthouse Please BA Belgian quad and Infamous Brewing’s Sally Skull IPL respectively. Offering limited festival collabs is a gift for both breweries and attendees, the former benefitting from an opportunity to be spontaneous and creative without bottom-line pressure and the latter incentivized to try new styles from known names, with local nerds enjoying the additional benefit of trying something they can’t get anywhere else. Partners In Craft took an extra step, as they have in previous years, including collaborations with local businesses and charities, including the National Desert Storm War Memorial (Bold Republic Brewing Company), The Holocaust Remembrance Association (Megaton Brewery), and Hopdoddy Burger Bar (Vista Brewing), adding an extra layer of community to the event.

For guests attending from within and out of state, the festival was a treat – a worthy showcase of some of out finest breweries, old and new, famous and under-the-radar. The industry flexed its collective muscle to ensure a great time was had over a truly impressive beer selection which demonstrated the dedication and professionalism of Texas brewers, as seen in their record 21-strong medal haul at this year’s Great American Beer Festival. Even if quantity is slightly diminished, quality certainly is not.

While beer festivals are and should be focused on meeting the expectations of attendees, they are also important for the beer community. At a time when the industry lacks much of the robustness of the past decade and optimism can feel thin on the ground, making space and time to really enjoy what we love about craft beer, catch up with colleagues and get to know new faces is more important than ever. An extended VIP slot – now a generous two hours – gave industry attendees and dedicated drinkers the opportunity to socialize and appreciate one another’s offerings before the main gates opened, packing Fiesta Gardens with happy, thirsty beer lovers.

The festival was a strong, encouraging note to end the year on, its success and positivity a hopefully precursor to the new year, an upbeat introduction to new Texan breweries and drinkers and a well-earned toast to those pushing through the hard times with stoic Texas grit.

For festivalgoers who left this year’s event inspired to explore even more beer culture beyond Texas, San Diego Beer News’ The Beer Travel Guide offers a deeper way to experience craft brewing around the world. Each guide highlights unique regional beer scenes, showcases standout breweries and their signature styles, and shares the backstories and insider tips that help you drink like a local wherever you land. It’s the perfect next step for anyone who discovered a new favorite style at the Texas Craft Brewers Festival and wants to see how it’s interpreted across different regions. Cheers to Texas beer!

Standout Beers of the Festival

• Obsidian Brewery – Sticky Rice and Mango Lager
• Roughhouse Brewing – Rand Hand Live Oak Smoked Lager
• Ghost Note Brewing – Double Barrel Delight BA Blended Sour Ale with Blackberry
• True Anomaly – Flanders Redux Barrel Aged Flanders Red on Cherries
• Grain Theory – BA Perennial Bloom Merlot Barrel Aged French Saison

The Texas Beer Community Celebrating at the 2025 Texas Craft Brewers Festival