Tag: Ghost River

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Cover Feature News

The Fight for the Wetlands

Sarah Houston kayaks the Mississippi. (Photo: Courtesy Protect Our Aquifer)

Huge cypress trees rise from placid waters of the Wolf River, moss clinging to their trunks. This land where the Wolf’s channels widen and the flow slows in Fayette County is called the Ghost River. It is one of West Tennessee’s most beautiful natural wonders.

Jim Gafford knows the magic of the Ghost River. As recreation coordinator for the Wolf River Conservancy (WRC), he leads paddling trips on the first Saturday of every month along different sections of the 100-mile-long Wolf. “The water is a natural element to everybody. If you get on the water, it supports you, it relaxes you, it has a calming effect on you,” he says.

Jim Gafford (Photo: Courtesy Wolf River Conservancy)

Nowadays, the Ghost River is a Class I Scenic-Recreational State Natural Area. But it wasn’t always like that. It’s hard to believe that, as recently as 1995, the ancient wetland was almost destroyed. “The Conservancy was founded in ’86,” Gafford says. “In the mid-’90s, we found out that Peter Beasley had sold the Beasley Plantation to a development company. The development company actually published plans to go in and harvest all of the cypress and all the usable timber in the bottom land, and then sell off the land into what they called ‘farms’ — they were just narrow strips of land with river access that would have no restrictive covenants at all. So people could have purchased the land and done what they wanted to with it and just have a little access to the river. Our first conservation effort was to save that 4,000 acres from development. Fortunately, we were able to, and we’re still using it now. It’ll be here for thousands of years and allowed to evolve naturally.”

After that first victory almost 30 years ago, the WRC has continued their mission of protecting the waters of the Wolf and making sure they’re available to everyone. But not all wetlands have the Ghost River’s rizz. Most of Tennessee’s approximately 787,0000 acres of wetlands are swamps, bayous, and muddy creek beds, tucked away in neglected corners of farms or undeveloped land on the edges of suburbs. But that does not mean wetlands are not valuable, says Sarah Houston, executive director of Protect Our Aquifer. In flood-prone West Tennessee, wetlands act as a buffer against too much rain. Less wetland acreage means more and bigger floods.

Sarah Houston (Photo: Courtesy Protect Our Aquifer)

“Wetlands really do us a big favor in absorbing floodwater, holding on to it,” Houston says. “And that water is either going to be slowly released into surface water or it’s going to be slowly released into groundwater. … Housing developments get built in what used to be wetlands or downstream near floodplains, and then they see regular flooding. Those developments probably should have never been approved in those places because the water is gonna keep flowing. Now, it’s just flowing into your house.”

Wetlands also play an important role in mitigating climate change. The trees, plants, and mosses in swamps and bayous absorb carbon dioxide, the buildup of which causes global warming, from the atmosphere. In a regular forest, when the leaves fall and the trunks die, their decomposition can release methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas, into the air. Or they can burn, throwing soot and carbon dioxide high into the atmosphere. But in swampy areas, organic debris falls into the water and is buried in sediment, where it cannot contribute to global warming. Much of the coal and oil we burn today was formed from remains of wetlands buried during the Permian period 290 million years ago.

As wetlands are drained, developed, or paved, they lose the ability to sequester carbon, and some of the stored carbon dioxide and methane is re-released into the atmosphere. A 2016 paper by A.M. Nahlik and M. S. Fennessey, published in the journal Nature, found that “wetland soils contain some of the highest stores of soil carbon in the biosphere.” In some cases, up to 40 percent of wetland soil was carbon, compared to the 0.5 to 2.0 percent found in agricultural soils. The study found that freshwater wetlands were much more efficient at storing carbon than river deltas or saltwater estuaries. All told, the study estimated that the continental United States’ wetlands contain a whopping 11.52 gigatons of sequestered carbon.

Gafford says West Tennessee’s wetlands are valuable in another way. “In the Memphis, Shelby County, Fayette County, Tipton County area, the most important value of that swampy area is what percolates down and actually recharges our water supply. If you talk to any expert, they’ll tell you that Memphis has the best water in the world.”

Houston’s organization, Protect Our Aquifer, watches over that valuable resource. Memphis is built over an underground aquifer containing as much freshwater as one of the Great Lakes. “It is our sole source of drinking water in Memphis, Tennessee,” she says. “It’s also all the water that industry and farmers use, too. It is one of the purest sources of water in the country, and it just happens to be right below our feet, easily accessible. Because of the way it was formed, over millions of years back when this area was actually a shallow ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and through a series of deposits of gneiss, quartz sand, and then thick clay layers, it created what we now call the Mississippi embayment. The majority of the water that’s actually below Memphis in the Memphis sand aquifer fell as rain 2,000 years ago, and has been infiltrating and filtering slowly over time to bring us that pure drinking water. And it is all out of sight, out of mind.”

Fresh water enters the Memphis aquifer through creek beds such as this one, where the Memphis sands are close to the surface (Photo: Courtesy Protect Our Aquifer)

What Is a Wetland?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines wetlands as “areas where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year, or for varying periods of time during the year.”

That’s a broad definition that has been more or less enforced since the passage of 1972 Clean Water Act. Federal protections for wetlands were expanded during the Obama administration, and then rolled back during the Trump administration. Then, in May 2023, a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Sackett vs. EPA forced the agency to limit its jurisdiction to only wetlands that have “continuous surface connection to bodies that are Waters of the United States.”

“If you can get a boat on it, it’s a ‘Water of the United States,’” says Houston. “If you can’t, then that’s not a federal government issue. What changed was this whole definition of technically isolated wetlands, where they’re not directly next to a stream.”

The ruling removed approximately 63 percent of wetlands from federal protection, including most ephemeral wetlands. The rollback alarmed wetlands fans like Gafford. “The results of the EPA and the wetlands protection acts have been so effective, I don’t think that we need to do anything at all to loosen those restrictions,” he says. “Because of agriculture practices and building practices, we let the water get pretty bad, just from the runoff. It was deemed appropriate to put those protections in place, and I think we need to adhere to them because the results have been, in my mind, fantastic.”

The state of Tennessee has defined protected wetlands even more strictly than the federal government since the 1970s. “The Supreme Court justices actually noted that this should be a state-level regulation because states differ so much in their water resources and their landscapes,” says Houston.

After Sackett v. EPA, Rep. Kevin Vaughan (R-Collierville) introduced HB 1054, a bill which proposed to bring the state’s definition of a wetland in line with the new federal rules. According to a January, 2024 report by the Tennessee General Assembly Fiscal Review Committee, adoption of the bill would result in a 55 percent decrease in the amount of currently protected wetlands, or approximately 432.850 acres of the states’ 787,000 acres of wetlands.

Vaughan is a real estate broker and owner of Township Development Services, which offers site selection, land planning and management, and government relations services to developers. In February, he told a legislative committee, “It’s your property, but a third party is going to tell you if you can use it. And if you can’t use it, then you have to pay another party money for you to be able to use your property. That’s the origins of where this bill came from.”

Houston says, “The main argument was too much bureaucracy and red tape, and there is some validity to the concerns of the sponsor Chairman Vaughan. Sometimes, small wetlands that might have kind of sprung up require a permit, and it can add additional cost [to development] because with our wetlands regulations, you have to get a permit if you’re gonna damage them or remove them, and then you have to pay into a mitigation bank.”

The BlueOval Factor

Much of the wetland acreage which would lose protection under the bill is in West Tennessee. That includes Haywood County, where the new Ford BlueOval City is currently under construction. The $6 billion facility to produce electric vehicles and batteries is the largest single investment in Tennessee history. Houston calls the area “ground zero for this development pressure. … Haywood County is seeing tremendous growth. They’re getting permit application after permit application for these new developments. That is also the county that has the highest number of wetlands in the state. … Originally, the argument was, ‘These muddy tracts with some sprouts in them are being classified as wetlands, but they’re not and we need to get rid of them.’ Then it became more about the pressure for growth and the timeline that we’re on. Getting rid of these wetlands in big tracts, acres and acres at a time, would speed up the opportunity for development to occur right now, especially in West Tennessee.”

