Background
Christian Cryder, and his wife Marilyn moved to Austin from Missoula, Montana in 2013 with the explicit intent of opening a brewpub. It took 2 years to identify the right building, 8 months for design and licensure and about 4 months to build out. In late 2016, they opened the doors of Lazarus Brewing.
Christian has taken a unique path making his way from 14 years in the software industry to the religious sector to get to the craft beer world. Living in Missoula, Montana Cryder started and became pastor of a small non-denominational church called All Souls. He also started a non-profit organization that helped provide basic needs for people called Imagine Missoula. Brainstorming ways to fund his non-profit he came up with a crazy idea that he pitched to Bjorn Nabozney, owner of Big Sky Brewing to brew and release a seasonal beer called All Souls Ale and donate all proceeds to Imagine Missoula. This event occurred for several years. Enjoying their collaboration so much, Bjorn urged Christian to start up his own brewery.
At the helm of Lazarus’ 10BBL brew system is Matt Couch, former brewing manager at Victory Brewing in Pennsylvania. Lazarus is quite the departure for Couch who was an instrumental leader at one of the country’s largest breweries. Running the front of house operations is Certified Cicerone Marcus Tenharmsel. Marcus had known Christian since he was 10 years old and was instrumental in helping get things started at Lazarus. The pair homebrewed a couple beers together and brewed the first 3 batches while the brewery was still in construction.
Experience
We arrived on a Saturday afternoon. Lazarus is a welcoming tasting room with garage doors that open up the room with tables inside and on the patio and a bar. Plenty of interesting fixtures, stained glass and their barrel aging program is evident with plenty of barrels. The brewing equipment is also visible to patrons. Besides a nice variety of beer they off coffee roasted on site by Cryder’s wife Marilyn. Azrriel Salazar, one of Austin’s finest Street-Mex food truck chefs is in charge of the kitchen offering breakfast, lunch and dinner.
We parked ourselves at the bar. They were offering 15 beers on tap ranging from IPAs, Pale Ales, Golden Ales, Saison, Grisette and Stout. We enjoyed the Walks on Water an IPA and Beowulf, a Pale.
Cryder preserved the Bob Marley mural on one outside wall from 6th Street Cool Store. When in the area, walk over to Zilker Brewing. If you are into kettle sours check out Blue Owl Brewing.
No nearby lodging noted.
