A Community-Backed Brewery Is Opening In Lake Highlands

The explosion of craft beer in Dallas is probably an unlikely success, but we’re pretty damn grateful for it anyway. Plenty of places are around to pick up a growler or six-pack of something freshly brewed locally, and we may very well be on our way to just about every neighborhood in town having its own brewery. The latest to join the fray is Lake Highlands, where Oak Highlands Brewery will open this month.

The 16,000-square-foot-plus brewery is the creation of Brad Mall and Derrin Williams, self-described “unrelenting and passionate local dads.” Williams and Mall have been working on the concept for years, tweaking their beer recipes in between driving their SUVs and wrangling their children. The craft beer craze provided the perfect vehicle for the two dads’ passion for the suds, which will be realized in a massive taproom-slash-brewery on Brockwood Road.

So far, Oak Highlands Brewery has created five different beers, including Allgood, a Kolsch-style ale, and DfDub, a German dunkelweisen. Most exciting is the Freaky Deaky, a hoppier, American take on a Belgian tripel ale that clocks in at a whopping 10 perfect ABV. You’ll also, of course, find a light lager and the requisite IPA, ever-trendy among beer snobs. Plans for the future include 20 in-house-brewed beers on tap, along with a rotating pilot program that will allow the brewery to produce small batches of specialty beers.

In addition to being sold on-site at the brewery, Oak Highlands beers will be available in local restaurants in the coming weeks, and will eventually be sold locally in cans. No word just yet on which restaurants will offer Oak Highlands beers, but you should start to see them crop up on menus in the coming weeks. As for the taproom and the brewery itself, a grand opening party has been scheduled for July 18.

At the grand opening party, guests can pay $20 for a pint glass, koozie and three tokens to try the brewery’s beer. Additional tokens can be purchased there, but with these high-ABV selections, you might want to go ahead and get that Uber (or other designated driver) lined up. Easy Slider and OinknMoo BBQ will be serving food to soak up those suds, and local bands will keep the crowd entertained.

Oak Highlands Brewing will be open three days a week — Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On those days, you can tour the brewery, watch production from the taproom, and of course, drink a hell of a lot of beer. Expect for this place to quickly turn into a neighborhood spot — more than half of the brewery’s investors are Lake Highlands residents, and surely they’ll want to (frequently) taste the fruits of their investments.

If you’re interested in checking out Oak Highlands Brewing, you can buy tickets to the grand opening party on Eventbrite.