The 30th anniversary of the the Flying Saucer opening up the doors in Fort Worth is rapidly approaching. To celebrate, we sat down with co-founder Captain Keith Schlabs and beer director Asa Hanrahan to discuss the beers that have helped define the Flying Saucer through the years.
The goal wasn’t to create a list of the best beers we’ve ever served. That task honestly might have been a little bit easier. Instead, what we set out to do was create a ‘time capsule’ of sorts. These are beers that we felt defined the Flying Saucer through the years. Whether they be the best sellers, interesting or important beer releases that year, popular style trends or simply the beers that piqued our interest back in the day.
We looked at sales data, old photo libraries and just chatted about beers that felt important year by year.
While pulling photos, we tried to track down the bottles and cans as the beer looked at the time. If you see some of these old school labels sitting on the shelf at your local beer store, it would probably be best to avoid them. Just sayin’.
1995 to 2004: The Early Years
1995 Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: As the story goes, Captain Keith has not opened a bar in the last 30 years without Sierra Nevada Pale Ale available. One of the undisputed champs of American Beer, you can still find this one on at Saucer pretty much 24/7/365. Not many beers in the world some nearly 50 years later that are as balanced, approachable and well respected.
1996 Rogue Dead Guy: There was a time when Rogue and their painted bottles dominated beer aisles. Rogue shipped a lot of great beer out of Oregon but none of them sold as well as Dead Guy. Gotta be the best selling Maibock of all time, right?
1997 Celis White: Revered in Texas in the 90s, you could find Celis in Austin juke joints, small town cafes and of course, Flying Saucer. Founded by Hoegaarden veteran Pierre Celis after he immigrated to Austin, Celis brought Belgian beer making to America. We were lucky to sell a whole helluva lot of Celis before the brand was sold off to Miller and shuffled up north during the craft beer crunch of the early 2000s
1998 Anchor Steam: A classic long before Saucer stepped onto the beer battlefield. Fritz Maytag’s flagship beer from Anchor brewing was clean and easy drinking and it sold like wildfire back in the day. The beer’s future is still in flux, as Anchor recently sold for the second time in the past decade. We still pine for the simple clean taste of an Anchor Steam.
1999 Maredsous Brune: What happens when you sell an 8% Belgian Abbey beer in a pint glass for $2? It’s an instant bestseller. Along with Chimay and Duvel, this beer was many Americans introduction to European beer not named Heineken or Amstel.
2000 Alaskan Amber: At the turn of the new century, the American palate still craved big malt flavor in their beer. This perfectly balanced altbier was one of the best selling Ambers in America. It wasn’t unusual to see the Alaskan fishing boat handle side by side with one of their newer creations, Alaskan White, with it’s signature Polar Bear tap marker.
2001 New Belgium Fat Tire: In the early 00s, a majority of Americans hadn’t tasted a beer with any sort of Belgian yeast profile. Fat Tire and its distinct mix of malt sweetness and fruity Belgian esters was a revelation to most. Fat Tire branding was also eye catching. It soon became common place not only in great beer bars around the country, but at chain restaurants and grocery stores as the brand exploded.
2002 Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale: Craft beer in a can probably owes most of it’s current reign to the pioneers at Oskar Blues. Dale’s was one of the first craft beers in cans, back when that was just a bit taboo. If you’re reading this from Texas, you’ll remember Southern Star launching cans and what a big deal that was. This big ass Pale Ale was the next step for those who wanted more aggressive hop character.
2003 Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout: It’s still called America’s Milk Stout to this day and for good reason. It was hard to find a nitro draft line at Flying Saucer (or any other bar) that didn’t have Left Hand pouring. This bottle has had so many variations, the all black label, the purple swirly one that we honestly couldn’t remember what it looked like back then. Hopefully we guessed right.
2004 Breckenridge 471: Longtime friends of The Flying Saucer, Breckenridge sold us a lot of beer dating all the way back to 1995 but when 471 stormed onto the scene it was an instant classic. Big, aggressive and boozy, this beer signalled the beginning of a shift in beer drinkers preference. That demand for IPA born here for many Beerknurds, is still evolving over 20 years later.
