IF YOU’RE IN NEED OF A BARGAIN GETAWAY, come along some weekend to the Texas ghost town that was saved by a beer joint. Gruene—pronounced “Green”—occupies a bluff overlooking the Guadalupe River near the midpoint of the reborn Austin—San Antonio corridor, just two miles from frenetic Interstate 35. It was annexed by New Braunfels in 1979, and without a trace of architectural concession, a suburban-anywhere neighborhood of brick homes has pressed close around the old village. But for tourists, Gruene’s charm is still distinct from the area’s Wurstfest and Schlitterbahn bent. There are decent restaurants, two rustic inns, recreation on one of the state’s loveliest streams, a live-music venue that is a Texas institution, a wealth of idle strolling, and a reassuring sense that in…
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