Over the past week, a new out-of-town brew has entered the local craft beer ring. Although it’s brewed in California, it has a pretty serious Lone Star connection. El Segundo Brewing’s Broken Skull American Lager is the latest offering from the independent SoCal brewery to hit Texas shelves.
If the Broken Skull moniker sounds familiar to you, then you’re likely a pro wrestling fan and follower of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, one of the sport’s most iconic names, and a native Texan who’s almost as famous for his love of beer as he is for his years as a title belt wearing champ.
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Or maybe you’re a craft beer lover who enjoyed El Segundo’s previous Broken Skull offering, an IPA that introduced Texans to the brewery back in 2020. On March 31, Austin will host a launch party for his beer at Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth, featuring a concert by Texas country-rock outfit Reckless Kelly.
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This new offering — a crisp, clean lager weighing in at an approachable 4.8% ABV — is more than a mere chance for a celebrity to slap his name on something for a bit of cash. According to El Segundo Brewing president and head-brewer Rob Croxall, the Hall of Fame wrestler is a rather involved collaborator.
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“Steve takes absolute ownership of these beers all the way from development to quality control,” Croxall says. “It is not out of the ordinary for Steve to send me questions on certain batches if he feels something isn’t spot on or if he sees out-of-code beer on shelves somewhere.”
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A fan of IPAs, Steve Austin (born Steven Anderson) would often crash a pair of full beer cans together over his head and chug away as the suds fell onto his face during his days in the ring. It’s tough to imagine the hop-forward IPA being so crushable, so it stands to reason that the latest Broken Skull beer is a bit more of an easy drinker.
“The IPA was really well received,” Croxall says. “It helped that Steve was able to get a huge group of his fan base who might not normally drink IPA to give it a try with an open mind and eventually become regulars of that beer. Despite that success, we kept hearing from the fans, our distributors, and retailers, ‘@hen are you going to do a lager?’ The American Lager is such a popular, timeless style that appeals to everyone. With the IPA settled and steady, I started talking to Steve about the idea of a lager a couple of years ago.”
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Although having beers with the “Stone Cold” name on them in Texas is important to the brewery, thanks to the wrestler being born in Austin and eventually playing football for the University of North Texas in the early ‘90s, El Segundo beers have now found their way into 30 states. Croxall says Texas is the brewery’s second largest market behind California.
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Such distribution is certainly an achievement for just about any independent brewery, but to be clear, sending Broken Skull beers beyond the Red River isn’t like last year’s arrival of Yuengling, another celebrated beer brand that finally made its way to Texas. The famed Pennsylvania brewer began selling its beer here in 2021, although it is brewed at the Miller Coors facility in Fort Worth. Even when available in D-FW, Broken Skull IPA and American Lager flow straight from California.
“In the very beginning,” Croxall says, “I told Steve that if he really wanted to blow this up relative to the size of his brand, that he would need to go to a regional brewer since we are a small brewery. We make about 8,500 barrels a year and could never really address something that huge. His answer was, ‘Nah, I just want to be part of something fun and put out a quality product I am proud of.’”
Croxall says there will likely be another “Stone Cold” collaboration in cans across the country at some point, but there’s no timeline for that yet. Being a relatively small brewer means there’s only room for one “massive project” at a time, he says. Croxall says that whenever there’s another Broken Skull beverage to be brewed, he knows what it won’t be.
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“I can say with certainty,” he says. “That we will never make a seltzer, and I can assure you Steve would agree.”
El Segundo’s Broken Skull American Lager is available at retailers across North Texas now. Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Bash, featuring Reckless Kelly is Thursday, March 31 at 8 p.m. at Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth. Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased here.
