Idle Vine Brewing

Located at 16920 Joe Barbee Dr., Bldg 1 Pflugerville, TX

The People

Idle Vine Brewing Company just opened this week in a brand new warehouse district conveniently located off of I-35 bordering Austin, Pflugerville and Round Rock. Originally the Idle Vine team targeted a spot for the brewery in Cedar Park that was the home of an abandon winery covered with unattended wine vines, leading to the name for the brewery – Idle Vine. However, the original property arrangement fell through and the team ultimately secured a new space with the original name and Idle Vine Brewing Company was born.

Todd Wink and Brian Bristow met in 2007 when Todd opened The Dig Pub.  According to Todd, “the concept of craft beer was still pretty new to a lot of folks who weren’t already following the rise of the industry, and Brian and I spent many nights talking about beer, its history, and the industry from a business perspective”. The original concept of The Dig Pub was to be a brewpub, so the duo had discussed opening a brewery together for a few years and finally put pen to paper and look at starting a brewery.  “Finding the brewer turned out to be the easiest task (unexpectedly) and finding and securing a suitable building was by far the most difficult task I had ever endured (again unexpectedly)”. 

The Beers

Twelve taps will be available onsite in the taproom to include the core four, a quarterly seasonal and special releases that will only be available at the brewery. The core four include: Trackdown, a pre-prohibition style porter, Idle Vine IPA, Idle Mind Pale Ale and No Hitter Session Ale. Seasonals will include a hefeweizen in the spring, a pilsner in the summer, red ale for the fall and an imperial oatmeal stout in the winter.

Unique to Idle Vine will be a special monthly bottle release that will only be available for purchase at the brewery. The bottles will feature a comic by a local artist with a snippet of the full story available each month. This year’s beer will be a Cascadian Dark Ale with Cascade, Centinnial, and Chinook hops – close to 10% over 90 IBU. Next year the style will change and the artist will change. Pick up each monthly release separately and look for very limited collector editions at their one year anniversary party.

According to Scott Ciampa, head brewer,“I’m really focusing on keeping our cores and seasonal consistent, flavorful, and stand outs in the market. My brewery release beers are where I can play around with some different and not so often seen styles to get people excited about beers they would not normally drink.”

The Brewery

The spacious brewery is just under 6,000 square feet and features a two-vessel 30BBL brewhouse, five 60BBL fermenters and one 60BBL brite tank with plans to expand capacity to include four 90 BBLs and another 90BBL brite tank in the future. Distribution will include the four core and the seasonal on tap in a region covering about a 100 mile radius of Austin. Look for packing in cans to come over the next year.

As the brewery is finally ready to open to the public, Todd and the team can enjoy the fruits of their labor, “the journey was long, and at times very difficult, but at this point I view it as absolutely worth it”.

Location: 16920 Joe Barbee Dr., Bldg 1 Pflugerville, Texas
Hours: Thursday-Friday 3pm to 10pm, Saturday-Sunday Noon to 10pm
Pay Structure: cash or credit for pints, flights, growlers and individual keg sales
Kid Friendly: yes, snacks, games, non-alcoholic drinks and free wifi (no kids after hours)
Dog Friendly: yes, on the outside seating area
Parking: dedicated lot with plenty of weekend overflow
Food: rotating list of food trucks
Good to Know: a variety of beers will only be available on site with a limited supply

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