The Saint Arnold Brewing Company is a craft

brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of b ...

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, United States, named after a patron saint of brewing,

Saint Arnulf of Metz Arnulf of Metz ( 582 – 645) was a Frankish bishop of Metz and advisor to the Merovingian court of Austrasia. He later retired to the Abbey of Remiremont. In French he is also known as Arnoul or Arnoulf. In English he is known as Arnold. Ge ...

. It was founded in 1994 by Brock Wagner and Kevin Bartol, graduates of

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

. The brewery offers tours every weekday and Saturday afternoons, which have attracted a large following. Saint Arnold has won numerous national and international awards including Mid Size Brewery of The Year 2017.

History

Saint Arnold Brewing Company was founded in 1994 and was originally located on the far northwest side of Houston. It operated out of that location for more than fifteen years. 2522 Fairway Park

Brock Wagner, a resident of

Southgate SouthGate is a shopping centre in Bath, Somerset, England, It is home to over fifty shops, ten restaurants, 99 homes and an 860-space underground car park. It replaced a shopping centre which was demolished in 2007. The new centre developed b ...

in Houston and a graduate of

, founded the company and, as of 2003, owns it. In 2008, St. Arnold announced that it planned to move from its northwest Houston facility to a new facility in the

Northside Northside or North Side may refer to: Music * Northside (band), a musical group from Manchester, EngIand * NorthSide, an American record label * NorthSide Festival (Denmark), a music festival in Aarhus, Denmark * "Norf Norf", a 2015 song by Vince ...

district, north of

Downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, Interstate 45 ...

. By 2009 the company had purchased a three-story square foot brick building, constructed in 1914, which most recently served as a food service facility for the

Houston Independent School District The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest Public school (government funded), public school system in Texas, and the eighth-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the ci ...

. The prominent location of the new brewery on the highway was key to its selection. The redevelopment effort was expected to take a year to complete and cost a total of almost $6 million. Due to unforeseen events, such as the theft of copper pipes from the building, the move was delayed and was not completed until the spring of 2010. StArnoldBreweryHoustonTX

A new round of investing to help finance the new brewery gave 100 investors 30% of the company at an average investment of $25,000 each. St. Arnold also received a bank loan from the

Small Business Administration The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) is an independent agency of the United States government that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businesses. The mission of the Small Business Administration is "to maintain and str ...

at a 4.17% interest rate over 20 years. The brewery anticipated brewing over 30,000 barrels in 2010, up from 26,000 barrels at their previous location. The maximum capacity of the new brewery is over 100,000 barrels. In 2018, the company opened a

beer garden A beer garden (German: ''Biergarten'') is an outdoor area in which beer and food are served, typically at shared tables shaded by trees. Beer gardens originated in Bavaria, of which Munich is the capital city, in the 19th century, and remain co ...

attached to the brewery with a taproom, restaurant, and gift shop. In 2019, they made a wager against

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

–based DC Brau in which the winner of the

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...

receives the loser's signature brews, plus other stuff from the barrel room. They lost. In mid-July 2020, the

Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, or TABC (formerly the Texas Liquor Control Board), is a Texas public agency responsible for regulating, inspecting, and taxing the production, sale, and use of alcoholic beverages within the state. The age ...

decided to shut down dine-in service amidst the ongoing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The TABC previously stated that most breweries with kitchens were allowed to keep their bars open, even as bars & taprooms in the state were forced to shut down.

Marketing

The brewery markets and distributes its beer throughout Texas and Louisiana. Saint Arnold's marketing includes community events, social media brewery tours, product sampling and e-mail marketing to grow its business. It has an e-mail list of 30,000 people and has run innovative programs like auctioning off naming rights to its brewing vessels on

eBay eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...

Recycling program

The brewery offers an uncommon

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the propert ...

program through which usable bottle carriers may be redeemed for promotional merchandise. 200,000 bottle carriers can be redeemed for the official St. Arnold's 1957 Bentley.

Gallery

File:St. arnolds rear.jpg, St. Arnold's Brewery beer garden File:St. Arnolds logo.jpg, St. Arnold's Brewery beer garden logo

References

External links

{{Portal, Texas, Companies, Beer
Official company website
Food and drink companies based in Houston Manufacturing companies based in Houston Beer brewing companies based in Texas Privately held companies based in Texas American companies established in 1994