When Alex and Davy Pasternak tell you about their beer cave, they aren’t talking about one of those big super-cooled rooms in a convenience store. They mean a literal cave.
It isn’t some planned gimmick to get you to visit Roughhouse Brewing, located between San Marcos and Wimberley. In fact, when they first contemplated a business on the property owned by Davy’s parents, they didn’t know it was there. They thought they’d found a small sinkhole, but, says Alex, the geologist who approved the land for development said, “No, it’s more than a sinkhole. We’re going to need to excavate this.’”
It may not be a gimmick, but the Pasternaks definitely saw it as an opportunity. The cave isn’t huge — Alex estimates it’s 18 by 20 feet and a six-foot-tall person risks hitting their head on stalactites. It’s not big enough to be a tourist attraction, but large enough to serve a function. After clearing trash put there by ranchers to prevent animals falling in, they knew it would become part of the business.
“When we found out we had this feature, Davy goes, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a cellar. This is where you age beer.’
“So we got a hoist hooked on to the top and put some barrels down in there, and got with our friends at [Austin’s] Jester King Brewing who have sort of pioneered in Texas this spontaneous fermentation technique. We’ve been doing it now since we opened, two or three times a year, where we release a spontaneously fermented beer, fermented outside in the open air overnight. It captures the wild yeast and then we funnel it down into the barrels in the cave and let it age there,” Alex explains. “It’s a funky, wild, sour, spritzy product that is representative of Texas, of a cave, of the wild landscape. So it’s really unique and exciting.”
Now, to answer the obvious question: No, people can’t go down in it (yet). “Our next project for 2025 is a way to safely get people down a ladder so they can have the experience we get to have all the time, going in there and experiencing that.”
If you’re not a fan of sour beers, don’t let the wild-fermented stuff scare you off. Those are occasional releases, and the bulk of Roughhouse’s product — served not in a cave, but in an airy, shaded outdoor space with plenty of room for children to scamper about — are the kind of approachable beers you’d expect at a Texas brewpub.
Wife Alex is Roughhouse’s marketer and husband Davy is the brewer. “We both agree on this — everything on our menu has to be supremely drinkable,” she says.
“We had a customer the other day that gave such a great compliment. He got a flight of four of our beers and he said, ‘I go to breweries all the time. I have flights to get one of each on the menu. This is the first time I’ve had a flight from a brewery where I love each one equally.’ That’s exactly what we’re going for, that the quality is such that you could sample four unique styles and think they’re all really well done.
“And then we’re always trying to keep in mind that it’s really hot in Texas, so our beer tends to be more dry and crisp. If it’s 100 degrees outside, we don’t want one of those sticky sweet, heavier beers. Even some of our darker beers are going to lean a little drier and lighter in body.”
“My level of quality control is extremely high and I am always trying to make a more perfect beer,” says Davy. “I am not only the owner but I have also brewed every single batch of beer we’ve ever made, which is something no other brewery is really doing. I’m proud of that. I want every beer on the menu to shine and be a reflection of our strong work ethic and creativity. We are doing something small and special out here and we are excited to keep uncovering what’s next.”
Appropriate for its name, Roughhouse is young — the doors opened in January 2019 — but it got off to a roaring start. In 2020, it was named Best New Brewery by Austin Monthly, in 2021 it was nominated for Brewery of the Year by CultureMap’s Austin Tastemaker Awards, and in 2022 the San Marcos Record gave it a Best of Hays Award — no small feat considering some of the competition in Hays County.
It also has been recognized by its peers. In 2022 it won two Texas Craft Brewers Cup medals — gold for Treeform, in the Belgian & Farmhouse Ales category, and silver for Berried, a spontaneous cave ale in the Brett & Mixed Culture category.
The Pasternaks are not letting that go to their heads.
“All of that is great,” Alex says, “but it’s not what motivates us to keep going. I’m just glad someone else is enjoying this along the way, because it’s a lot of work.”
Just as important as the awards, she says, is the praise from that guy who sampled the flight.
“This is the lifestyle we wanted,” she says. “We wanted to kind of work hard, play hard, have it our own way. And then to know that people are going, ‘Hey, this is worthwhile,’ is just a little cherry on top. When we get stressed out, we try to remind ourselves, ‘Hey, we’re out here on a beautiful piece of property and we get to come up with new fun things to do pretty much every week. So it’s a good gig.”
Roughhouse Brewing
680 Oakwood Loop
San Marcos, TX 78666
512-667-7000
info@roughhousebrewing.com
Hours: Thursday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.,
and Sunday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.