Peticolas Brewing Company runs a tri-level taproom on Pace Street in the Dallas Design District, the family-owned brewery best known for Velvet Hammer, the imperial red ale that helped put Texas craft beer on the national map.
Who would love it: beer drinkers who want a flagship pour with real pedigree and a room built for an afternoon of games. Who would skip it: anyone after table service or a cocktail program, since this is a taproom that pours its own beer and little else.
Michael Peticolas founded the brewery in 2011, and the Design District taproom remains the place to drink it at the source. D Magazine's Dallas directory lists it among the city's defining breweries; the space spreads over three levels, with a games loft holding shuffleboard, ping pong, foosball and ring toss above the bar.
The beer to order is Velvet Hammer, a 9 percent imperial red that drinks far smoother than its strength suggests and anchors a tap wall of around 16 rotating pours. The lineup leans toward bold, well-built styles rather than novelty, and the taproom keeps family-friendly, dog-friendly hours rather than a late-night crowd. Across more than 200 Yelp reviews, the flagship and the relaxed room draw the steadiest praise.
Best time to go is a Saturday afternoon, when the taproom opens at 11am and the games loft is in full swing, or a quiet weekday evening before close. Note the brewery is dark on Mondays and shuts at 6pm on Sundays, so plan around it.
It sits near the top of our best craft beer bars in Dallas guide and answers the search for craft beer near me in the Design District. For a fuller brewery crawl, pair it with Community Beer Company in Dallas or Deep Ellum Brewing in Dallas. More options sit in our Dallas bar guide.
Sources: Peticolas Brewing official site (2026); D Magazine directory; Dallas Observer; Yelp reviews (n=225).