The potential impacts of wetland development would go farther than just BlueOval City. “We know that there are connections to the aquifer in that area,” says Houston. “The wells that have been drilled for the [BlueOval] megasite are in the unconfined part, so they’re in the recharge zone of the aquifer. And we know that band of the recharge zone extends into half of Haywood County and pretty much all of Fayette County.”

A big unknown is exactly how much of a role wetlands play in recharging the aquifer. It was long thought that water seeped through the soil in a relatively uniform manner, but recent studies in North Mississippi suggest that most of the recharging occurs in relatively small areas where the Memphis Sands are near the surface. The science remains uncertain, but as the POA puts it in a report distributed to legislators, “It’s not necessarily the type or size of wetlands, but the location that determines how valuable it is to recharge.”

Pushback

Once the stakes of HB 1054 became clear, environmental advocates mobilized against it. “To me, wetland preservation represents one of our state’s most vulnerable natural ecosystems at this moment. Wetlands provide a safe haven for our country’s wildlife and serve as a crucial space for aquifer recharge. The preservation of our wetlands serves as a litmus test for the well-being of our environment,” says Memphis Community Against Pollution President KeShaun Pearson.

The bill’s proponents were also mobilized. Adam Friedman of Tennessee Lookout recently reported on Build Tennessee, a political action committee formed in July 2022 by 18 owners and partners in real estate and construction companies, including Keith Grant, a Collierville developer and the former president of the West Tennessee Home Builders Association. In less than two years of existence, the PAC became the fourth-largest spender on lobbying in Tennessee and donated to 90 lawmakers of both parties.

Protect Our Aquifer led the charge against the bill. “We don’t do a lot at the state level,” says Houston. “So we were planning on playing a supportive role in this. But since the majority of the wetlands were in West Tennessee, our mission is all about protecting the drinking water supply that happens to be underneath all of West Tennessee, and the majority of the House subcommittee members represented West Tennessee, we kind of got shoved into the forefront.”

The activists found allies on Capitol Hill. “I think it’s an abhorrent bill that is bad for our state,” says Rep. Justin J. Pearson (D-Memphis). “It’s bad for our environment, and it is showing the influence of private corporations and entities and developers in our Tennessee legislature. It’s bad for democracy when elected leaders are literally carrying legislation for private companies and developers to the detriment of 7 million people’s environment. And as a person who cares deeply about environmental justice, I think this is a complete affront to the causes, the beliefs, the values that many of us share, Republicans and Democrats, people who are progressive and people who are conservative.”

Houston says they were open to revisiting Tennessee’s strict wetlands definitions. “Right now, any type of wetland is considered the same value. But in reality, there are some wetlands that are much higher quality. They’ve got no invasive species. They’re nice and healthy, and haven’t been trampled on by humans. A middle ground we want to find is, how do we categorize wetlands in the state based on low, moderate, and high values that could then determine how much mitigation credits are required, what really needs to be permitted, and what is okay with being removed.”

Houston says when the bill was first introduced in 2023, “it was put on hold because TDEC [Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation] promised that there would be stakeholder meetings to draft a good bill that everyone could agree upon that would create new categories for wetlands and address some of this red tape bureaucracy issue. Well, those stakeholder meetings never really happened in earnest last year.”

A Temporary Victory

Houston and the POA testified in front of both Senate and House committees who were considering the bill. “Our information was really well received,” she says. “No matter where you live in West Tennessee, you have a pretty high regard for our aquifer and the drinking water supply.

“In early March, when the Senate committee heard the bill, the senators on that committee said, ‘Trying to categorize wetlands and create all these new definitions is a really complex process. We’re not gonna get it right this first try. So let’s move this to summer study and actually have the stakeholder meetings.’ Commissioner David Sellers, on record, promised to have the stakeholder meetings. So they, 6 to 2, voted it to summer study. We were like, ‘Holy smokes! We won! It’s dead!’ But then Chairman Vaughan in the House kept pushing the bill despite it being dead on the Senate side, which you don’t really see that.”

Pearson says, “Kevin [Vaughan]’s only aim is to open up more land for development with fewer regulations, especially around BlueOval, and over any potential objections from community members in majority-Black Haywood County or other areas that could be exploited by developers, with building happening that does not take into account environmental justice. … We know environmental justice and racial justice oftentimes coexist and you cannot have one without the other.”

As this legislative session winds down towards an expected late April adjournment, Pearson says he is wary. “It is not likely that this legislation will move forward this session. However, due to [Governor Bill Lee’s school] voucher bill also being sought to be passed by this General Assembly, it may become a bargaining chip for Kevin Vaughan and the Republicans to use to try and get it passed for his vote on the voucher bill. The reason I say that is, a number of Republicans have come out vehemently against the governor’s bill, and they’re operating on a very thin majority when it comes to the passage of that legislation, which is the governor’s signature legislation for this General Assembly. That’s why we must continue to pay attention and be engaged in this process because anything is still possible. I have seen how racism and white supremacy and capitalistic exploitation works here, and if you trust the process too much, then you will likely be duped by it because they don’t care too much about the process here.”

During the final week of committee meetings, HB 1054 was not reconsidered, much to the relief of activists like Houston. “Officially, the wetlands 2024 legislative session saga is over, and there will be a summer study this year to dig into the details and try to refine what our wetland protection laws can look like,” she says. “It’s good news. There’s still work to do, but there is good news.”

In the interest of transparency, we note that the Memphis Flyer is owned by Contemporary Media, Inc., whose board chairman, Ward Archer Jr., also founded Protect Our Aquifer. This reporting was conducted independently and relies on multiple sources.

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Cover Feature Food & Drink News

Fall Back, Drink Forward

Photos: Chris McCoy

Temperatures roller-coaster dipped into the cool stuff last weekend promising no more 80-degree days until Memphis in May and the exact right conditions to bend an arm under a dark, toasty/roasty fall beer.

For this, Memphians, you are in luck. New beers keep pouring into new Memphis-area taprooms. When Cooper House Project opens in Cooper-Young (hopefully soon!), Memphis will be home to 12 craft breweries. It’ll join Ghost River, Beale Street, Boscos, Crosstown, Grind City, Soul & Spirits, Hampline, High Cotton, Wiseacre, Memphis Made, and Meddlesome. Consider that only two craft breweries — Ghost River and Boscos — operated here nine years ago.

New beers are pouring into Memphis-area stores, too. Craft breweries from other markets are expanding their distribution circles, and new stuff is showing up on our shelves. Think of all the Nashville beers we can get here like Bearded Iris and Southern Grist, Urban South from New Orleans, and Deschutes from Bend, Oregon. This now also includes several non-alcoholic beers from brewers who want craft flavors without the hangover.

Toby Sells (left) with Soul & Spirits owner and master brewer Ryan Allen.

For this year’s fall beer guide, we rounded up a bunch of beers you can find around Memphis. This includes some from other markets and does not include every local brewery. Some breweries just didn’t have anything new that we’ve not written about already. We found our beers at Cash Saver and South Point Grocery (thank you, Taylor James!), both known for their wide selections. But you can find most of the beers in our tasting most anywhere.

Some brewers haven’t liked all of our staff comments in past beer guides. But our crew was asked to be honest. We taste and take notes, not as beer experts, but as typical Memphis craft beer consumers. (I mean, we don’t even have Untappd accounts.)

But we did have expert help. As in years past, we had a guide to help us understand the different styles and pick out flavors. This year, Ryan Allen, co-owner and master brewer at Soul & Spirits, shined a light on our path forward. He joined us in an undisclosed Midtown backyard as a few Flyer staffers drank beers from a cooler and wrote about them for work. Hell yeah.

