Conroe brewery pulls out as venue for Kyle Rittenhouse rally against censorship

CONROE, Texas - A Conroe brewery said Friday that it has canceled an upcoming "Rally Against Censorship" featuring Kyle Rittenhouse, who was famously acquitted of fatally shooting two people in Kenosha, Wis., at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020.

On Twitter, Southern Star Brewery, which had been listed as the event host said it "is an apolitical organization, but we feel that this event doesn’t reflect our own values and we could not in good faith continue to rent out space for the event. … We don’t do rallies, we make beer for people who like beer."

The Jan. 26 event was also set to include a leader of TEXIT, a group that advocates for Texas to secede from the United States. The event organizer is Defiance Press, a Conroe-based publisher behind titles including "Corona-fascism" and a biography of Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff who refused a judge’s order to stop racial profiling by his department.

Defiance Press describes itself as "active in the fight against censorship through publishing conservative books which have been widely censored from mainstream media" and has also published materials that support Texas leaving the United States.

Rittenhouse has increasingly focused on anti-media and "anti-censorship" crusades since being found not guilty of homicide and other charges in 2021. The cancelation by Southern Star — which follows a few days of backlash — is just the latest controversy involving Rittenhouse to occur in Texas.

An event spokesperson confirmed the cancelation and said it was "definitely" getting rescheduled elsewhere.

Last year, Rittenhouse announced his plans to attend Texas A&M University, a claim he walked back after the university said he had not been accepted. Rittenhouse, an Illinois native, later said he plans to attend Blinn College, a two-year school in Brenham.