Local Craft Breweries near Rowena, TX (2)

The small town of Rowena has a population of only about 700 inhabitants. However, that didn’t deter Mike McNeill from putting up Horny Toad Brewing Company. His wife Diane was originally from Rowena, and they decided to move back to town in 2011. He acquired and converted the old Rowena Filling Station which serves as his brewery and taproom. The brewery is directly across a memorial dedicated to the prohibition. Taproom visitors feel more like members of a very large family according to Mike. The brewery is open only on the first Saturday of each month. Mike still keeps his full time job as a civilian contractor at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo. The rest of the month he spends brewing his beers on his 7-barrel system, which runs on manual power. He self-distributes his beers to various pubs in the San Angelo area including the brewery’s flagship beer Angelo Amber.

Meet Mark Cannon. He’s the owner of Eola School Restaurant and Brewery. He brews the beer, cooks the delicious burgers and fries, makes homemade pizza, does all the cleaning and renovation work required, and tends to the garden that supplies most of his restaurant’s needs. Some have called him “a real Renaissance man”. The brewery and restaurant was once a school from 1928 to 1983, and back then, the center of the community of Eola. Mark is from Portland, Oregon but his roots are in Texas. After arriving in 2003, he soon purchased the school. Many speculate his was the only offer. The place still looks like “an unfinished construction zone” according to some, but being a one-man show, many have also admired what he’s done with the place. If you can overlook the “rough edges”, Mark’s brewery, restaurant, and his Farm Ale have a cult-like following on the internet, and seem deserving of the 5-stars he gets.