Last month three out of the four of us were excited to visit Cycler’s Brewing, located in Montgomery. This is one of the most unique locations, as it is on a large property surrounded by Sam Houston National Forest.

While the Brewery is not open every weekend, they are starting to open up more often, so keep an eye on their Facebook page. The owners of the brewery clearly love outdoor physical activity, hence the name Cyclers Brewing. One of the really unique events they hosted at the brewery is WOD in the Woods. For those who don’t know, WOD stands for “workout of the day”. When you go out to Cyclers check Facebook, occasionally they will advertise that they will have a fire pit going and you can bring your own food to throw on the fire.

Check out the video below, as well as Todd’s notes on the beers he tried. Cheers!

Todd’s Notes:

Given that Cycler’s is open occasionally or by appointment only, I was curious to see how their beer selection would pan out. I’ve been to breweries with a similar set-up before and they often only have a few main beers on-tap. Cycler’s beer selection did not disappoint. Their five core beers, Dom’e’stique Wit, Breakaway IPA, Ryed Hard IPA, 55-11 Double Red, Palameres Imperial Stout, and Fall seasonal Bonked Pumpkin were all available. Since these brews aren’t too hard to find I was more interested in the rest of their menu.

The remainder of the beers were either small batch releases, many that were barrel aged, and other seasonals that were new to me. My favorite was Belgium “Quads,” an interesting take of the Quadruple style. The malt color isn’t as dark as you expect for the style, but Quads is bursting with dark fruit notes and has a fairly deep complexity. Despite an ABV of 10.6%, it’s almost too easy to drink and qualifies as a “velvet hammer” brew. Although not quite blonde in color, the HBS team took to referring to it as a “Blonde Quad“.

I was pleasantly surprised by Michoacan Tequila Abi, a tequila barrel aged version of their Abi-Mi-Ale Dubbel. As much as I like tequila, I usually don’t like my beer aged in its barrels, but this combo worked for me. There’s definitely much more than a hint of tequila and plenty of oak from the barrel, but there’s enough restraint to keep this one from overwhelming you with heat and booze.

Rum Rider Red is another interesting barrel aged beer featuring 55-11 Double Red. The rum and oak notes start off pretty light but become a bit more assertive as it warms. The base beer is able to stand up to the barrel and provides a solid caramel malt flavor coupled with piney hop and a fairly assertive bitterness.

If these beers aren’t interesting enough Cycler’s also had Viva-La-Abi, a barrel-aged and sour version of Abi-Mi-Ale, a gin barrel aged version of Breakaway IPA, Max Missile English Brown Ale and Pecans in the Road, a brown ale with pecans to round out a very solid selection of brews. If you’re wondering about the names of some of these beers, many of them use cycling terms which are explained in the beer descriptions on Cycler’s website. Hopefully, they will have more frequent events so we can try all of these limited release beers at their beautiful brewery.