Several weeks ago, Steal Like an Artist was trending online and it’s a great perspective (read it if you haven’t yet).
One of the things I like to ‘steal’ are ideas from experiences. In the strictest sense this isn’t really stealing, but more like inspiration. However, when you travel a lot for shoots, you have opportunities to explore and get ideas. Between my two shoots in Texas last week I had the chance to stop by Shiner, TX, home to the Spoetzl Brewery, home of Shiner Bock beer, my first favorite beer.
That gave me an idea (only now as I started to write this blog post) about a fun theme for a shoot or ongoing series: “My First Favorite”
I think we all can remember a lot of our firsts since they often leave an impact. My first actual beer was a Michelob Dark (don’t ask) and the first girl I liked was Jenny Uhl in elementary school. My first favorite soda was Coca-Cola and my first favorite Dairy Queen dessert was the Peanut Buster Parfait.
Well, visiting Shiner was cool since I’ve grown to appreciate beer a lot more since my college days at the University of Texas in Austin when I first encountered Shiner Bock. At the brewery they give you a free tour complete with four free tastes of their beer straight from the source. I tried, in order, their Pale Ale, since that’s a style I generally enjoy (althought their’s was lighter than I typically like), the Black Lager, since it’s a style I enjoy but not that frequently, and then their seasonal, which was their Ruby Redbird. It’s a summer ale I think and had definitely hints of grapefruit and ginger. Lots of tang for sure and a little kick. Finally I ended up on my old friend Shiner Bock.
The tour there goes over the history of the town and brewery since both are intertwined. As a business owner, I always am interested in how they grew their business and what I might be able to apply to my own business. Currently the brewery employs 90 people and is still family owned.
They brew eight beers at a time, and each year they produce about 600,000 barrels of beer. All of their beers are also kosher certified and they have the only bottle flaw detection device of it’s kind in the US that runs on the bottling line.
Many people also don’t realize that the Blonde was their first beer, but when the brewery was started by Kosmos Spoetzl, he realized that the Bock was a much better beer so they pushed that instead. In more recent years they have pushed the blonde since it’s been much improved from those early days. This is something that happens often in many businesses and is something to keep in mind – to work with your strengths, but to also develop your weaknesses.
1973 was the first year when they went into full production of Shiner Bock and it’s the #1 specialty beer in Texas, and #5 in the United States and is availble in 40 states.