There are plenty of beers to love on this list — and we did love some. But don’t take our word for it. Go grab a light jacket and a dark beer for yourself. — Toby Sells

Athletic

Athletic Lite, light lager, 0 percent ABV

Ever leave a sixer in a hot car, discover it later, then put it back in the fridge? This reminds me of that — like a flat, forgotten Miller Lite. Not much flavor, but an easy drinker if you like playing pretend. — Shara Clark

It’s a light beer with no alcohol. Which I guess is like chewing on a candy cigarette in a cigar club. But to be fair, some people really like candy cigarettes. — Samuel X. Cicci

A non-alcoholic beverage that seems sort of pointless. Slightly fizzy, like LaCroix water. Yellowish color, like water that’s been, er, used. I’d prefer a LaCroix. — Bruce VanWyngarden

There’s nothing there and I guess that’s the point. It’s barely-beer-flavored fizzy water. — Toby Sells

The recent technological advances that have made decent-tasting NA beer possible are welcome. There’s a lot of good brews out there that won’t mess with your sobriety. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. Why make an NA beer taste like the lite beer designed to make 4.2 percent alcohol content more palatable? This beer makes me long for the bold flavors of tap water. — Chris McCoy

This non-alcoholic beverage is like drinking Holy Water from church, except the wrong fingers have been dipped in the font — fingers that have been in places God doesn’t approve of — so there’s a tinge of something that shouldn’t be there, making you question if this thing that’s supposed to be “good” for you is actually worth the way it goes down so smoothly. — Abigail Morici

Meddlesome

Memphis Style Lager, light lager, 4.5 percent ABV

The can art reminds me of a ’90s-style Mead folder, but the beverage itself gives strong shower beer vibes. Lather up the shampoo, crack one open, and throw it back while the water washes the day away. This one’s a winner. — SC

It’s a nice, lighter malty lager. If you like lagers, go for it. But you’re gonna buy it anyway since the can is so fun with its minty-party-shenanigan-chic aesthetic. — SXC

This 4.5-percenter is right down the middle of my comfort zone. Tastes like beer, friendly and non-aggressive. I could see myself sitting down with a few of these. — BV

It tastes great. Now with that out of the way, let’s talk about the can. To holler at the ’80s Memphis design group on a beer can will delight any who appreciate obscure Memphiana. If you think it looks like Saved by the Bell, well, that’s fun, too. — TS

This beer is what you think you want when you order a domestic light beer. Because of Memphis’ great water, and being fresher than your average corporate beer product, it’s got a sharper and better flavor. — CM

The Memphis Style has the vibe of a crouton. We like croutons. But do we love croutons — that’s the question. — AM

Southern Grist

Parallel Fruited Sour, sour, 0 percent ABV

This is another NA, which is good because you’ve got to be sober to say its name three times fast. Flavor- and texture-wise, this seems like nothing more than a fruit puree — or what you get in one of those bottles of daiquiri mixer. — SC

It’s bursting with passion fruit and raspberry, but not super sour, which I want in my beers. Also, it has no alcohol. Which I guess is like choosing to inhale a fruity candle in a hookah bar. — SXC

Another non-alcoholic brew that is in no way reminiscent of, well, beer. It’s pleasant tasting, but to me, this is a soda. — BV

This is one of the best NA beers I’ve ever tasted. It’s got the mouthfeel of a regular beer, and the flavors are tasty but not overwhelming. Most importantly, it’s not too sweet. — CM

The best snack when you’re in kindergarten is that cherry chapstick that you sneak a little nibble of, and this drink will take you back to those naughty moments — as if the chapstick-eating folk at Southern Grist melted down the worst chapstick, plastic tube and all, to find a new evil way to capitalize on nostalgia. — AM

Doc’s Cider

Sour Cherry Cider, sour, 6 percent ABV

This tastes like an Alabama Slammer Clubtails (those cheap, gas-station, 10-percent malt beverages) or a Black Cherry Four Loko. And if you’ve got more than two bucks to spend on booze, this is not a good thing. — SC

This sour-cherry concoction tested my gag reflex. Never bring this near my face again. — BV

This is the opposite of thin. It covers your tongue and palate with a sort of cherry medicine film. Do not recommend. — TS

UhhhlllllAAAAHHHHCHHA [yucky sound]! — CM

It’s like drinking the weirdly pink liquid that drips from a teeny tiny hole in a Febreze-scented garbage bag filled with rotting fruit and used Kleenex as you drag it to your garbage bins. — AM

Urban South

Red Nose ReinBeer, fruited wheat, 5.4 percent ABV

The first sip gave me a little “Oh!” — light with a warm, spiced aftertaste. Subsequent sips sorta felt like peeling back the wrapping paper on a Christmas gift then settling into disappointment once you realize it’s just a pair of socks. — SC

Grandma got run over by a reinbeer while walkin’ home from our house on Christmas Eve. The suspect was a fruity wheat, with notes of cranberry, cinnamon, and brown sugar, but witnesses reported that the spices overwhelm any fruity taste. — SXC

I didn’t want to like this. But it’s Christmas in a can, really. Light on the cranberry flavor, heavy on the cinnamon and brown sugar. The taste turns flatter the more you drink, though. — TS

Urban Artifact

Xmas Pickle, sour, 4.3 percent ABV

What’s the dill with all these odd new beer types, eh? It’s a smooth, light, pickle-based gose. Little bit of salt, a nice clean pickle scent, a bit of tartness, but overall it doesn’t go too heavy on any of the strange flavor mixes. — SXC

It’s much like I’d imagine drinking the brine from a pickle jar would be, only with bubbles. It’s got some salt, as well. Might go well with a cheeseburger or something, but I would not drink this sans food. — BV

Ryan [Allen from Soul & Spirits] said pickle beers are on the rise. I ain’t tryna drink this all afternoon, but it’s crazy different and fun to explore. I bet it’s great with fried chicken. — TS

I wasn’t aware of the pickle beer trend before this tasting, and I’m not sure I’m on board with it. This one smells like a pickle more than tastes like one, and it’s by far the saltiest beer I’ve ever had. Bottom line: It’s not as bad as it sounds. — CM

Soul & Spirits

Polk Salad, fresh-hopped IPA, 6.1 percent ABV

The vibe: You’re sitting in a field, breeze blowing against your face, sipping a cold, carbonated herbal tea. Fresh hops here really gave this a crisp, clean drinking experience. Best IPA I’ve ever tried. — SC

This is a better IPA, made from fresh hops (grown in Memphis!) and packed with fresh greens. Not bad. And that’s coming from an IPA-hater. — SXC

This is the freshest beer I’ve ever had. Maybe I would not have described it that way if Ryan hadn’t told us about the fresh-hop process, but dang if I can’t taste it. My notes say “just so fucking good.” — TS

It starts with a great nose. The initial taste is light and crisp, with a bold finish. The fresh hops linger longer and add more complexity than you get with your average West Coast face-melter. This is one of the best IPAs I’ve ever tasted. — CM

Ghost River

Dunkelweizen Ale, Dunkelweizen, 8 percent ABV

It’s got a bit of a clovy taste. A lot of Ghost Rivers have a sameness to their taste, but this one breaks the mold. Kudos to the brewer. — SXC

This has a dark, caramel-ish initial taste. The texture is soft, almost melted buttery. A hint of dough. Not for every taste, but will hit the spot for many. — BV

Ryan de-mystified Dunkels for me, saying they’re basically Hefeweizens with darker malts (and that “Dunkelweizen” literally translates to “dark wheat”). This one has those banana flavors and lots of suds. Fun to drink, and extra points for crop circles on the can! — TS

This new “dark wheat” is one of the better offerings from the venerable Ghost River label. It goes down smooth, but be warned: It’s got an exceptionally high alcohol content. You can get yourself into trouble with this one. — CM

Have you ever licked the cracked side of a plastic Mardi Gras bead that’s lost its shine and sits in a puddle of spilled beer? Well, now, you don’t have to; this drink will do the trick instead. — AM

Wiseacre

Strizzle Bier, IPA, 6.2 percent ABV

Yipes. Bye-bye, taste buds. I think they were burned off by the bitterness. — SC

Wiseacre makes so many good beers that I don’t feel bad saying I don’t like this. It’s a weird fusion of IPA and brown ale, and I’m not sure those two styles ever truly reconcile. — SXC

Solid brew with a clean slight bitterness that isn’t off-putting. This one suits the season just right. — BV

