NEW BRAUNFELS -- The historic Faust Hotel and its accompanying brewpub will get a new lease on life in downtown New Braunfels under new ownership.
 
The deal closed Tuesday evening to take ownership from the family that has owned it since the late 1980s. Vance and Priscilla Hinton bought the main street fixture and plan to make the brewpub a bigger beer destination and revive a full-service restaurant that has been absent for more than a decade.
 

While the hotel does well during tourist season and live entertainment brings in a good Saturday night crowd, the beer side of the brewpub has been a touch and go prospect since it opened with numerous periods where the taps for locally brewed beer had run dry.
 
But Vance Hinton is a beer lover and successful manufacturing executive in Katy. Priscilla Hinton is co-owner of Kork wine bar in downtown New Braunfels and loves a good beer on occasion. That focus could mean good things for the brewpub and the addition of a menu will help bring more people in the door to discover beer. My wedding reception was here nearly 20 years ago and the place has never lost its elegance.
 
The brewing system at The Faust in notoriously difficult to work with, according to numerous brewers I've interviewed over the years. It may need some professional revamping, but good beer can come out of the copper clad showpiece tanks when handled by a patient pro and when there is no skimping on ingredients. At last check, only one handmade beer was on tap and it wasn't the better of the two on tap a month earlier.
 
New Braunfels was the cradle of Texas brewing beginning in the late 1840s and tourists come there for the heritage. Let's hope the new owners of The Faust are able to capture that legacy.
 
Prosit!
-- Travis E. Poling