Hold Out Brewing
Ol' Gil is the best Pilsner in Austin,which is the Austin Chronicle's flat verdict in the year it ranked Hold Out second among the city's breweries.2
Why go
The Chronicle moved Hold Out to third in Austin in 2024 on a score of 94.8, and the reason it gives is the pairing: a beer wall served in the most appealing and proper glassware
, with the entire folio brewed to complement their extraordinary food menu populated with some of the most difficult choices in Austin dining.
1 The food is the brewery's own, cooked in a kitchen behind the bar, and Austin Public Health inspects two separate permits at 1208 West 4th Street, both under this name and both on the same days.4 Sharing the compound is Better Half Coffee and Cocktails, which the Chronicle calls the more elegant sister of the two.1
Order this / avoid
- Ol' Gil, the Euro pils, drunk fresh: the Chronicle's writer describes
an Ol' Gil freshie in a pitted glass with the aroma of some 1850s Bohemian Kingdom wafting below you.
2 - Neu! Pilz, gold at the 2024 Texas Craft Brewers Cup, and Lagerface, a silver medalist in Smoke & Chili Beer the year before.1
- The Choriqueso Burger, the Comeback Chicken Sandwich or the Chana Masala Frito Pie, the three dishes the Chronicle picks off the menu. Roasted beets are the side it names.1
- Hezky Czesky if you want the dark one: the house homage to dunkel, described as malty, bready and toffee-flavored.2
- Avoid: Monday before 3pm. Every other day opens at 11 or earlier.3
What locals & experts say
- The Austin Chronicle's brewery power rankings, Eric Puga, 17 October 2024, put Hold Out third in Austin on a score of 94.8, up a trend line that reads 10, 9, 11, 2. Puga on the room:
we'll die with the hot take that Hold Out is the vibey-est taproom and biergarten in town
. This is a scored staff editorial with a byline, and it sits apart from the Chronicle's Best of Austin readers poll.1 - The same ranking a year earlier, 10 October 2023, had it second on 92.25, and that is the edition the pilsner verdict comes from. Puga's other claim in it is about the people: the brewery keeps
the best back-of-house and front-of-house squad in all of Austin beer
, andthrough them comes much of Austin's best beer.
2
Good to know
- Hours: Monday 3pm to 10pm, Tuesday to Friday 11am to 11pm, Saturday from 10am.3
- Booking: tables can be reserved in advance, and the brewery takes group and party bookings.3
- Parking: there is a free lot, which the Chronicle calls the brewery's most underrated feature.2
- Hygiene: clean on both permits. One reads 93 on 17 April 2026, and 92, 84 and 80 back to October 2023; the other, filed at 1208-1/2 W 4th St, reads 86 on the same April 2026 date, with 90, 85, 83, 97 and 95 behind it. Ten inspections and nothing below 80, against a failing line of 70.4
- I haven't found a full review of the cooking. The Chronicle's verdict on the food is a paragraph inside a ranking.
Verdict
should-visit — The Austin Chronicle ranks Hold Out third among the city's breweries on a 2024 score of 94.8, one year after ranking it second, and its 2023 verdict on the house pilsner is that Ol' Gil is the best in Austin. The medals sit behind the lager case, and at the 2024 Texas Craft Brewers Cup Neu! Pilz took gold and Impeachment cream ale took bronze, with silvers for Lagerface and Leaf Peeper the year before. The kitchen is the brewery's own and the Chronicle calls the menu extraordinary, picking out the Choriqueso Burger, the Comeback Chicken Sandwich and the Chana Masala Frito Pie. Ten health inspections across two permits at one address, nothing under 80.