How a West Texas Blues Bar Is Convincing Cowboys to Try IPAs

At Railroad Blues Bar in Alpine, Texas, they're pulling the local cowboys out of their light lager ruts with a little ongoing drinking challenge they like to call “Around the World in 80 Beers.” It’s a “mug club” of sorts, where patrons check off 80 of the bar’s over 150 beer offerings (over the course of presumably many visits) in order to get their name emblazoned on a plaque on the bar’s walls for perpetuity. “If you’ve never had an IPA, at some point in your eighty beers—you’re gonna have to try one. You may not like it, but you gotta try it,” explains Neil Trammell, a Railroad regular and lead singer of blues band The Doodlin’ Hogwallops. (Yep, mhmm, Doodlin’ Hogwallops. You do you, Texas.) To see more of our host Meg Gill’s tour of West Texas, tune in to Beerland tonight at 10 PM on VICELAND.