2005-2014 The Beer Boom
2005 Real Ale Firemans #4: Despite our footprint across the American south, this list is certainly written through a Texan beer drinking lens. And no look at beer in Texas is complete without talking about Real Ale and their flagship, Firemans #4. This is the first beer on our list that has never been available outside Texas. Firemans is so ubiquitous in Texas, it is a staple of any good beer joint in the state. Looking at the sales numbers throughout the years, Firemans is almost certainly the best selling beer in Flying Saucer history.
2006 Live Oak Hefeweizen: Another Texas only classic, though this one definitely didn’t come in a can at this point – draft only! We’ve always told folks this beer is the best American Hefeweizen. Years later we still believe that to be the case. Live Oak made a name for themselves for years not only for their painstaking adherence to quality and innovation, but for self distributing a large portion of their beer for nearly 3 decades. Back in the day, you could even drive to the brewery to pick up beer. We have pictures of kegs in the back of our truck to prove it!
2007 Deschutes Mirror Pond: This was hard to pick because we have sold so many great Deschutes beers throughout our time in the business. It wouldn’t be unusual to see an entire block of the tap wall devoted to Deschutes tap handles. We decided to be analytical about it. We ran the numbers and Mirror Pond was the best seller back then!
2008 Boulevard Tank 7: The late 00s saw customers across the US clamoring for more interesting flavors and brewers began branching to forgotten & underloved styles. Perhaps the most famous of the “Smokestack Series” of beers, Tank 7 was a game changer in many ways. Among the first American beers presented in a large format cork and cage bottle, it was an attention grabber. The beer’s success was still surprising at the time. If you told anyone in the beer business just a few years prior that a Belgian Saison would cause waves in American beer, they’d have enjoyed the laugh.
2009 Allagash White: A few years before Allagash left Texas and several other Flying Saucer locations (it’s been almost 15 years and we are still upset) this little beer from Maine established itself the perfect beer for 100 degree Texas summers. Allagash White is right there along side Sierra Nevada Pale Ale as a beer we will go for just about any day of the year. Alexa, play “Come Back to Texas” by Bowling for Soup.
2010 Victory Golden Monkey: 3 straight years of Belgian inspired beers. We call that a trend. By 2010, the landscape had shifted to BIG beers. This was one you could count on selling like wildfire thanks to it’s hefty abv, huge flavor profile & bold Belgian candi sugar finish. You could find Golden Monkey and Storm King pouring on Victory’s signature “Red V” handles at most Saucers in 2010.
2011 Saint Arnold Fancy Lawnmower: Saucer has sold countless kegs of this one. Lawnmower was longtime flagship beer for Texas’ oldest Craft brewery. This beer is almost single handedly responsible for keeping Kolsch alive and well in Texas. The style gets far less love in other parts of the country. Someone still asks us for it’s one off variant, Weedwacker, about once a week.
2012 Green Flash West Coast: The OG version of West Coast was the unofficial shift beer of so many Beer Goddesses. We used to buy extra kegs to offset the demand just from employees. As the name implies, this beer functioned as the definition of West Coast style IPAs for many years.
2013 Prairie Bomb!: These little waxed bottles absolutely set the beer world on fire in 2013. If you asked Prairie founder Chase Healey, he had mixed feelings about the popularity, his heart was in making farmhouse styles (a fact cemented when he left his first brewery to found the equally impressive American Solera) but alas, you can’t deny the people what they want.
2014 Peticolas Velvet Hammer: Perhaps the crown jewel of the North Texas brewing boom of the early 10s, Peticolas made impeccable beer. Just like Saucer, they gained a rep for being fastidious about quality. No beer shined more than Velvet Hammer. Velvet Hammer became a mainstay at Saucer and our Dallas Design District gastropub, The Meddlesome Moth.
