Draught House Pub & Brewery
More than twenty of the seventy-five tap handles pour beer brewed on the premises, and The Austin Chronicle names NutBush Extra Special Bitter, Trophy English pale ale and a Vanilla porter among them.215
Why go
The pub opened in 1969 and started brewing in 1995, and the house list has since grown to take more than twenty of its own handles off a brewhouse the Chronicle calls pint-sized.2 Josh Wilson is the brewer, and his recipes rotate hard enough that the paper gave up tracking styles and just drinks what is on.1 The same paper ranked the pub 23rd among Austin breweries in 2023 on a score of 72 and 24th in 2024 on 81.5.1 Austin Chronicle readers separately gave it Beer Selection in the 2022 Best of Austin poll, which is a public vote.4 Outside, the old parking and tailgating lot is now a permanent Oktoberfest area with rows of picnic tables under a striated tent.2 There is no kitchen; food trucks cover it.3
Order this / avoid
- NutBush Extra Special Bitter and Trophy English pale ale, the two house pints the Chronicle drinks first.1
- The Vanilla porter, which the same piece calls
criminally overlooked
.1 - Blackpool Bitter if it is up:
a fine sipping ale with a mellow hop profile and a toasty backbone
. Pumpkinhead is the autumn one, a spiced pumpkin ale the pub was pouring long before the style went mainstream.2 - Take the patio if the weather allows. It is the part the outlet tells you to plan around.3
- Avoid: treating it as dinner. The food is a truck, and which truck changes.3
What locals & experts say
- The Austin Chronicle brewery power rankings, Eric Puga, 17 October 2024, placed it 24th in Austin on a score of 81.5 and named the house pours:
we adore being engaged with the Rosedale neighborhood while drinking fresh pints of NutBush Extra Special Bitter, Trophy English pale ale, and their criminally overlooked Vanilla porter.
The same paragraph explains why the list is a shape:Josh Wilson's beers rotate so often, we rarely go on a bender of one particular style.
1 - The same rankings a year earlier, 10 October 2023, had it 23rd on 72 and picked out two more:
Blackpool Bitter, a fine sipping ale with a mellow hop profile and a toasty backbone, and Pumpkinhead, their iconic spiced pumpkin ale that wowed drinkers long before Starbucks ever did.
It also counted the 74 taps and dated the house beers to 1995.2 - The Austin Chronicle, Best of Austin Restaurants 2022, Readers Poll: Beer Selection, in the Beverages category. That is readers voting, and it sits on a different footing from the staff ranking above.4
- The Infatuation Austin, verbatim:
Draught House's tap selection is one of the best in Austin (and definitely in Rosedale) and its vibes will make even a non-beer lover happy. Come on a weekend when the weather is nice and plan to stay a while on the huge patio. Food trucks have you covered if you get hungry.
The page carries no rating, which is the outlet's policy for a place without a full meal.3 - Jeff's saved note reads "Local craft beer pub." Four words, and they are accurate.
Good to know
- The board runs seventy-five taps now, not seventy-four. The Chronicle's 2023 count is the one this entry carried; the pub's own drinks page counts one more today.5
- There is a full bar now, added in 2023, alongside the beer, cider and wine taps.2
- Hygiene: record found and current. Austin Public Health has the kitchen as listed under the inverted name Draught House, The, at 4112 Medical Pkwy, scoring 89 on 6 March 2026 and 92 in December 2024. Austin's failing threshold is below 70, so nothing here is a finding. The register's newest published inspection anywhere is 22 May 2026 and the file was last updated 15 June 2026.6
- The city inverts the name. Austin Public Health lists it as Draught House Pub, so a search for
The Draught House
as one string comes back empty. The same search also returns Hanovers Draught Haus in Pflugerville, a different business.6
Verdict
could-visit — Seventy-five taps in a Rosedale pub that has been open since 1969 and brewing its own since 1995, with more than twenty handles now given over to the house beer. The Austin Chronicle names NutBush Extra Special Bitter, Trophy English pale ale and a Vanilla porter it calls criminally overlooked, plus Blackpool Bitter for a mellow hop profile and a toasty backbone, and Pumpkinhead in season. Brewer Josh Wilson rotates recipes fast, so treat those names as a shape and read the board. It took Beer Selection in the Chronicle's 2022 Best of Austin readers poll and sits 24th on the same paper's 2024 brewery power ranking, which is the honest ceiling here. No kitchen; food is whatever truck is outside.