The Proprietors

Matt Benavidez

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Matt lived with his aunt and uncle on a boring, remote planet. An evil emperor mandated that this planet only receive yellow, fizzy beer, and everybody was sad. Matt longed for bolder flavors, better ingredients, fresher tastes, and this so displeased the emperor that he had Matt attend the University of Texas to learn that literally everybody in the entire universe was also drinking this yellow, fizzy beer.

However, Matt was not fooled. Through the power of research, he discovered that beer used to be a drink of pride and quality for thousands of years before the emperor got a hold of it. Matt decided to use The Force… er… his palate and rose to fight the emperor and all his evil henchmen by supporting independent breweries from around the galaxy. Even though the emperor turned out to be Matt’s dad and cut off his hand, you can still find him fighting the good fight at local watering holes.

Virginia Benavidez

Call her “Virginia”. Call her “Gin”. Just don’t call her on a landline because she doesn’t have one. Years ago, Virginia “The Gin” Benavidez gave up her persistent fixed-phone usage for a very different calling: BEER. Yes, she’s a laggard when it comes to technology, but an early adopter when it comes to fermented grain beverages. Growing up with Live Oak beer on tap in her backyard (courtesy of her father), it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which she couldn’t have turned into a die-hard beer fan, especially when it comes to the local stuff.

An Austinite born and raised, Virginia has watched the beer scene evolve with her own near-sighted eyes, and has loved every drop of it. To her, beers are like noses in that she’s not very picky with either. She’ll try any and every brew she can get her booger-free hands on! So beer her up, Scotty, to an enterprise of magnificent brews and wireless telephones where she can live long and prosper. Amen, gesundheit, prost.

Cameron Paxton

Like so many others, Cameron’s first experience with beer was a cheerless, pale liquid. Assuming that all beer was represented by this style, he turned to hard liquor and fell in with the wrong crowd. Many years were spent lost in darkness.

Eventually, he was taken in by a wizened old Beer Wizard and shown the light. These days, he says slightly-annoying-but-true things like, “saying you don’t like beer is like saying you don’t like food. You just haven’t found the style for you yet!”

Today, he’s out to evangelize to the beer-ambivalent masses, and spread the Hoppy Word.


 

Facts about the proprietors that they didn’t share because they’re just too busy being silly:

  • Virginia is a native Austinite
  • Matt works at a local brewery
  • Cameron designs everything for The Beer Museum
  • Matt and Virginia are married and met while attending film school at the University of Texas
  • The three of them are in a band together called Pagelings
  • They’ve tried over 1,000 different beers and have kept each unique bottle