IPA bros like myself (self-burn), rejoice! Your fall beer is here. It’s bitter, even a little fruity, and definitely all IPA. — TS

Not much nose, followed by a weird, muddled taste profile. It’s bitterness without context. Strizzle is a rare miss from Wiseacre. — CM

This tastes the way sliding a finger along a freshly Pledged table feels but without the pleasant lemon scent. — AM

High Cotton

Chocolate Rye Porter, porter, 5.5 percent ABV

This is just begging to be made into a beer float. Is that even a thing? Well, it is now. Gimme a mug and a scoop of vanilla, please. — SC

As a kid I used to go to my grandmother’s and attack the bowl of 85-percent Ghirardelli chocolate squares. This beer reminds me of those, a bitter and oh-so-slightly-sweet meld of chocolate flavor swirling softly amidst the dark porter. Truly heavenly, and the perfect fall/winter beer. — SXC

It smells just like coffee as I bring it up for a sip. It tastes like the holidays. If ReinBeer above is the fun, gaudy Christmas party with lil smokies and Dirty Santa, this beer is the classier sit-down, roast beef dinner with your well-to-do cousins. — TS

This is the kind of beer I’m in the mood for when the leaves are falling. It’s well-balanced, not too sweet, with a complex set of flavors. This is one of my favorite beers from a Memphis brewery. — CM

Tailgate

Peanut Butter Milk Stout, sweet/milk stout, 5.8 percent ABV

Yum! Nutter Butters in a cup. This would make a great boozy milkshake. — SC

My notes, verbatim: “Fuck it. I love the shit out of this beer.” I couldn’t help it, even though I don’t usually like these beers and wanted not to like this one. I can’t explain the magic that converted me, but it was there. — TS

It’s got a great nose, it pours like motor oil, and the flavor is deep and satisfying — somewhere between a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and a pecan pie. Those brewers up there in Nashville are making great beer. — CM

Hi-Wire

Chocolate Coconut Bar 10W-40 Imperial Stout, stout, 8 percent ABV

It’s a silky, creamy chocolate imperial stout with a bit of lingering coconut. I expected more of a Mounds bar-esque taste. Not quite as good as the chocolate rye porter, but solid if you’re a stout fan. — SXC

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. The coconut goes way over the top here and turns the candy bar flavor into suntan lotion. — TS

As a fan of stouts, chocolate cake, and coconuts, this sounds like it should be right up my alley. But it’s just chewy and thick and not much else. I’m not sure I even tasted the coconut. Meh. — CM

Soul & Spirits

Smoke Stack, smoked dark lager, 5.7 percent ABV

Ever played musical chairs around a campfire to avoid the smoke blowing in your eyes? But every time you move, it follows, permeating your hair and clothes and your entire respiratory system? That usually sucks, but while this tastes like inhaling a smoke cloud, it’s a bold beer, and I’m here for it. — SC

The smoke hits you right up front, like when the wind from a fire pit wafts your way. It’s meant to emulate Memphis barbecue, and like Memphis barbecue, it’s a slow burn. Not a beer to crush, but could go well with a rack of ribs. — BV

Ever had a beer that’s smoky like a good scotch? Made with Tennessee barley roasted over mixed hardwoods intended to evoke the flavors of Memphis barbecue, this one was a new experience for me. Not sure I could have more than one at a sitting, but this is an excellent beer. — CM

Categories
Cover Feature News

Summer in the City: From Cold Beer and Sweet Treats to Kayaks and Museums — Make the Most of the Season

Photo: Jesse Davis

Welcome to summertime in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s hot. It’s humid. The unforgiving sun is shining like a diamond. But the city’s opening back up in ways we only could have dreamed of this time last year. Whether outdoors or in, there’s fun to be had — and ways to cool down. Snow cones, refreshing cocktails, canoeing, swimming, and more await to make this summer the best one yet.

Assignment: Drink Beer

Summer is for beer. Cold ones are just better on hot days. That’s science.

The pandemic kept us on the porch for much of the summer 2020 beer-drinking season. Those annual traditions — like cookouts, concerts, and baseball games — all easily melted behind daily worries of a cruel illness that took so much more than just our summertime fun time.

For most, COVID-19 worries have now melted and those summer traditions have priority seating. We know what we missed last year, and we now know just how important that fun stuff — like drinking summer beers with your friends — really is.

To ensure you don’t regret missing a moment this summer, here is your Memphis summertime, beer-drinking assignment sheet.

Enjoy a cold one to take the edge off during an inning at AutoZone Park. (Photo: Courtesy of AutoZone Park / Facebook)

1. Drink light beer at AutoZone Park.

Beer and baseball is the winningest combo since pork shoulder and dry rub. Let’s face it, they belong together.

You absolutely can grab an IPA (and probably other styles) at the park. But the magic of the park and the game is really made with a light American lager, like Miller Lite. It’s simple, dependable, and when it’s served ice-cold in a big plastic cup — don’t ask me how it works but — the summer spell is cast.

2. Drink a fruity sour beer watching an outdoor concert.

Drinking to livestreams in your pajamas cannot compare to dancing to live music in your bare feet. We’re back at it this year with tons of live music events guaranteed to be packed and to boogie-oogie-oogie you from your socially distanced funk-ola.

Fruity sours are summer-perfect. They’re different, light, sweet, sometimes mouth-puckeringly tart, but predictably transportive. Like dancing in a crowd in 2021, sours will make you say, “Whoa. This is different. But I like it.”

3. Drink an epic hazy IPA at your favorite taproom.

Your favorite brewery’s taproom was closed last year. You couldn’t try the crazy beer with the crazy name that would never make it to grocery-store shelves.

Now that you can, you may not know that the national haze craze — the wave of hazy IPAs — has pooled securely in Memphis breweries. Call me a hazy boi all you like, but these beers are great.

They’re soft and sometimes sweet. Here, they show off the real creativity of Memphis brewers, the diversity of flavors these talented folks can concoct from one style.

Show up and order the hazy. Then you’ll know what’s up with a trendy beer that’s crazy-Instagrammable. (Shoot your glass with the sun behind it. And your local brewery will thank you.) — Toby Sells

Make your backyard the perfect home for more than just rubber duckies —
no need to mow your lawn. (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

Create a Yard for Wildlife

Tired of mowing and maintaining a lawn? I was, too. That’s why, a few years back, my wife and I began transforming our Midtown backyard into a natural habitat that attracts birds, hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. By using native and easy-to-care-for perennials, our main chore each year is to cut them back in the spring, fertilize them, and watch them grow and blossom. And as a bonus, it’s beautiful.

Our native black and blue salvia flowers, butterfly bushes, bee balm plants, daylilies, lantana, orpine, and even basil and thyme flowers attract hummingbirds better than our feeders do, though we have a couple of those, as well. The flowers also bring in bees and butterflies of every variety throughout the summer and fall. We keep a bird feeder filled with seeds year-round, which keeps the cardinals and finches nesting nearby.

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) offers guidelines for making your yard a sustainable environment. The five keys are: food (plants and feeders that provide nectar, seeds, nuts, fruits, berries, foliage, pollen, and insects); water (birdbaths or other sources); cover (bushes, trees, and tall grasses); places to raise young (ditto the bushes, trees, and tall grasses); and sustainable gardening practices (no chemicals). If you’re into that sort of thing, you can apply to the NWF for a sign to put in your yard when you think you qualify.

We don’t have an official sign, but by midsummer our backyard is filled with life and beauty that brings us enjoyment throughout the day. By July, our fig tree is an all-day party. (Pecking order: blue jays, robins, cardinals, then assorted little guys and squirrels.) We have thrilling aerial “battles” between bumblebees, hummingbirds, and dragonflies as they jockey for position on the blooms. And our butterfly variety is second to none.

Sound good? Get started today. Dig up your lawn, start planting flowers and bushes, and just say no mow. — Bruce VanWyngarden

Say hello to ice cream in a cocktail: Global Cafe’s Peaches and Cream. (Photo: Samuel X. Cicci)

Beat the Heat With Sweet Summer Treats

Where I come from, humidity doesn’t exist. So it’s understandable that this former desert-dweller constantly needs a way to stave off all that excess water vapor when the Memphis summertime rolls in with its 90-plus-degree temperatures. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to temper the heat wave, and many of them just so happen to come out of Memphis’ booming food scene. Here are just a few ways to keep it cool while the sun is shining.

