Less than a minute’s drive off of US Highway 75 in Van Alstyne is an open field containing only a small cinder-block building with an unpaved parking lot. The city is a tiny rural community about 15 minutes north of McKinney that drivers usually speed past, with explosive and unceasing urban expansion approaching from all sides. There’s little development nearby with a new mega-church looming in the background, and all that will surely change soon. However, the standalone building houses a new and modern North Texas winery that is stretching to become much more.
The business is called Cooley Bay, which was opened by Tom Busch in this small building in 2017. (The site was a utility right-of-way until a tower was blown down by a storm in the 1990s, after which the structure was abandoned.) He had a dream of a rural winery outside the busy metro Dallas area, and did all he could to establish and run a fairly successful small business through the pandemic years, including adding a scratch kitchen. After meeting and marrying the love of his life, the Busches sold the winery to William and Jennifer Windlow in December 2024. And that’s when things get interesting.
“We used to spend evenings at Times Ten Cellars thinking, ‘We could do something like this here up in the North Texas area, and we think it would be a hit,'” says William. Cooley Bay was an established production winery when they acquired it, but Windlow brought decades of homebrewing experience and interest to a new license and business concept. To that end, Cooley Bay is now a producer of not only local wine but also house-brewed craft beer, cider and select meads.
Cooley Bay recently held their first Oktoberfest celebration at the winery, a modest event that attracted a handful of the curious. The area is not as remote as it once was, with urban sprawl moving north and commuter traffic increasing between McKinney and Sherman. Oom-pah music played softly inside the winery as patrons enjoyed flatbreads and a few German-styled food specials, served either with wine by the glass or a handful of well-crafted house beers. A loyalty program is available for the wines, but a similar offering for the beer is currently unavailable.
‘The Cooley’ was an original creation of Busch that he served to guests around his pool when owning a modern winery was still just a dream.
It is no longer unusual for wineries or distilleries to open up in-house craft brewing operations, as that market sector has demanded more and more attention of late. The twist here with Cooley Bay is the broader embrace of wine, beer, cider and mead—just about anything that can be brewed—into a hybrid business that borders on uncharted territory. A few cideries have established themselves in the North Texas region, and mead is an emerging curiosity among a very narrow consumer sector. However, no place in Texas has yet attempted to commercialize all these brewed products in one production facility and one unified brand.
“Being able to have four beverage style options manufactured under one roof makes us unique not only to Van Alstyne and Grayson County, but to Texas,” says Windlow. He experimented with ciders and meads as a homebrewer, and believes his skills sufficient (with encouragement from friends and family) to produce them at a commercial level. The quality of each beverage is currently on par with his beers, with the mead program still necessarily underdeveloped to foster a more educated market for that complex and often pricier beverage. Quality meads can often take six months to a year to properly ferment.
The beer lineup is not extensive but is respectable for a new and tiny operation such as this. Included at this visit were a Scottish brown ale, an Oktoberfest/märzen, a German kölsch and a French saison, all of which round out a traditional and international craft beer portfolio quite well. Also included was a Juniper Rye Ale, a comparatively spicy beer style with just the barest hint of juniper on the backside. As a homebrewer, more experimentation from Windlow should be expected as the business grows.
Most of the grapes for Cooley Bay’s wines are varietals grown in West Texas, specifically from the areas south of Lubbock. The Spanish Tempranillo does not do so well in California’s wine region but thrives in the dry high plains of Texas, and so Windlow prefers the Texas connection and to focus on what local residents like and want. “We’ll keep our production focused on the preferences to Van Alstyne and surrounding communities, and we look forward to introducing new drinks to our patrons, and to new guests that are looking to try something adventurous.”
As for the name, “the Cooley” was an original creation of Busch that he served to guests around his pool when owning a modern winery was still just a dream. Somewhat akin to a sangria or sweet spritzer, the Cooley is a refreshing wine-based fruit mix served chilled that quickly became a public favorite. Available in several flavors, it lives on still in the taproom among the growing list of other alcoholic beverages.
As the craft brewing market continues to evolve, so too do the Texas businesses that occupy and serve that market. More and more space is being carved out by non-breweries adding craft brewing programs looking to expand their product lines, and the definition of what strictly constitutes a “craft brewery” is always in flux. And in the end, consumers can only benefit from the expanded beverage options. PH
North Texas Beer Blog 