Honest people. A great facility. One huge anniversary party blowout. No Label Brewing Company out in Katy sure knows how to celebrate.
If you’ve lived in the Houston area at all over the past six years, you’ve undoubtedly seen various No Label beers on tap from time to time. My first experience with their beer was probably about five years ago when I tried their hefeweizen, El Hefe. For quite a while, it was my go-to beer anytime I saw it on tap. Ironically, much of their lineup I rarely see on tap at various bars throughout Houston. In fact, I’ve never seen Eleven Amp IPA anywhere on tap, which is why, to this day, I still haven’t even tried it.
For the last year or so, I’ve heard from many people in the Houston area who’ve been critical of No Label. Things like, “they’re not creative” or “the beers are average” have been a couple of the things I’ve heard, so I’ve really tried to drink more of their beers lately to see why this exists. What I’ve found is that most of this criticism is unwarranted and baseless.
Let’s address the “they’re not creative” criticism. If you haven’t tried many of their beers and only know their core lineup, you’ll think that they only do the basics – amber ales, pale ales, IPAs, hefeweizens, etc. If you dig a little deeper, you’ll see that they are probably the only brewery in the state that does two different pepper-based beers. Don Jalapeno and What the Hatch are two independently unique beers that both use different peppers with the regular jalapeno and hatch green chiles both being used, respectively.
In addition, you’ll find that they release many small batch beers under the Off Label series brand. Their Wee Heavy, Perpetual Peace is far and away my favorite of their Off Label beers that seems to blend the flavors of vanilla, caramel, and the malt in with the bourbon barrel backing from the aging of the beer. This beer is certainly not average, but instead, one of the best Wee Heavies in the state.
In addition to not only brewing, packaging and releasing their small batches, No Label also had several one-off beers at their anniversary party that should dispel any notion that these folks aren’t creative. During the party, I sampled various beers that were only brewed for one keg or were so unique, I’d never seen a beer like it before.
The two that stood out for me during No Label’s anniversary party were Sour Nightmare, a sour pumpkin ale that’s much more delicious than it sounds, and Don Gusano, their mescal barrel-aged version of Don Jalapeno.
Sour Nightmare seemed like a beautiful accident because who the hell would want to sour a pumpkin beer? It turned out nicely with the flavor of cinnamon being strangely complimentary to the sour cherry backing of the yeast that is creating the souring effect. I’ve never heard of anybody bold enough to do anything with their pumpkin beer except maybe bourbon barrel-age it. Souring one is new and just strange enough to work.
Don Gusano is something that you would expect from a brewery like Saint Arnold. They took their base Don Jalapeno ale and barrel-aged in mescal barrels. The result was a spicy ale that isn’t too hot to handle with a boozy, tequila-flavored finish. You could get a similar effect by drinking some Don Jalapeno with sipping some Oaxaca-based mescal as a chaser. However, No Label’s way won’t get you nearly as drunk as the other way.
No Label had so many standout beers at their anniversary party, it was hard to choose from the best ones. Let’s just say that the numerous choices on tap made it difficult to try them all. We tried, but couldn’t get to everything.
Over the last year, I’ve gotten to connect with a couple of folks from No Label through social media including head brewer James Wolfe, cellarman Mark Vandervoort, and account rep Paul Vega. Each one of these folks take a lot of pride in their work at No Label and really do a tremendous job forwarding the brand to more craft beer drinkers. Mark introduced me to one of their brewers, Taylor Nance, who immediately (and thankfully, jokingly) said, “I have a bone to pick with you. That 5th Anniversary Barleywine was my recipe.” Luckily, I liked the beer but gave recipe credit to James, so apologies were in order. He was gracious and said that he used to homebrew this beer before coming to No Label and that it was wildly popular with friends and at competitions. This beer was a great one to have for their 5th Anniversary ale that was released a couple of months back.
As a further testament to how great the people are, Mark and James both took a great deal of time out of their evening to just chat beer and what got them into the business. Unfortunately, I never caught up with Paul while I was at the party, but I’m sure we’ll catch up again. After all, Paul was my 100th like on Facebook when I originally was getting this off the ground and he got one of my SHADEtxCraft koozies as a thank you.
What else can I say about No Label to help you see what I see? They have some of the best people in the business working for them, one of the coolest facilities with some old-school silos on property, and some outstanding beers that are perfect for any weather. I’ve loved No Label’s beers for quite a while and I’m glad that they’re seeing the success that they deserve. If I can take the 200 mile round-trip journey to get to Katy and back, you should definitely make a trip.