For something a little different from your standard ice cream cone, hop out to Cordova or East Memphis for a refreshing take on the sweet confection. Poke World serves up rolled ice cream, a dessert originating from Thailand. A regular ice cream base is poured over a freezing stainless steel surface and, once solidified, scraped off and formed into thin rolls. It’s both novelty and familiarity all at once, rounded out with other sweet toppings. Celebrate the season with the Summer Love, covered in bananas, strawberries, and whipped cream.

Down Summer Avenue (or one of its other four locations), Memphis’ very own paleteria always comes through in a pinch. La Michoacana serves up paletas, a popsicle derivation originating from Mexico. But these popsicles pack an extra punch that’s a cut above the usual frozen sugar water. Paletas are usually made from fresh fruits like mangos and strawberries or from creamier ingredients like chocolate. The bright, swirly combinations of fruity goodness will have your head spinning with brain freeze because it’s just so good. Devour at your own peril, but no one leaves La Michoacana unsatisfied.

But if a little more zing is needed in a dessert, just head on over to Global Cafe and let Juan work his magic behind the bar. The food hall’s cocktails always pack a punch, but go with this year’s seasonal drink, the Peaches and Cream. It comes as advertised, fresh California yellow peaches pureed into silver rum and topped with whipped cream. It’s basically ice cream in a cocktail format, and all the better for it. I stopped at one, but the urge to grab several more sits right there, dangerous and tantalizing.

These sweets are best in moderation, saved for a truly hot summer day. But there’s plenty more out there, of perhaps the Jerry’s or MEMPops variety, so get to exploring. — Samuel X. Cicci

Do you feel your temperature rising? Cool off with “King of Karate.” (Photo: Courtesy of Elvis Presley’s Graceland)

Day at the Museum

It’s a sidewalk sizzling Memphis summer, and after a year-plus of social distancing and livestreaming digital events, I’m ready to resume one of my favorite air-conditioned(!) pastimes — strolling leisurely through one of the Bluff City’s museums.

With recently debuted and soon-to-open exhibits at many of the museums in question, one would be hard-pressed to find a better time to take in some fine art, history, or pop culture.

The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Overton Park has too many exhibits to give a full accounting here, but “Persevere and Resist: The Strong Black Women of Elizabeth Catlett” and “Memphis Artists In Real Time” are two worth a closer look. Opening later this month is “Eggleston: The Louisiana Project” featuring work by Memphis photographer William Eggleston.

Over at the Memphis Museum of Science & History (MoSH for short, though old-timers might know it as the Pink Palace), museum marketing manager Bill Walsh says, “Our ‘Machine Inside: Biomechanics’ exhibit and Sea Lions: Life by A Whisker giant screen movie make MoSH the perfect place to cool off this summer and explore science, history, and nature.”

Meanwhile, further east, the Dixon, with its gardens and museum galleries, offers an equilibrium between indoor and outdoor activities. “We love to offer ways for visitors to beat the heat,” says Chantal Drake. “Cooling off in the museum is an enjoyable and educational way to get out of the heat. Summer exhibitions at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens highlight local artists, a centenarian artist, and our founders, Margaret and Hugo Dixon.

“Although it’s summer in Memphis,” she continues, “the shady spots in the garden are perfect for a picnic where visitors can top it off with gelato from Zio Matto at Food Truck Fridays.”

Meanwhile, at Elvis Presley’s Graceland, David Beckwith says, “Graceland officially kicks off the summer with the All-American 4th of July Weekend. The two-day event will include concerts, parties, a barbecue, a gospel brunch, special tours, and more, all capped off with an Elvis-themed fireworks spectacular.”

That’s just the tip of the hunka, hunka iceberg, though. The “Inside the Walt Disney Archives” exhibition, which opens July 23rd, celebrates the legacy of the Walt Disney Company archives, with behind-the-scenes access never before granted to the public. Currently open is the “King of Karate” exhibit. Included in the pop-up exhibit’s collection will be Presley’s personal karate gis, his seventh- and eighth-degree black belt certificates, and the original handwritten script for his 1974 karate documentary, The New Gladiators.

Stax Museum would like to share its “Solid Gold Soul” with you. (Photo: Jesse Davis)

Finally, at Stax, they’re celebrating their archives with “Solid Gold Soul: The Best of the Rest from the Stax Museum,” which opens Friday, July 16th. “‘Solid Gold Soul’ showcases the museum staff’s favorite objects that are not part of the permanent exhibits and, with the exception of Isaac Hayes’ office desk and chair, all items are on display for the first time,” says Stax’s Jeff Kollath. “Highlights include rare photographs of the Bar-Kays, Otis Redding, and Isaac Hayes; stage costumes worn by members of Funkadelic and the TSU Toronadoes; and rare vinyl records and photographs from the recently acquired Bob Abrahamian Collection.”

Of course, there are more Memphis museums to explore. The views from the Metal Museum’s bluffs are worth the trip, and every Memphian needs to visit the National Civil Rights Museum — preferably more than once. The Withers Collection Museum & Gallery on Beale is a personal favorite, and its deceptively small size in square footage is no hindrance to the breadth of Memphis life on view, as captured by the lens of photographer Ernest Withers. Whether it’s culture, history, science, or just powerful air-conditioning you seek, Memphis’ museums make for some special summer fun. — Jesse Davis

Paddle away from your responsibilities this summer. (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

Paddle Your Cares Away

For this former Boy Scout, summer means it’s paddling season. While crafts like kayaks, canoes, or stand-up paddle boards take a bit of skill to keep under control, it’s not a steep learning curve, and the rewards are enormous, including the sublime quiet of such boating: All you hear is the dip of your paddle in the water and whatever the environment offers.

The environment can be spectacular if you make the short trip out to the Ghost River, a section of the Wolf River. Unlike parts of the Wolf in and around Memphis, the Ghost River section to the east has not been dredged and is dominated by cypress trees rising solemnly out of the unhurried flow, complemented with abundant wildlife, flowers, and grasses.

As Mark Babb, co-founder of Ghost River Rentals (ghostriverrentals.com), puts it, “Thanks to the efforts of the Wolf River Conservancy and others in the late ’80s, there is no erosion. It’s a Class 1 river, with a mild current. But we won’t go down the river with a chain saw and clear out the vegetation to make it an easy trip. We want to keep it natural. And when these trees fall across the river, they help to restrict the flow to prevent the erosion so it doesn’t become channelized or become a steep-banked river, like you see in other sections.”

As a result, Babb’s boat rental service recommends having at least one experienced paddler per boat. “A paddler needs to know how to steer a boat,” he says, “how to re-right their boat, how to avoid the tree limbs, how to portage over and around the downed trees.” Or one can spring for a guide to lead a group through the area.

Another option is to stick closer to the city. “When it comes to inexperienced paddlers, we recommend Kayak Memphis Tours (kayakmemphistours.com), which my son started. They offer canoeing and kayaking on the Memphis harbor and at Shelby Farms, including full moon floats every month, and July Fourth fireworks viewing out on the harbor.” — Alex Greene

Order a Wedding Cake Supreme for a summertime dream at Jerry’s. (Photo: Michael Donahue)

Cool off at Jerry’s

With apologies to Mungo Jerry and his song, “In the Summertime”: In the summertime when the weather is high — you can choose from 100 flavors at Jerry’s Sno Cones.

That also goes for fall, winter, and spring. And you can get hamburgers, chicken tenders, and other food items at either of the Jerry’s locations (1657 Wells Station Road or 1601 Bonnie Lane in Cordova).

Owner David Acklin was a customer before he owned the business, which he believes opened in 1967. “I used to go there when I was a teenager,” says David whose favorite flavor was — and still is — blue raspberry.

He got to know the owners L.B. and Cordia Clifton, whose son Jerry was the namesake of the business. The Cliftons became his “replacement grandparents,” says Acklin, who was 18 when he lost his grandfather. Acklin worked at a printing company at the time, but he also worked for the Cliftons for free after he got off his other job.

