Meanwhile Brewing
Eighteen beers on the wall and eight of them are lagers, among them a Czech-style dark lager, a smoked helles and the house pilsner.1
Why go
The brewing team came out of Breakside in Portland, so the hoppy half of the list is the older half, and the lager program is what people now sprint here for.2 Meanwhile Pilsner is a former Great American Beer Festival medalist and it anchors a seasonal lager bench that includes a Vienna-style Texas Blue Corn, the jasmine-scented Royal Tannin at Texas Craft Brewers Cup silver, and Fore!, an Arnold Palmer style Kolsch that took silver at the 2023 World Beer Cup. On the other side of the wall, Secret Beach West Coast IPA took gold at the 2023 Texas Craft Brewers Cup and Tender Robot is the house hazy.2 The Austin Chronicle's Eric Puga has ranked the brewery first in the city two years running, 94.5 in 2023 and 96.1 in 2024, and his line on the program is a grove where folks from all walks of Austin culture can come together under the finest comprehensive beer program in all of Central Texas
.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: Meanwhile Pilsner first, because it is the beer the medals and the rankings both keep returning to, and it tells you what the lager bench is doing.
- Then: Secret Beach, the San Diego-style IPA that took gold at the 2023 Texas Craft Brewers Cup, and Left Handed Hummingbird, gold in Barrel and Wood Aged Beer at the 2024 Cup.1
- Avoid: arriving fixed on one beer. The wall runs to eighteen taps and the seasonal lagers turn over hardest, so the Blue Blazes or the Royal Tannin you came for may be gone.1
What locals & experts say
- The Austin Chronicle's brewery power rankings, Eric Puga, 17 October 2024, put Meanwhile first, as it had the year before. His verdict on the site:
Meanwhile is the exemplar to which every other brewery with a little bit of roaming space should strive.
1 - The 2023 edition, 10 October 2023, is where the beer detail lives, including the Portland lineage and the medal roll on the lagers.2
- Best of Austin 2026, Brewery: a win, and it is the public-vote half. The Chronicle runs its Readers Poll separately from its Critics Picks, and this is the poll. Finalists were Pinthouse, St. Elmo Brewing Co., Vacancy Brewing and Zilker Brewing Co. Austin Monthly's readers separately voted it Best Place to Bring Kids, which is also a poll.31
- I haven't found the brewer named anywhere. Both Chronicle power rankings and the 2026 Readers Poll page give the Portland lineage and no name.
Good to know
- Where it is: 3901 Promontory Point Drive in Southeast Austin, a compound with a heavily shaded biergarten, a 5v5 soccer pitch, a mid-yard playscape and a row of food trucks. It holds the Chronicle's Best of Austin title for Best Playscape, which tells you who the room is built for.1
- The barbecue here has its own medal. Distant Relatives smokes out of two trailers on this lot and took a Bib Gourmand in the inaugural 2024 MICHELIN Guide Texas. That award is the pit's and not the brewery's.54
- Cans travel: the beer reaches H-E-B, so the drive southeast is for the taps and the yard.2
- Hygiene: clean. Austin Public Health has it as facility 12393370 at this address, scoring 92 on 20 April 2026, 90 on 21 October 2024 and 87 on 6 November 2023. Nothing near the city's 70-point failing line. The 0 recorded at 3800 Promontory Point Drive belongs to Fiesta Tortillas, facility 2803394, a separate business two doors along.6
Verdict
should-visit — The Austin Chronicle's Eric Puga has ranked this the best brewery in the city two years running, 2023 and 2024, and he calls the program 'the finest comprehensive beer program in all of Central Texas'. The wall backs it: of eighteen taps, eight are lagers, including a Czech-style dark lager, a smoked helles and the house pilsner that carries a Great American Beer Festival medal, with Secret Beach West Coast IPA taking gold at the 2023 Texas Craft Brewers Cup and Left Handed Hummingbird taking gold in Barrel and Wood Aged Beer in 2024. The brewing came out of Breakside in Portland and it shows in the hop side of the list. Food is the trucks' business, and one of them, Distant Relatives, holds a Bib Gourmand of its own.