There's a town in Central Texas called Shiner. Population: about 2,000. And somehow, since 1909, it's produced one of the most beloved beers in the country.

Shiner Beer is brewed by Spoetzl Brewery in a Texas town of about 2,000 people, in operation since 1909, founded by Bavarian-born Kosmos Spoetzl. That small-town, no-shortcuts approach never changed, even as Shiner grew into 7 million cases shipped to 49 states every year. It's a fixture in Texas, the kind of beer you grow up drinking at a backyard barbecue, but somehow it caught on somewhere else entirely: New York, where a Shiner in hand has become its own little piece of nostalgia for anyone who's ever spent time in Texas.

I worked across Shiner's full lineup for years, social especially, helping a beer with a century of history behind it feel just as at home in a feed as it does in a cooler at a tailgate.