Bikeable breweries? Houston’s working on it.
IT’S GOOD FOR BUSINESS, BUT IS IT SAFE TO DRINK AND PEDAL?
This started off in the gray area between a good idea and a bad one. Two years ago, Jason Buhlman and Brian Kondrach got about 30 of their friends together for an afternoon of two-wheel tourism, in which they aimed to bike between as many breweries as possible in one day.
“At the time, there were only eight breweries that we could do inside the Loop,” Kondrach explains to a group of prospective riders on a sunny Saturday afternoon in late June. “It took us 14 hours. We were way too drunk. It was a mess.”
“A mess,” echoes Buhlman, who is standing just to the right of Kondrach, wearing a baseball T-shirt with the motto “Wheels Down, Bottoms Up” printed across his chest.
“So, we put some rules on it,” Kondrach continues. “We made it so it was only 45 minutes at each stop — just one pint each, and then we move. And we added two breweries and did it again six months later.”
The ride was still fun. But much less … sloppy. And that’s when Buhlman and Kondrach realized that a curated version of this could potentially lay the groundwork for a business that could combine two of their loves: craft beer and bicycles.
Then last May, their business, Tour de Brewery, was born. Rather than 10 breweries in an afternoon, they offer shorter tours in distinct pockets of the city, featuring about three breweries apiece. On this particular Saturday, they’ll take a group of lawyers on a team-building mission that begins and ends at Saint Arnold, with stops at Sigma and 8th Wonder.
And it goes just about how you’d think it would. The lawyers — ever prepared — are the first group in the history of the tour to bring their waivers all printed and signed along with them. And unlike the stumblebum Chronicle reporter tagging along, none of them drops their phone out of their backpack in the first 100 yards of the route. (Whoops.)
They are orderly. They obey all traffic laws. They ask questions as we meander by statues and street art.
And then, they drink beer.
Not much, of course. Buhlman and Kondrach arrange their tour so there’s roughly a pint’s worth of beer at each of the three stops — OK, fine, two pints at the final stop — and encourage everyone to refill their water bottles at every opportunity.
Still, as the Saturday tour group moseys along from its second to third stop, things become a little … looser. Someone besides the reporter drops their phone. And a moment later, another person drops a water bottle. There are giggles.
Inside jokes. The bikes go slower up the (tiny) hills.
Across Houston, breweries are becoming more bike-friendly. At Saint Arnold, a BCycle bike-share station opened earlier this spring. There are plans to unveil one at 8th Wonder by the time the summer is through and hopes of opening a third in Sawyer Yard, in close proximity to three breweries. And some of the city’s breweries are forming bike teams and hosting bike crawls of their own. But as all this happens, it raises one big question: Should people hop on bikes after drinking?
“We’ve have people approach us and ask, ‘Why would you put a station at Saint Arnold or 8th Wonder?’ ” says Henry Morris, a spokesman at BCycle. “And the answer is, well, they have parking spaces. People drive there and drive back, and they’re expected to be responsible. So if you take a bike share to a brewery and you have too much to drink, you should call an Uber home.”
That’s why the guys at Tour de Brewery emphasize that their outings are about discovering new beers.
“If you’re going to bike and drink, it’s important to remember that it’s a tasting experience,” says Jessica Green, director of development for Bike Houston, which is on track to add 50 miles of bike lanes to the city this year, including a stretch that will help cyclists close the gap between 8th Wonder and Saint Arnold. “Have one beer and then ride. And the riding will help you metabolize the alcohol. But don’t drink more than a beer or two an hour, which is when you get into getting drunk.”
And, when possible, the folks at Bike Houston suggest that cyclists stick to the growing number of designated bike paths in the city. New paths are opening soon near Under the Radar Brewery, according to Bike Houston executive director Clark Martinson; and the new path opening near Saint Arnold will also facilitate access to Local Group Brewing when it opens later this year.
“These will keep people further from car traffic and intersections,” says Martin, who is well aware that this is a benefit for the soberest of cyclists as well.
For Tour de Brewery, Buhlman and Kondrach hopscotch among wide, barren streets in the city’s east side, bike paths and designated bike lanes throughout the six-mile loop on Saturday. Oncoming traffic is largely a nonissue. Nor is inebriation, thanks to the pacing they’ve structured.
Still, that’s on the minds of some as they pedal around town.
“Can you get a DWI on a bike?” one lawyer muses as the group pedals past a sobering center on the final stretch of the tour.
“I think so,” answers another. You can’t actually. Not in Houston.
“That’s one of those urban legends that have popped up. Bikes, and people always say they’ve heard of people getting arrested for DWI on a horse,” says Sgt. Don Egdorf, who heads up the Houston Police Department’s DWI task force. “But you can’t be charged with DWI on a bike.”
Still, that doesn’t mean that biking while buzzed doesn’t have consequences.
“You can be arrested for public intoxication,” Egdorf says. “And of course, you could get hurt. Think about the balance you have to have to ride a bike. And when you’re intoxicated, some of the issues you have is your balance and your motor skills. You can end up falling over on your bike, and we have seen some accidents.”
Not on Saturday. It’s not like the bike group is swerving through the streets. They’re just laughing and pedaling, sharing stories and brainstorming ideas for their next outing — maybe axe throwing or a rage room! — and laughing when a third lawyer drops something from his backpack.
“The goal of this,” Kondrach says at one point, “is for you to have fun. See new parts of the city. Try new beers. And obviously be safe. And so far? We’ve had a pretty good response.”