Acklin eventually bought Jerry’s Sno Cones, but he continued to work at the printing company. “I used to change clothes at red lights. Take off my tie and put on my shorts. … I used to wear penny loafers. I’d pull my socks off and slide into my flip-flops.”

There would already be a line when he got there at 3:30 p.m.

Acklin remembers going outside one July. “The line went straight out around the sign and two houses down.” He asked a kid in line to count the people. “So, 220 people.”

What’s the most popular snow cone flavor? “Wedding Cake Supreme. It’s red wedding cake and it’s got vanilla ice cream running through it.” — Michael Donahue

(Photo: Fortune Vieyra / Unsplash )

Summer in the Streets

Memphis has enough parks and playgrounds and other open space to accommodate a generous amount of summer recreation. And there are things to do off-campus, as it were.

The Bluff City has historically not witnessed the street stickball or other hazardous pastimes of so much big-city urban legend elsewhere, although the city’s sidewalks still work for hopscotch, and, with proper caution and adult supervision and sufficient notice to the neighbors, a children’s game or two undoubtedly gets played in the quieter residential coves.

As it happens, the streets are literally ideal for one particular form of recreation, which also has numerous utilitarian aspects. That would be bike-riding — if performed in the numerous lanes provided and plainly marked out along the margins of city streets and roads and carried out with sufficient attention to the rules of safety, particularly the wearing of helmets. Memphis has a variety of clubs for cyclists, and these groups generally provide for training and both spontaneous and carefully structured events.

As it happens, the simple act of walking and, with special care for fellow pedestrians, running are the most basic, easiest, and least expensive of street pastimes. Here, too, the largely common-sense rules of safety, such as attention to crosswalks and traffic lights, is called for.

Luckily, the Memphis Runners Track Club and other groups organize races and fun runs during the warm-weather months, and these, in cooperation with city government, take place along pre-planned and sectioned-off routes. The charge, when there is one, is nominal.

The often-overlooked Mud Island Riverwalk is technically not a street attraction, but it is outdoors, free of charge, and — in the oft-abused phrase — educational with its evocation of the city’s larger landscape, with enough DIY potential to appeal to the liberated spirit.

And, as veterans remember about the Jakob Dylan street concert of some 20 years ago, a serendipity stemming from a Beale Street opening, once in a while we have the good fortune of some free music. Maybe we’ll get lucky again. — Jackson Baker

Coach Rob Snowberger

Swim!

“It’s hot, and you need a pool!”

That’s how the classic Memphis commercial for Watson’s announced the beginning of summer. When the thermometer creeps upward, nothing is better than splashing in a pool or diving into a lake. But first, you should learn to swim, says Rob Snowberger.

As a swim coach for 50 years and the owner of Coach Rob’s Pool School, Snowberger has taught tens of thousands of Memphians to swim. “Drowning is the second-largest cause of accidental death, after car accidents,” he says. “It is the leading cause of death among preschool children. Below 3,000 deaths is considered a ‘good year.’ Seventy percent of those preschooler deaths take place in the backyard pool, which is the focus of our swim school — trying to avoid that catastrophe.”

Snowberger says it’s never too late to learn to swim — his oldest beginning student ever was 72. Children as young as 18 months can start learning, but the coach says most kids don’t develop the physical coordination needed until about age 3. “Swimming is a very complex feat. You’re kicking your legs, moving your arms, controlling your breathing. You’re turning your head in sequence with your arms. Dribbling a basketball is an easy skill, compared to all those things.”

Is it okay to jump in Memphis’ most famous body of water, the Mississippi River? “Oh, hell no!” says Snowberger.

Swimming in swiftly moving water is extremely dangerous. The Mississippi might look lazy on the surface, but that hides some of the strongest currents in the world. With those currents come all the debris that washed into the river as it traveled from Minnesota to Memphis. Swimmers run the risk of being struck by debris or pulled under by those currents.

Luckily, there are plenty of places to get wet, from public pools to backyard splashes to lakes. Snowberger says if you have small children, avoid the inflatable arm floaties and invest in a good life jacket with a strap between the legs.

And have fun! After all, it’s hot out. — Chris McCoy

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News News Blog

Beer Bracket Challenge 2020: Go Vote for Your Fave Memphis Beers

Voting is important. Voting on beer is important-er.

That’s why we launched the Memphis Flyer Beer Bracket Challenge. Voting commenced this morning (Thursday) and will run until the champion is picked on Saturday, February 29th. (Leap Year, weird.)

For this year’s challenge, we split our bracket into four divisions — light beer, dark beer, IPA, and seasonals. We really like the idea of the breweries all competing in (roughly) the same style.

Yes, you’ll still have, say, a cream ale up against a pilsner. But this ain’t the Great American Beer Fest, y’all. This is for anyone out there who loves Memphis craft beer.  

We asked six of Memphis’ craft breweries to send us their picks in each category. On Match-Up Monday at the Young Avenue Deli, we seeded those beers on our bracket. We picked the matchups blindly right out of our famous trophy — the VanWyngarden Cup. So, we didn’t influence the match-ups. That’s fair, right?

The rest is now up to you. Do you love Tiny Bomb? Are you ga-ga for Mexican Lager? Does Midnight Magic have you under its spell? (I’ll stop.) Well, go and do your civic, craft-beer duty and vote at the bracket challenge website. (Did we give you the website yet? If not, here it is.)

You can vote once in each of the five rounds of voting — first round, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, and the championship round. It runs just like another lesser-known tournament that happens this time of year involving basketball. Except it’s better. It’s Memphis craft beer.

if you’re not yet convinced to get off your barstool and go vote, let’s sweeten the pot. Some lucky voters will win tickets to the one-of-a-kind Memphis Brewfest, a beer festival held on the field at Liberty Bowl Stadium.  

Best of luck to all of our breweries this year: Ghost River, Wiseacre, Crosstown, High Cotton, Memphis Made, and last year’s winner, Meddlesome Brewing. 

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Cover Feature News

The King of (Memphis) Beer!

Meddlesome Brewing’s 201 Hoplar is the best beer in Memphis, according to the 2,344 voters in The Memphis Flyer & Aldo’s Pizza Pies’ 2018 Beer Bracket Challenge.

Meddlesome is a relative newcomer to the Memphis brewing scene, a plucky upstart from the Dirty ‘Dova. Oh, wait, Dirty Dova is another Meddlesome IPA. We are here to talk about 201 Hoplar, the IPA that won Memphis hearts — and the 2018 trophy. 

The 201 Hoplar IPA is “everything Memphis is,” according to Meddlesome. It’s “strong, flavorful, and an unforgettable experience.” Dosed with chinook and Columbus hops, the beer is “oozing with resin, pine, grapefruit, and ripe pineapple.” 

Meddlesome owners Richie EsQuivel and Ben Pugh created 201 Hoplar to “be exactly what a West Coast IPA should be.” It’s not “over-the-top bitter” on the front end, and the slightly fruity flavors roll in right after that for an accessible, easy-drinking IPA.  

The kings of Memphis beer are Meddlesome Brewing Co.

Meddlesome opened last year in Cordova, just a stone’s throw from the Shelby Farms dog park. But their fans hit our poll with enthusiasm and pushed 201 Hoplar past many Memphis craft beer powerhouses.

The brewery is a dream project for EsQuivel, a former brewer at Boscos Brewing, and Pugh, a former brewer at Rock’n Dough Pizza & Brew Co. Rising to the top of the bracket so fast was surprising to Pugh, but a welcomed surprise.

“It’s taken us aback, honestly,” Pugh said. “We’ve only been open about eight months, and we did not expect it. Once we saw we’d made it to the finals, we were pumped that we’d even made it that far.”

Our trophy — the VanWyngarden Cup (so named because it’s an old ice bucket that the Flyer editor donated) — has rested in a place of honor for the last year. Wreathed in a crown of hops, the cup sat high above the beautiful taproom bar at Ghost River Brewing Co. That company’s classic golden ale, simply called Gold, won our inaugural challenge last year. 

