WHO WE ARE

Cedar Creek Brewery, in Seven Points, Texas, is founded on the principles of perseverance, persistence, and excellent craft beer. Had it not been for the vision and of Jim Elliott, the brewery’s founder, and the support of the community, Cedar Creek brewery would not be producing and distributing its award-winning beer around the United States today.

As a home brew enthusiast, who had learned the trade from his son’s Scoutmaster Sam, Jim and his family began entertaining their new neighbors on Cedar Creek Lake with backyard BBQs featuring his own home brewed beers. During the week, Jim was commuting 75 miles one way to teach high school seniors about business and marketing practices. As the popularity of these backyard BBQs grew more and more, members of the community began to request that Jim sell his beer.

At that time, East Texas had no craft beer breweries. Local city, county, and state government officials as well as local banks didn’t know what to think of the idea of bringing a brewery into their areas. After attempting to get the proper permitting in Kemp and Athens, Texas, Cedar Creek Brewery found its home in Seven Points. 

Using crowd-sourced funds from local investors, two vessel brew houses fabricated in an Illinois garage, six used dairy tanks, a boiler from an apartment building in Wisconsin, and an oil-burning fork lift found in a dusty driveway in central Texas, Cedar Creek Brewery opened for business in July of 2012. 

Cedar Creek Brewery won its first Gold Medal at the Great American Beer Festival (the Olympics of craft beer) in 2013 with its first seasonal beer Wobbly, a Belgian-style Dubbel. Wobbly beat out 83 other breweries to claim this title from a brewery that had only been open for 14 months!

Since 2013, Cedar Creek beer has found fans across Texas. In 2015, the brewery moved to a new location in Seven Points, breathing new life into an old dance hall called Plowboys. The new location features a restaurant named Plowboys Café, to commemorate the buildings history.

Thank you for being part of our story. Enjoy your time at Cedar Creek Brewery!

To open the brewery on a tight budget, repurposed dairy equipment was used for the original 10bbl* brewhouse and fermentation vessels. One might say the original brewery was built with ingenuity and some creative engineering that would make MacGyver proud. In January 2013, it became evident that an expansion was necessary, and two 20 bbl fermentation vessels and a bright tank, used for carbonation, were purchased. By November of that year, three 30 bbl tanks were added. The original 10 bbl brew kettle was finally retired in mid-2016, and a new 15bbl kettle is currently in use.



*bbl is a barrel, or 31 gallons. The larger kegs you see around are called 1/2bbl, which contain 15.5 gallons.