2015-2024 The Modern Classics
2015 Firestone Walker Wookey Jack: The rise and fall of Black IPA (we aren’t calling em Cascadian Dark Ales, sorry) should be studied. Several brands dominated draft lines over a 3 year period in the 2010s. None was better in our opinion than Wookey Jack. Blending bright, punchy citrus flavor with dark roasted espresso malt is no small feat. We think Firestone’s beer did it better than almost anyone. We will buy a good Black IPA anytime we see one on draft.
2016 Saint Arnold Art Car: By 2016, the entire world had slipped behind New England on the bleeding edge of IPA. While many tried chasing the haze, Saint Arnold’s now flagship IPA took a different approach. Borrowing the best of both coasts, including Conan yeast made famous by Alchemist Heady Topper, and delivered an aggressive stone fruit laden IPA. Art Car is still going strong a decade later, continuing to break sales records.
2017 Bell’s Two Hearted: Two Hearted was almost 20 years old when it finally landed at our stores. When Bell’s finally shared it’s world famous single hop showcase with Beerknurds, it became a mainstay. Much like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is THE American Pale, this may be THE American IPA. Some beers wear out their welcome quickly. Over 20 years going, in the most competitive segment of beer in the world, Two Hearted still shines.
2018 Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing: One of the most important beer launches in recent memory, Hazy Little Thing was a watershed moment for American beer. Could a nationwide brewer not only deliver the delicate, expensive to produce flavors of a hazy IPA in a more shelf stable, widely accessible beer? Hazy Little Thing’s wild success proved they could. It would go on to do something no one thought possible, outsell Pale Ale.
2019 Parish Ghost in the Machine: Arguably the first Southern brewed hazy beer to truly give New England brewers a run for their money. Flying Saucer got their first taste of Ghost in 2019 and the demand has never waned. It still finds itself at the top of our best sellers lists years down the road. The variants Parish has released throughout the years managed to continue to press the envelope in 2025.
2020 Maine Lunch: So popular when they landed at Flying Saucer, Lunch would sell out in minutes. Maine still prioritizes serving their home market with beer. Because of that, Maine kegs are sometimes few and far between outside New England. If you see Maine Lunch on a draft wall, you’re probably in a great bar.
2021 Duvel: They said it couldn’t be done. Duvel Mortgaat spent decades bringing their classic beer to kegs. The Flying Saucer was proudly among the first bars in America to serve Duvel on their properitary draft system. We now sell more Duvel than anywhere else in America. You can count on a beer served the way the brewery intends every time, The Duvel Proper Pour.
2022 Pinthouse Pizza Electric Jellyfish: Another modern classic. Pinthouse’s approach to making IPAs is a watershed moment for not only Texas beer but IPA brewing across the country. In conversations with brewers over the past decade, Pinthouse’ flagship beer comes up an awful lot. Now that Pinthouse has expanded, we are able to get Jellyfish far more regularly and we have never looked back.
2023 New Belgium Fat Tire (AGAIN): Is there a more famous beer recipe change than Fat Tire? (we don’t wanna talk about Green Flash West Coast or Alpine Nelson, please) The new version had big shoes to fill. The result might be the best pizza pairing beer we’ve ever had. Plenty of folks had thoughts about the change but the recipe speaks for itself in our opinion. We aren’t kidding about trying it with your next slice of pizza either.
2024 Guinness: We are as confused as you are. It’s been a wild 24 months for Guinness. Between Gen Z’s demand, social media marketing blitzes and the world famous ‘Split the G’ – the resurgence of Guinness is too huge to ignore. A beer that once languished on draft walls is now finding itself at the top of sales charts.
If you read this list and though, “hey! what about…” rest assured we had a tough time limiting this to just 30 beers. There are brands that have been with us since the early days like Avery and Stone. Boundary pushers like Jester King and Fonta Flora. We have had the privilege to watch younger brands like Wiseacre and Burial grow into regional powerhouses. There simply were too many great beers to pick from.
So what does 2025 hold in store? Hard to say just a little over 5 months into the year. As the beer business traverses a steady stream of challenges, the outlook, as always remains cloudier than an Other Half IPA. All that said, just as we have been for the last 30 years, The Flying Saucer will be here to serve up what everyone wants, the very best in beer, from America and beyond!