Cruise the Craft Brewers

The best North Texas brewery tours to get your weekend beer on

Craft beer is delicious, but it’s even more delicious when you drink it at the source. Fortunately, North Texas breweries are an accommodating bunch and offer tours so you can learn a bit more about your favorite brewery while drinking fresh from the tap.

Some of these breweries are close enough that you can fit in a couple in one day, but there’s no wrong way to do it.

903 Brewers
903 represents Sherman with free tours every Saturday from noon-3 pm. Besides offering the full lineup of beers for sale, 903 usually has a rare brew as well as music and food. If you can’t make it on Saturday, the brewery hosts trivia night every Thursday at 6:30 pm. The tasting room opens at 5:30 pm. Tables fill up, so get there early.

Cedar Creek Brewery
Cedar Creek Brewery in Seven Points keeps the doors open longer than most breweries, offering beers from 4 to 9 pm on Fridays and noon to 9 pm Saturdays. Unlike other breweries, Cedar Creek sells beers individually. Pints are $3; seasonals are $4. You can bring your dog.

Community Beer Company
Community in the Dallas Design District offers a couple of options to try out its beers. There’s the traditional tour for $10 from 2 to 5 pm on Saturdays, complete with food trucks, samples and live music. The brewery also opens up the tap room from 5 to 9 pm on Thursdays and Fridays and 5 to 10 pm on Saturdays after the open house tour.

Deep Ellum Brewing Company
Deep Ellum Brewing sports a strong stable of large batch and seasonals, like the new Oak Cliff Coffee Ale. Tours are Thursdays, 6 to 8:30 pm, and Saturdays, noon to 3 pm. For $10 you get a glass, complimentary beer and a tour. There's live music and a food truck at every tour, so you’ll leave with all senses satisfied. Luckily, being in Deep Ellum means you won’t have to travel far to find the rest of the beers on tap.

FireWheel Brewing Co.
The Rowlett-based FireWheel Brewing Co. has a Texas Pale Ale and a black ale named Midnight Ninja that can sneak up on you. Tours are Saturdays, 11 am to 3 pm, and $10 gets you a pint glass and three samples. The tours are dog- and family-friendly and usually have some food trucks. You’ll also be able to sample some of the small batch and special release beers.

Four Corners Brewing Co.
Four Corners in Trinity Groves knows that free is better, so it offers two free tours at noon and 1 pm on Saturdays. Samples abound, though each tour is limited to 50 people due to the in-depth nature of it. So you have to make a reservation on the website — but still it's free.

Franconia Brewing Co.
There may be a new brewery opening up every month, but Franconia has been doing its thing since 2008, making it one of the oldest in North Texas. Founder Dennis Wehrmann hails from Bavaria and has been involved with brewing since he was 12. This McKinney brewery has Saturday tours, 11 am to 1 pm. The $5 fee includes beer samples.

Lakewood Brewing Company
Lakewood Brewing has made a name for itself with European-styled crafts. The imperial milk stout, lovingly called “The Temptress,” clocks in at 9.1 percent ABV, but you wouldn’t know it. Tours are offered Saturdays from noon to 3 pm, and that includes a souvenir glass, four samples and an informal tour. It’s $10 cash at the door, and they usually wrangle up a food truck or two plus some live music.

Martin House Brewing Company
Fort Worth’s Martin House Brewing Co. is situated right on Trinity Trails, making it perfect for an afternoon of drinking and playing lawn games like cornhole and ladder golf. The brewery offers a tour every Saturday from 2 to 5 pm. For $10 you get a glass, three samples and a tour. The brewery encourages you to bring your own chairs to hang outside with your dogs and family.

Peticolas Brewing Company
Peticolas abstains from canning or bottling its beer, and the marketing plan is practically nonexistent. Still, the brewery has developed a passionate following thanks to award-winning brews including Velvet Hammer and Royal Scandal. The tours are the first and third Saturday of each month from 1 to 3 pm. $10 cash will get you a glass and three beers. Tours are also the only way you can try the new Black Curtains stout.

Rabbit Hole Brewing
The new brewery out of Justin, TX is already offering tours on Saturdays from noon-4 pm. It’s the standard $10 for a pint glass, tour and three samples of their beer, including Mike Modano’s 561 Kolsch-style beer and the Rapture Fusion brown ale.