“We had a great year, showing off the trophy and being the King of Memphis Beer,” said Suzanne Williamson, Ghost River’s vice president of marketing, giving a nod to the headline of our cover story last year.

Williamson said Ghost River had fun with the bracket again this year and plans to bring the trophy back to “its true and rightful home,” next year. 

The Flyer‘s Beer Bracket Challenge was broken up into four categories — light beer, dark beer, IPAs, and seasonals. We asked our breweries to submit their beers in those categories. Beer lovers know the bracket categories are broad. Dozens of different beer styles reside in each one. We wanted to meet Memphis beer drinkers where they were. Our beer scene is growing and so are the palates of Memphis beer drinkers. (See our story.) As our scene changes, so, too, may our bracket.      

In the meantime, we knew, for example, that a Kölsch couldn’t (and shouldn’t) compete head to head with a different style, like a pilsner. So, to ensure some kind of objectivity, I pulled an Aldo’s Pizza Pies staff hat over my eyes and blindly picked the match-ups out of a cup. And I did it on Facebook Live. Drinking beer, talking beer, and looking silly on the internet? It was a dream job no one ever told me existed.

With the bracket set, our voters did the rest. Hundreds of votes were cast during each round, for a final total of 12,837 individual votes (with about 1,000 more voters than last year). 

On its way to the top, 201 Hoplar defeated Boscos Restaurant & Brewing Co.’s legendary Hop God in the first round of IPA voting. Voters floated it through two more rounds, besting High Cotton’s amazing IPA and Wiseacre’s heavyweight Ananda. 

In the Final Four, 201 Hoplar faced Wiseacre’s Tiny Bomb, which might be considered the Michael Jordan of the Memphis beer market, but they pulled off the upset of the tournament. In the end, 201 Hoplar faced Wiseacre’s Astronaut Status, a barrel-aged Imperial stout out of the seasonal category. 

Except for the IPA category, Wiseacre dominated this year, winning the other three categories: Tiny Bomb in light, Gotta Get Up to Get Down in dark, and, of course, Astronaut Status in seasonal.   

It should also be noted that newcomers Crosstown Brewing fielded a team of four beers at the same time they were opening their brand-new brewery close to (you guessed it) Crosstown Concourse. 

Owners Will Goodwin and Clark Ortkiese joined us for a brief talk during our Facebook Live event at Aldo’s. The guys are passionate. The brewery is massive, and the beers are good. Look for Crosstown to show up bigly on next year’s bracket.

Yes, we know we’re not the first to “bracket-ize” beers. The idea has been used in other alt-weeklies around the country. Heck, the Memphis Craft Beer blog ran Malt Madness in 2015. Consider our hats tipped all around. Job One with this bracket was to have fun. Beer is fun, and we wanted to have fun with beer. Basketball fans get a bracket every year. Beer drinkers should have one, too. 

What we never want to do with this bracket is to make it seem like Memphis breweries are seriously pitted against each other. Sure, they compete, but from the stories I’ve heard, brewers and breweries in Memphis help each other out, trading knowledge and equipment and drinking each others’ brews. We are not creating some fictional friction. Again, we’re just having fun. 

Whether you like bracket contests or not, remember: The best beer in Memphis will always be your favorite.

The Memphis Beer Scene

The Memphis brewing scene is continuing to grow and change. Two new breweries have recently opened — Meddlesome and Crosstown Brewing. Other new beers enter the Memphis market all the time from regional craft breweries like Devil’s Backbone Brewing and Green Flash Brewing (both from Virginia) or Perennial Artisan Ales out of St. Louis.   

Consider this a sort of “State of Memphis Beer” story. I talked with folks at the city’s big draft houses — the Flying Saucer, Young Avenue Deli, and Hammer and Ale — beer people who have been watching the scene here for years. I also got some insights from two people who helped shape the Memphis craft scene and have started new careers as sales reps for out-of-state, regional brands.

There is now a “great flood of folks thirsty for craft beer” pouring into the downtown and Cordova locations of the Flying Saucer, says co-founder and beer expert Keith Schlabs. While the Saucer concept was embraced when it opened in May 1997, craft beer wasn’t an easy sell. 

“We had 80 taps full of offerings, many of which were available to the people of Memphis for the first time,” says Schlabs. “However, we were battling the ‘bitter beer face’ campaign, where anything that wasn’t a mass-produced adjunct lager or a light lager was ridiculously painted as ‘bad beer.'”

Bitterness wasn’t understood, making it hard to sell hop-forward styles like pale ales and IPAs, Schlabs says. Even filling the Saucer’s massive tap wall was a challenge. Rogue, Anchor, and Breckenridge dominated its 80 taps, and the rest were sourced by Gene and Steve Barzizza and the Memphis team at Southwestern Distributing.     

But the Saucer persisted and “we saw rocket growth once the craft beer movement kicked into high gear,” Schlabs says. “Some thought this was a fad, but we knew it was not. Small brewery tap rooms are growing and this could impact our growth.”

When Tessa Pascover, general manager of the Young Avenue Deli, started as a waitress in 2010, Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob, and Killians still had spots on its draft wall. Craft beer now dominates its 35 taps with one exception, Pabst Blue Ribbon. 

“Nowadays, after what I call the ‘hand-crafted beer revolution,’ there’s a new brewery that comes to town and new breweries [at the Deli] all the time,” Pascover says. “There are a ton of new options, and it’s just a really exciting time.”

In 2013, local brewers High Cotton, Memphis Made, and Wiseacre opened within six months of each other. It was a sort of explosion for Memphis beer, first ignited by here by Boscos and Ghost River. That new growth was an inspiration for Kevin Eble and David Smith, who opened what was then called The Growler in Cooper-Young. At the time, most Memphians didn’t really know what a growler was. The name was changed to Hammer & Ale, but the core mission — a focus on craft beer — remained the same. 

Kevin Eble hefts a giant mallet and a hand-crafted pint at Hammer and Ale.

“Our whole thing is that you can come in and get everybody’s stuff,” Eble says. “The breweries, obviously, are limited [to their own beers] but we’re lucky enough to sell everybody’s beer. People started grabbing onto it pretty quickly and accepting craft beer as something important.”

When Memphis offerings changed, so did its beer drinkers. Civic pride in local brews swelled. You can drink Memphis beer in Memphis like never before. With brewery taprooms, you can consume a local brew steps away from where it was born. It doesn’t get more local than that. 

Taylor James helped found and form the Madison Growler (the growler station inside the Madison Cash Saver) and make the grocery store a craft beer destination. He’s seen first-hand how Memphis beer drinkers’ tastes have become more sophisticated.

“Sour beers were something that, four or five years ago, you would have put in the Memphis market, and it would have just sat there,” James says. “People would have been like, ‘You’re trying to sell me something that’s sour?’ Then I would’ve explained that it’s not like sour candy but it’s because brewers put bacteria in the [beer]. Then they’re down the aisle running away from you and looking for something else.”

But if you were drinking beer last spring and summer, you know that sours were “the thing.” 

So, how did Memphis beer drinkers evolve from “Lite” drinkers to appreciators of, say, a bacteria-borne sour beer? For Cory York, formerly with Ghost River, it comes down to education.

“People in Memphis are figuring out what craft beer is,” York says. “It’s mainly word of mouth. It’s that tried and true story … ‘I had a buddy pressure me and here I am.'”

“The local breweries had a big impact,” Pascover says. “The college crowd were always the domestic beer drinkers, and they didn’t really know about [craft beer]. Now, they come in and they want a Wiseacre or a Ghost River. The local breweries have definitely developed the local market.”

“Memphians realized they didn’t have to be pigeon-holed into a pilsner,” Eble says. “You can move into a pale ale with some hops in it or a stout or something dark or barrel-aged. It’s a progression of taste. You start seeing funky things like sours staying on the market because people’s tastes have changed.”

But Schlabs says beer drinkers here (like drinkers in most markets) still want session beers. “People want that yellow, fizzy pint at the end of a long day of work,” he says. “It’s our mission and duty to make sure that that yellow, fizzy pint is something that’s consistently well-made by someone who has worked their butt off for craft beer, someone who needs our business and someone we want to support.”

