March 2019
Living in Austin, Tupps has a slightly mythical status. With excellent distribution in our fair city, everyone knows how good the beers are, particularly their outstanding DDH & Full Grown Man series’, but the Mothership is a place of mystery all the way out on the far side of Dallas in McKinney, Texas. My geography not being all it should be, I decided that a visit to said McKinney was an essential component to our journey out of the state, so inadvertently put us on an unnecessarily circuitous route round the melee of traffic-hell that is the DFW metropolitan area, chugging from one super-highway to another, and barely breaking into fresh countryside before we reached the chic, chocolate-boxy version of small-town Texas that is McKinney just as the sun started to set. Fortunately a) I have a very patient husband, and b) we were handsomely rewarded for our efforts by a huge artsy steampunk taproom, so super-hip that it wouldn’t be out of place in Downtown Austin or Central London, with large barrel tables, stylish stools and artwork absolutely everywhere. Not so hip, however, that we didn’t receive a warm Texas welcome of course.
We felt rather smug tucking into the newest, freshest Tupps brews amidst a lively local crowd who all knew the best place in town to be on a Friday night! In our flight of five, every one was a winner but I particularly enjoyed the superbly zingy DDH Sour Peach IPA, delicious coffee-oatmeal-breakfasty Full Grown Man-Child Stout and t’was very exciting getting hold of the latest DDH and TDH IPAs (v9 and v8 respectively) fresh from the source. There was a band setting up on the spacious indoor stage as we were leaving and we were gutted not to be able to stay for the show. Tupps’ taproom, like their beers, is characterful, memorable and full of attention to detail, going beyond fashionable and into unique. I very much hope to make it back sometime.
First posted as part of Top 10 Craft Brewery Taprooms – North Texas, Great Plains and Central USA Road Trip, March 2019
Craft Beer Amethyst 