Rahr & Sons Brewing Co.
When we’re talking North Texas breweries, we are legally required to mention these guys, and for good reason. Around since 2004, Rahr & Sons has been winning awards for nearly as long. Tours are Saturdays, 1-3 pm, but if you can make it to one of the Wednesday tours from 5 to 7:30 pm, you’ll experience a more intimate crowd and experimental and special brews that you can’t get anywhere else. For $10 you get a pint glass and three samples.

Lakewood Brewing's Saturday tours include four samples and a souvenir glass for $10.

Photo by Marc Lee

Lakewood Brewing's Saturday tours include four samples and a souvenir glass for $10.

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Spring Arrival

West Dallas gets new Spanish-Peruvian restaurant with big-name chef

Photo courtesy of Ulloa's

Paella will be on the menu.

A new restaurant with a high-profile culinary director will bring Spanish and Peruvian flavors to West Dallas: Called Ulloa’s, it is coming to 727 Fort Worth Ave., with a projected opening in March 2027.

The concept is from philanthropists Susan and Woodrow Gandy, who were previously investors in the historic Belmont Hotel just around the corner. They've teamed up with Dallas celebrity chef Kent Rathbun as culinary director, along with Christopher Tunnell as general manager to lead the front of the house.

Rathbun is a name Dallas diners know well, with a resume that includes The Mansion on Turtle Creek, the Landmark Restaurant at the historic Melrose Hotel, Seventeen Seventeen at the Dallas Museum of Art, Abacus, Jasper's, Rathbun’s Blue Plate Kitchen, and more. He's won numerous awards and made multiple appearances on Food Network. He was most recently behind the launch of On The Rocks, an Italian bistro in Burleson.

Chef Kent Rathbun will be the culinary director of Ulloa's. Photo courtesy of Kent Rathbun

Tunnell’s background spans both culinary direction and front-of-house operations. He worked at Los Angeles hot spots Ketchup, Geisha House, and Les Deux, as well as the Mandalay Bay and The Mirage in Las Vegas, before moving to Dallas to open The Mexican, the upscale restaurant in the Design District.

“I am truly excited to partner with Chef Kent Rathbun, whose reputation is amazing — not only in the DFW Metroplex, but in the culinary world,” Tunnell says. “He has been with this project since the beginning, helping develop it; this will be a very chef-driven, culinary-forward restaurant.”

The team's vision for Ulloa’s is both culinary and urban, with hopes of anchoring the corridor and attracting other businesses to Fort Worth Avenue — a stretch connecting downtown Dallas with Oak Cliff that remains somewhat underdeveloped despite its panoramic skyline views.

The restaurant is named for Spanish explorer, astronomer, and scientist Antonio de Ulloa, who spent extensive time in the Mexican peninsula before becoming Louisiana’s first governor. During his travels, Ulloa documented a fogbow — a circular rainbow formed when sunlight meets mist that causes silhouettes standing between the sun and fog to appear ringed in light, a phenomenon known today as “Ulloa’s Rings.”

That vibrant phenomenon inspired both the restaurant's identity and logo. The concept promises "bold, worldly flavors in a welcoming neighborhood setting inspired by exploration and discovery,” the owners say.

Ulloa's Rendering of Ulloa's.Rendering courtesy of Ulloa's

While the menu remains in development, Tunnell describes the culinary direction as “Spanish soul with a Peruvian heart.” The kitchen will merge the coastal flavors of both traditions — ranging from paellas and ceviches to crafted cocktails and signature adaptations by Rathbun.

The 200-seat, two-story space will feature a downstairs dining room, a large bar, and an outdoor patio. Upstairs, plans call for a secondary bar, a private dining room, a patio, and an expansive balcony patio, offering views of the city's skyline and of the Margaret Hunt Hill and Margaret McDermott bridges.

While the upstairs space will be available for private events, the owners intend for it to operate primarily as an organic extension of the main restaurant. The buildout will include a guest elevator along with ample parking, including both self-parking and valet options.

The team says the restaurant will have have an aesthetic that's “warm, theatrical, generous, elegant but alive, with the energy of a great Spanish tapas bar and the soul of Peruvian hospitality.”

Ulloa’s plans to launch with dinner service first, followed by lunch and weekend brunch.

restaurants bars peruvian flavors west dallas oak cliff kent rathbun

Cruise the Craft Brewers

The best North Texas brewery tours to get your weekend beer on

Lakewood Brewing's Saturday tours include four samples and a souvenir glass for $10.

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Spring Arrival

West Dallas gets new Spanish-Peruvian restaurant with big-name chef