New brewery Martin House readies craft beer in a can

Sixteen-ounce cans, that is.

Martin House Brewing Co.

The first beers Martin House Brewing Co. will have are its Imperial Texan and River House Saison. Two more, Day Break and There Will Be Stout, are still in the works.

FORT WORTH — It takes at least three things to independently establish a brewery: money, willpower, and, above all, passion.

While Cody Martin, one of the founders of Fort Worth-based Martin House Brewing Co., has all those things, he has another edge on the competition. As a former environmental engineer, Martin designed, maintained, and operated large remediation tanks — a monotonous job that paved a new career path for this University of Texas at Arlington alum.

“I was going to breweries and looking at their systems and control panels, and it was the same equipment I was working on at my day job,” Martin said over a beer at The Old Monk on a recent sunny day. “I thought, ‘I can build this. I can maintain this … I am capable of doing this.’”

On March 30 at Flying Saucer in Fort Worth, Martin will tap the brewery's first kegs.

Martin’s love for brewing sparked seven years ago when he received his first homebrew kit. His first batch was a clone of Oskar Blues’ G' Knight red ale, a recipe that has since been tweaked into Martin House’s signature Imperial Texan red ale/IPA.

After his brew house epiphany, Martin quit his full-time job (with the permission of his wife) and moved to Dallas from Florida in November 2011 to get the wheels turning. The Martins moved in with Cody’s college bud David Wedemeier, rounding out the household at six adults, two dogs, a one-legged parrot, and a massive homebrewing kit.

Martin House Brewing Co.

(From left) Cody Martin, Adam Myers, and David Wedemeier of Martin House Brewing Co. say brewing in cans lowers costs and makes them easier to ship than kegs.

As Martin’s idea manifested, Wedemeier (with the permission of his wife) jumped on board full-time as the sales and marketing arm of the business. Another college friend, Adam Myers, caught wind of the operation and joined the crew on the technical side (again, with the permission of his future wife).

“I wanted to do this in a hands-on manner,” Myers said. “And I’m an engineer, too, so I hoped to make things run more smoothly and cheaply.”

Several hundred thousand dollars in investor money later, the men landed a 9,000-square-foot warehouse on the eastern outskirts of downtown Fort Worth, which they built out themselves. The space houses 30 barrels for brewing as well as four 30-barrel fermenters. Three bay doors line the western wall of the building, opening the Martin House brewery to a picturesque view of the city skyline against the sunset.

The brewery is located on Trinity River where bikers and horseback riders jaunt along the surrounding trails. Wedemeier rides his bike to work.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Martin House model is the decision to distribute craft beer in cans. The Imperial Texan (a 9% ABV red ale/IPA hybrid), River House Saison (4.9% ABV beer with a peppery aroma), Day Break (4.9% ABV blonde ale), and There Will Be Stout (6.5% ABV pretzel stout) will eventually be sold in four-packs of 16 oz. cans suitable for “going to the beach, river, anything like that,” said Wedemeier.

Martin House Brewing Co.

The view of downtown Dallas from Martin House Brewery's property.

“[Cans] are better for the beer because of complete light blockage and it’s sealed completely,” he added. “It costs less because they are lighter to ship, and they are easy to transport.”

Martin, Wedemeier, and Myers are jumping in head first to the craft beer scene with the official Martin House launch March 30, followed quickly by appearances at Big Texas Beer Fest on April 6 and Untapped Festival on April 20. Until then, however, they plan to take a moment and drink up.

“It’s great to finally have a minute to step back and say, ‘Holy sh*t, we did it!’” Martin said.

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