Born out of a passion for creativity and a desire to try new things, Rockwall Brewers Association began in 2009 and is quickly becoming a premier Hombrewer’s Club in Texas. The club was started by Bret Williams and Evan Matteson. Friends since high school, they began by trying their hand at wine kits and homemade liqueurs. After some success, they decided it was time to try to brew their own beer.  

“With great instruction from our local homebrew supply store, some help from the internet, and a little luck, our first beer, a stout, was one of the most delicious beers we had ever tasted. We were, of course, hooked. After sharing our beer and our story with friends we quickly realized that there was a large community of people interested in brewing great beer, but they just didn’t know where to start. We decided that we would help them, and formed the club to do just that.”

Members began joining and we soon launched rockwallbrewers.com where we post about every batch we brew, post tips and brew helps, as well as let people know about upcoming events.  The website, which we promote through Facebook and Twitter has really helped create good exposure for the club and attract new members.

Our first outing together as a group was to visit Franconia Brewery in McKinney, Texas where they are brewing up some fine Texas craft beer that we get to enjoy in many of our local restaurants and gastropubs.

Our first official competition was at Eno’s Brew Riot where our hard cider, “The Johnny” took first place in the cider category. Based on the success of this first venture out into the world of competition we began working with local business owners to help us host our own brew competition. This is currently planned for early November of this year and we are hoping for a great turnout.

In less than a years time we have brewed our 20 batches of brew together and had a great time doing it. We are slowly building our repertoire and crafting our techniques as we prepare for more competitive brewing. We have introduced a bunch of folks to the joy of homebrewing and the delight of drinking great beer.