Blanco, TX 1996 - The Real Ale Brewing Company was founded in Blanco, TX by Philip & Diane Conner along with their son, Charles. They set up shop in the basement of an antiques store on the Blanco town square. They had three original recipes brewing -  Full Moon Pale Rye Ale, Rio Blanco Pale Ale, and Brewhouse Brown Ale.

Austin, TX 1998 -  Brad Farbstein was a UT graduate with a degree in economics, an avid homebrewer, and was employed by a small craft beer distributor.  During the previous two years Brad became familiar with a tiny brewery in Blanco, TX that was producing high quality traditional ales. He was a pretty big fan of the beers and found himself occasionally heading out to Blanco to lend Philip and Charles a hand with some bottling or labeling, working for a few beers. Coincidentally it was right around this time that Philip decided to get out of the brewing business. He asked Brad if he might know anyone interested in buying the brewery’s equipment. Recognizing a rare opportunity to turn a dream into reality – even though he had no idea how he was going to pull it off – Brad said, “I’m your man.”

Blanco, TX 1998 - Brad took over the brewery in the summer of 1998, and with the help of two employees, made about 500 barrels of beer that year. The original brewery had a 2-vessel, 15-bbl brewhouse that was basically outside, housed in a carport attached to the store’s basement.  Tanks, cold storage, bottling and labeling equipment, and everything else were crammed in a space of less than 2500 square feet with only 7 foot high ceilings. If you were to design a space to NOT be a brewery, this would probably be it. In spite of the the many obstacles, spatial and otherwise, facing the fledgling brewery, the beer flowed and demand for RABC’s handcrafted ales grew exponentially for the next several years. Real Ale steadily increased its output until finally maxing out the original location at 5500 barrels in 2006. (If you do the math, that’s 366 batches of beer in one year on a 15 barrel system! ) In 2005 Brad realized that for Real Ale to achieve its potential, something had to be done. Brad decided to take another leap of faith and he purchased several acres of land just outside the Blanco city limits to allow for the construction of a new brewery from the ground up. Brad likes to say that many years of having to do things the wrong way taught him how to do things the right way.  Construction began in 2005 and the brewery went online in 2006.

Check out the BREWERY section to learn more about the current facility.

Photos from "back in the day" below