The Beer Story

The Beer Story
Air date	August 4, 2025
Written by	Norm Hiscock
Directed by	Mollie Helms
Featured music	"Runnin' Down a Dream" by Tom Petty
Episode guide
Previous	"Return of the King"
Next	"Bobby Gets Grilled"

"The Beer Story" is the second episode in the fourteenth season, and the 261st episode overall. It is scheduled to air on August 4, 2025. This episode was written by Norm Hiscock and directed by Mollie Helms.

Summary

Hank and Bobby compete in a home beer brewing contest, but Hank struggles with the fact that modern beers are more complex than the Alamo Beer he's used to drinking. Meanwhile, Boomhauer bonds with Luke Jr., over non-alcoholic beer.

Plot

A frustrated Hank wakes up at 5 AM, despite Peggy's claims of him being retired, which he retorts that he didn't retire to be lazy (or, in his words, "a nepo-baby"). In his garage, he mopes on what to do, before watching a reboot of a TV show. He then mopes about the dark side of retirement, which Peggy tries to alleviate by sending him to the Mega Lo Mart to gather some things. While there, Hank is frustrated by the staff's incompetence as always and heads off in a random direction, encountering a promotion regarding a moonshine brewing kit. Despite the staff's attempts to dissuade him, Hank finds a new hobby and buys one off the bat.

Hank shows off his brewing kit to Peggy, claiming that he found his new love in the form of beer and propane mixed together, to her anger. Meanwhile, Joseph drives Bobby out of Dallas with a truckload of dirt that Dale wants to sift through. Bobby returns home with a bag of laundry and finds Hank fiddling with a bottling wand complaining about the carbonation of his beer. Bobby reveals his beer expertise and Peggy has Bobby help Hank in a delusion of grandeur of making a world-class beer. Bobby and Hank quickly get into an argument over how beer should be made, and Hank decides to have the alley guys test it out. Dale, Bill, Brian, and Boomhauer all praise it, while Joseph calls it bad. Brian reveals of a brewing contest coming up and feels that he and Bobby would win it easily. During lunch, Bobby and Hank get into an argument on how beer should be made, which culminates into a beer rivalry and Bobby competing with his own separate entry. When the alley guys hear about this, they voice their support for Hank and question Peggy's presence now that she's retired. Boomhauer reveals that Luke Jr. wants to try his first beer, and the guys suggest that he give him a non-alcoholic variant of beer. Meanwhile, Chane bursts into the kitchen revealing that his father ordered their own state-of-the-art brewing kit in hopes of winning the competition and bringing good publicity to the restaurant. Boomhauer follows through with the advice and gives a non-alcoholic beer to him, which fails after Bill tries them both and smashes the cans to his head.

Hank and Peggy head to a brewery to get ideas for what the beer should be like after seeing the judging chart. However, they are appalled by the beer selection and how it hardly tastes like beer. As they drive home, Peggy confuses the kids for drinking underage and confronts Boomhauer about it. The alley guys criticize Hank's latest brew while Bobby's friends give him conflicting advice over how the beer should be brewed. The two then undergo grueling work on perfecting their brews, to little results. Meanwhile, Dale and Joseph have their own plans in trying to coerce the judges to their side. However, the judge appears, forcing them to flee.

Things at the Hill household are starting to strain when Bobby and Hank start taunting each other over their brews, with Peggy not making it any better with her delusions.

At the competition, the two crews face off after registering. Dale and Bobby's friends taunt each other over their quality of their brews and their lack of expertise, and Joseph and Dale coerce one judge each to try to boost things to their side's favor. However, the pair mistake a pair of off-duty cops with cops going after them for their matchmaking scheme, causing them to flee. When it's Hank's turn, he struggles to make up a story to progress ahead in the competition, before caving in to his real story and reveals how his rivalry with his son has alienated them from each other. Bobby realizes this, and decides to pull out of the competition alongside his father after seeing what has become of them, to the dismay of the alley guys and Chane.

Back home, Bobby and Hank exchange the beers they wanted to enter before their friends came in and edited it. Meanwhile, a drunk Peggy bemoans the outcome of the competition and declares both beers good, mixes the two in her cup, and renamed to "Peggy's Ale", much to the men's nonchalant support.

Characters

• Hank Hill
• Peggy Hill
• Bobby Hill
• Jeff Boomhauer
• Luke Jr.
• Brian Robertson
• Bill Dauterive
• Dale Gribble
• Nancy Gribble
• Joseph Gribble
• Chane Wassanasong
• John Redcorn

Stinger Quote

• Dale: "You heard me, little diaper boy!"

Trivia

• Joseph now drives John Redcorn's Jeep Wrangler YJ
• Peggy’s new car is a 2008 Mercury Sable.
• During the montage highlighting the work between Bobby's team and Hank's team, Tom Petty's song, "Runnin' Down a Dream" plays in the background. This is the third time the show has used one of Petty's songs in an episode, after "Free Fallin'" in As Old as the Hills and "Rebels" in The Redneck on Rainey Street. The song itself was referenced by Lucky (voiced by Petty) in the Season 9 episode "Arlen City Bomber" when promising to take Bobby to "eat a chip off the line", his response stating that he'll help Bobby "run down that dream".
  • It is the first time a song by Petty used a recording performed by him and/or his band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and is the first time the show has used a song by Petty following his death in 2017.
• This is the first episode featuring Tai Leclaire and Ki Hong Lee voicing Joseph Gribble and Chane Wassanasong respectively, succeeding the roles from Breckin Meyer and Pamela Adlon, in an effort to hire voice actors that match a character's race and ethnicity, in addition to highlight their transitions into adulthood.
• Norm Hiscock returns as a series writer after previously writing the Season 8 episode "Flirting With the Master".
• The Dallas County police officers at the competition are wearing light blue uniform shirts, in real life, Dallas PD officers wear Navy blue shirts matching their pants. “Although in reality there is no Dallas County police department, but rather the Dallas County Sheriff’s department, who also wear Navy blue uniforms”

Quotes

To be added.

Gallery