Blue Owl Brewing.

Blue Owl Brewing

Every beer here is soured on the grain, in a Modular Inoculation Unit the founder designed so the bacteria and yeast already on the malt do it the same way every time.1

Why go

Jeff Young and Suzy Shaffer came out of Black Star Co-op and opened this in October 2015 claiming to be the first brewery in the United States to make, distribute and sell only sour-mash beer.1 Sour mashing is a bourbon technique, and Young's own gloss is the clearest one on record: Sour mashing is a brewing technique that uses naturally occurring bacteria and yeast found on the grain to produce acidity and tartness into the resulting beer. He is equally plain about what that commits the building to: Blue Owl does only sour-mashed beer and we have therefore designed the entire brewery around the sour-mashing process.1 The founding lineup ran Spirit Animal pale ale, Little Boss session wheat, Professor Black cherry stout and Van Dayum! red ale, all of them soured. Shaffer's reason for the industrial park on East Cesar Chavez: The idea that folks can visit a brewery that is bikeable, even walkable, is very appealing to us.1 Bob's Fine Beers came later and is the clean side of the house, starting with a pilsner in Sixties-styled cans.3

Order this / avoid

• Order: Little Gose, 3.5 percent, the beer the Chronicle picked out of ten Texas goses.2
• Then: Professor Black, the sour-mashed cherry stout, which is the founding lineup's argument that this technique is not only for summer beer.1
• If sour is not the plan: Bob's Cold One or Cool & The Gang, both $3 a pint from 3pm to 6pm Wednesday through Friday.6
• Avoid: a Monday or Tuesday. The tasting room is closed both days.6

What locals & experts say

• The Austin Chronicle, Eric Puga, October 2021, ranked it 24th in the city and credited the focus: Blue Owl went out and found their niche and then perfected it. He also noted the brewery giving itself room for non-sour beers, and the weekly discounted growler deals that make working through the range cheap.3
• The Austin Chronicle, Adrienne White, October 2017, put Little Gose in a ten-brewery Texas gose survey and described it as taking its cue from a summer cocktail, with freshly zested tangerines and just-picked Thai basil are prominent in each sip.2
• Brewery of the Year, 2021, and it was a vote. CultureMap's Tastemaker Awards gave it the title over Austin Beerworks, Hold Out and Meanwhile Brewing, as reported by the Chronicle. The Tastemakers run on nomination and public vote, so this is a poll result and carries no critic's verdict.3
• The same desk stopped ranking it the following year. The 2022 power rankings list Blue Owl at 24 among the breweries dropped, and it does not appear in the 2023 or 2024 editions. The Infatuation's 13 Best Breweries In Austin guide does not carry it either.4

Good to know

• New owners since May 2025. A party on 9 May 2025 marked the handover to brothers Tony and Ian Norris, with original co-founder Jeff Young staying on. Everything critical quoted above was written before that.5
• Hours: Wednesday and Thursday 3pm to 10pm, Friday and Saturday noon to 10pm, Sunday noon to 8pm, closed Monday and Tuesday.6
• There is a kitchen. Bola Pizza and cheese boards come off it, and the bar also pours wine and non-alcoholic options. Parking is on the street or free with validation in the Holly Commons lot.6
• Cans travel: the beer went out through Whole Foods, H-E-B, Spec's, Whip In, Quickie Pickie, WhichCraft and Jester King from launch, with six-packs around $10 at the time.1
• Hygiene: clean, and the record is thin. Austin Public Health has one inspection for facility 11415491 at this suite, scoring 96 on 22 November 2024. That is the only inspection on file here and nothing newer has been published, so read it as an old reading rather than a current clean bill. Two neighbors at this address hold their own permits, Rockman Coffee & Bakeshop in Suite 200 and Juniper in Suite 304, and neither score belongs here.7

Verdict

should-visit — Every beer here is soured on the grain, and the brewery was built around that: Jeff Young designed a Modular Inoculation Unit so the wild bacteria and yeast already on the malt do the acidification consistently, and Blue Owl opened in October 2015 claiming to be the first US brewery making, distributing and selling only sour-mash beer. The founding four were Spirit Animal pale ale, Little Boss session wheat, Professor Black cherry stout and Van Dayum! red ale, and the Chronicle's Adrienne White reads Little Gose, at 3.5 percent, as tangerine zest and just-picked Thai basil. Eric Puga ranked it 24th in Austin in 2021 and said it found its niche and perfected it, and CultureMap's readers made it Brewery of the Year that year over Austin Beerworks, Hold Out and Meanwhile. Puga dropped it from the rankings in 2022, and the brewery changed hands in May 2025 with Young staying on.