Houston, TX – Whole Foods Market will begin selling the products from their first craft brewery, Whole Foods Market Brewing Company, at the company’s 10 stores in the Houston area on Saturday, August 8, according to a press release issued by the company.

The rest of the state will be able to purchase the company’s beer at their local Whole Foods Market stores on September 18. A keg-tapping event will be held at the Lamar Whole Foods Market in Austin, TX and will be hosting by Dave Ohmer, the brewing company brewmaster who was hiring last year.

The first beer product on sale on August 8 is the Post Oak Pale Ale. The company describes the beer as “a deep golden beer that starts off with an orange marmalade sweetness and rolls directly into tangerine, grapefruit and tropical tones.”

The Post Oak Pale Ale is the first of 38 beers set to be produced by the Whole Foods Market Brewing Company. Since its opening in November, the brewery has produced more than 5,220 gallons of beer.

This move by Whole Foods Market comes only a couple years after Mintel announced that craft beer sales has doubled from 2007 to 2012 in the United States. Craft beer accounted for $5.7 billion in 2007 and rose to $12 billion in 2012. The trend is expected to continue and rise to roughly $18 billion by 2017.

“The growth rates seen by craft beer are impressive, especially during a period when domestic and imported beers have shown a flat to declining performance,” says Jennifer Zegler, the beverage analyst at Mintel. “Unlike its domestic and importer beer counterparts, craft beer has been able to defy overall beer market trends and continue expansion during the economic downturn and subsequent slow recovery. 

Published in WholeFoods Magazine, September 2015(online 7/28/15)