The Texas Big Beer Brewery was officially born July 23, 2010, when it was registered as a new business with the Newton Count Clerk’s office. The brewery will be located in Southeast Texas at the end of a long dirt road. The road gets rough, rutted and muddy at times, which sets the mood as you approach the Texas brewery site.

The brewery is being started up by John McKissack and his wife Tammy, they are also known as Johnny MAX and the Queen to listeners of their Beer podcasts “BrewCrAzY” and “BEER Talk Radio.” Johnny MAX is an avid homebrewer and has won numerous medals including a 1st place medal in the AHA National Homebrew Competition in 2005. He has published articles in BYO Magazine including one on how to brew his 21.4% ABV all-grain beer called “Cause of Death,” which sports a label with a toe tag that reads “Cause of Death, 21.4% ABV.”

Johnny MAX and the Queen also host the “Self-Sufficient Homestead” show and they are planning to implement many of the things they promote on their show, in their brewery. One of the things they warn against is dept, so they plan to build up their brewery without incurring any debt to do it. This is no small task in a market as competitive as the craft beer industry, not to mention the cost of equipment, packaging and ingredients. Efficiency is the goal and making use of everything is key. The spent grains will not go to waste either, they plan to have a longhorn bull and various other ranch animals, which will live a fat and happy life, being pampered at the brewery.

They also have made a pledge to be responsible and to minimize their impact on the environment, including plans to build green houses full of plants that will help scrub the CO2 coming from their fermenters before entering the environment. “Plants take in CO2 during the day and produce oxygen, so in theory it should be possible keep the CO2 from entering the atmosphere, or at lease significantly reduce it,” according to Johnny MAX.

Currently the land is being cleared and prepared for the brewery, 2,100 feet of fencing is already going up along with drives and utility connections. The brewery plans to start production in 2011, starting in a very small building, which will later serve as a tasting room and storefront when the larger brew house is erected. “We have to do this in stages if we are going to avoid debt,” says Johnny.

Johnny is in the process of locating and acquiring stainless tanks which he plans to convert into a six to eight barrel brew system.

Currently the Brewery is brewing test batches on a three-tier gravity fed homebrew system to develop its initial line up of beers. The system can make only 15 gallons of beer at a time Starting in mid August Johnny MAX and the Queen will start shipping beer from these test batches all over the United States for sensory evaluation. They will select people from the “Texas Big Beer Brewery” fan page on facebook. The lucky fans (21 years of ge and older) will receive a bottle of beer and instructions with a postage paid return envelope to send the results of their evaluation back.

The Texas Big Beer Brewery may be starting in a small “Texas Brew Shed” at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of nowhere, but get ready for some Big Beers with Big Flavor packaged in 22 oz. bomber bottles. Our light beer will make you light headed!