DeFalco’s home brew shop taps out amid craft beer craze

[Elderberry]

Houston Chronicle by  Paul Takahashi Aug. 16, 2019

It was the shop that catapulted the careers of Houston’s earliest craft brewers.

Brock Wagner, co-founder of St. Arnold Brewing Co., developed one the brewery’s first recipes — a German Kristalweizen called Texas Wheat — on the sidewalk in front of the shop’s Rice Village location in 1993. A decade later, Aaron Corsi shopped at the store every weekend before he co-founded 8th Wonder Brewery in 2012.

“If it weren’t for DeFalco’s, I wouldn’t have 8th Wonder Brewery,” Corsi said. “All of these people who own craft breweries, we learned and honed our skills from people like Scott.”

For nearly five decades, DeFalco’s Home Wine & Beer Supplies and its longtime owner, Scott Birdwell, offered Houston homebrewers the ingredients, equipment, classes and advice to transform barley, hops, yeast and water into homemade beer. In the process, Birdwell and his shop helped fuel the growth of craft beer in the Houston area, which boasted 44 craft breweries in 2018, more than double the number of local breweries in 2013.

“We were the AAA team for the big leagues,” Birdwell said. “We probably had 70, maybe more craft brewers who came through our shop.”

But that success also sowed the seeds of the homebrew store’s destruction. The rise of craft breweries has, for many beer lovers, obviated the need to do it yourself, tanking demand for homebrew supplies. Sales have stagnated in recent years and more homebrew shops are closing than opening.

DeFalco’s — Houston’s oldest and largest home brew shop — is the latest to shutter after 48 years in business. The retailer’s last day will be Sept. 8.

“It used to be if you wanted good beer, you had to make it,” Birdwell said. “Now, those who used to brew beer, go out.”

Founding brewers

Homebrewing, a national pastime since the days of the Founding Fathers, is a labor of love for an estimated 1.1 million Americans who take a certain pride and satisfaction in making their own beer.

An ale can take upwards of eight or nine hours to prepare and brew, and three weeks to ferment before one can drink and bottle it. At DeFalco’s, home brew ingredients cost between $25 and $65 per five-gallon batch, and starter kits with equipment, such as fermenters, funnels and siphons, can run upwards of $120.

Meanwhile, craft beer has become ubiquitous. Craft breweries have more than quadrupled over the last decade, to 7,346 craft breweries in 2018, up from 1,600, according to the Brewers Association, a Colorado trade group representing craft brewers, suppliers and distributors. The association expects the number of craft breweries nationally to exceed 8,000 by the end of this year.

“People are questioning the eight, nine hours it takes to make beer when they can go around the corner and buy it,” said Bev Blackwood, the editor and publisher of Austin-based Southwest Brewing News and a former beer production manager at St. Arnold.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/DeFalco-s-home-brew-shop-taps-out-amid-craft-14308102.php

Defalco's over off Rice Blvd was my go to place back shortly after they opened for my beer and wine making supplies. Now my son has been a regular at Defalco's on Stella Link. He currently has 6 batches of wine in the works. They will be sorely missed.