Memphis has seven independent companies brewing beer: Boscos, Ghost River, High Cotton, Wiseacre, Memphis Made, Meddlesome, and Crosstown. Nashville has about 20. Little Rock has seven or so, and the state of Mississippi has about 18, according to Beer Advocate. But do numbers like that really matter?

Not according to Taylor James, who became a sales rep for San Diego-based Ballast Point Brewing last year. “San Diego,” he says, “has about 150 breweries, and all of them are good. Memphis has come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.”

At the Saucer, Schlabs says his crew is still pushing beer drinkers to discover new tastes — to attract new craft fans and keep the old ones interested. “The onset of fruited, tropical IPAs is a good example of the industry making efforts to appeal to an extended range of palates,” Schlabs says.

Pascover says the Deli is riding the craft beer trend and is constantly looking for the next great beer. She remembers when IPAs where the thing, then it was sour beers, and “last year it was fruit in beer, like watermelon-lime pilsner, or raspberry truffle stout, or a pineapple passion fruit IPA. This year its going to be hazy, juicy IPAs, filled with fruit.”  

Eble believes the Memphis craft beer scene still has a lot more room to grow. “Consumers have been exposed to craft’s panoply of flavors and nobody is going to say, ‘Well, I’m going to start drinking Bud again.'” 

But the “craft beer” scene of the past changed significantly when macro breweries (like those who make Bud, Miller, and Coors) started snapping up smaller breweries, scaling up their production, and shipping those “craft” brands into markets like Memphis. Crafty-looking brands like Goose Island, Elysian Brewing, or Lagunitas may look like they were made at the cool brewery down the road, but their owners are likely jet-setting hedge fund managers.

“This [craft beer] heritage we’ve spent so many years to build is being threatened,” Greg Koch, co-founder of craft beer stalwart Stone Brewing, said in a recent video. “Big beer [sales have] been flat or declining and they’ve gone out in the craft world and made acquisitions.” So now, “craft” breweries is the preferred nomenclature for locally owned, hands-on companies like High Cotton or Wiseacre, and independents are opening like crazy.

“I believe the number I heard was a new brewery opens in America every 11 hours now,” says Schlabs. “When we started Flying Saucer in 1995, there were 2,000 or so, and now there are over 7,000. Too much of a good thing can start to be bad.” But that’s not a concern in Memphis, yet. 

“I don’t think we’ve plateaued in Memphis by any means,” says York, now a sales rep with Hattiesburg-based Southern Prohibition. “The more breweries that pop up, there is going to be more competition. You’re going to start to see breweries realize the other steps they need to take to compete.”

James says education will continue to be the key. But craft breweries like Ballast Point are also beginning to make beers that meet entry-level consumers at, well, the entry levels — with light pilsners and lagers. 

The best ingredient for Memphis beer is always going to be Memphis, says Eble. “The local stuff is better because you know the people who made it, and you know where it was made. That’s better than some guy at Budweiser just following a recipe.”

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Beer Bracket 2/22-3/1

Last year’s bracket, round 2

Around this time last year, a name was engraved on an old gray ice bucket and presented to the winner. This year, the same thing will happen, another (same?) name on the same ice bucket. It’s like the Stanley Cup.

The Flyer’s annual Beer Bracket Challenge launches tomorrow. 28 beers going for glory.

Last year’s winner was Ghost River’s classic Gold, the old reliable of Memphis Beers.

This year, three new breweries are heading into the fray: Meddlesome, Crosstown, Brewing, and Boscos. Toby Sells explains that Boscos, while not new, wasn’t included last year because he featured only breweries with beers readily available in stores and bars/restaurants. But this year he figured, “You like beer, you need to have Boscos.”

Round One is tomorrow, February 22nd, with the Final Two starting Wednesday at 8 a.m. and running through March 1st, midnight. The winner will be announced in the Flyer’s March 8th issue.

Sells says he has plenty of favorites among the 28, though he’s not rooting for one beer over the other. “There’s so much good stuff out there. We’ll see how it goes.”

In addition to revealing the winner, the March 8th beer-iffic cover will examine the state of the Memphis beer scene. Can Memphis accommodate more breweries and beers from outside the area? Have Memphis beer-drinkers changed since the scene exploded in 2013?

Check it out and stay tuned for Beer Bracket-related events.  

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Southern Sympathy Cookbook and the Ghost River book club

There are worse ways to go than getting your latest book written up by the New York Times. The Southern Sympathy Cookbook by local food writer Perre Coleman Magness did merit a recent NYT feature. It’s a fun, fun book — peppered with outrageous obits and funeral memories as well as some very Southern recipes.

Magness took some time recently to answer a few questions.

What is it about funeral foods that drew you?

I think funeral food is the ultimate comfort food. It’s made with love and for love. When people make a meal for a friend in need, they choose the things they do the best, so it is always good, home cooking. And I love the traditions around Southern funerals and how people truly come together to celebrate life. Plus, reading obituaries from around the South and gathering stories about funeral traditions has been very entertaining!

The subtitle is “Funeral Food with a Twist.” What’s the twist?

The recipes are true classics, with some creative twists and modern takes. I think the funeral spread has often been the realm of canned soup and packaged mixes. I’ve reworked traditional recipes to use fresh ingredients — like chicken spaghetti that uses freshly roasted poblano peppers, fresh tomatoes, and real cheese, or Jack and Coke Cake, a traditional Coca-Cola cake with Jack Daniels. I’ve covered everything from breakfast to snacks to casseroles and sweets. And of course, it’s a Southern funeral food book, so I couldn’t skip the gelatin salad — but I promise they are fresh and good, with nary a dollop of Cool Whip in sight!

Is there a wrong dish one can bring to a wake? Cupcakes?

Ha! I’d leave off the sprinkles and the candles. I think as long as it comes from the heart, it’s the right thing. But come on, take the chicken out of the bucket.

What is your favorite funeral food?

You can’t go wrong with caramel cake, and for me, pimento cheese is always the right thing. Like a lot of people I spoke to while working on this project, I think you can’t go wrong with fried chicken. I know it can get a bad rap, but a ham really is useful. And hey, I’m a born and bred Memphian, so pulled pork with a good sauce.

You seem to focus in on Southern cuisine. Will you be branching out?

Southern cooking is where my heart is. There is such a rich diversity and history, and I feel like I am constantly discovering new ideas or learning more about old ones. We’ve got such an abundance of beautiful, local, and regional produce and so many people creating interesting products that I find it endlessly fascinating. I do branch out — I travel quite a bit and love to explore new cuisines and ideas, but I always seem to come back to my roots.

We all know that most book clubs are about the drankin’. A new book club collaboration between Ghost River and Novel gets straight to it. The inaugural meeting, held last Friday, revolved around the book Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. This book, super creepy, most certainly led to a juicy discussion. The book club is held on the third Thursday of every month. Stay tuned for next month’s selection. Ghost River’s Suzanne Williamson fielded some questions about the club.

Where did the idea come from?

Ghost River came up with the idea and reached out to Novel to partner. Novel is very excited about the partnership. We are excited to work together and have a successful club.

How did you choose the book?

Novel chose the first book. We thought that we would discuss future titles with members of Get Lit(erary) early on. Every club has a feel, and we want to see where that lands.

What do you envision for the book club?

Memphians and Ghost River have a great interest in Novel’s success. We also thought that it would be a great idea to connect young and old, bridge downtown and East Memphis through this book club. Ghost River’s Tap Room has always been a community Tap Room, and this is another opportunity to host the community.

How frequent is it?

We will be meeting once a month — the third Thursday of every month.

What’s the next book?

We have a selection, but have decided to get input at our first meeting. We want to make sure our club reaches most of our member’s interests.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Go Local for Thanksgiving Drinks and Dinner

If you’re like most Americans — me included — you’re probably about to sit down to a hyper-local Thanksgiving with a heritage turkey that roamed Tennessee fields, pecans that just fell from the tree, and sweet potatoes that were purchased directly from an area farmer. So why, then, would you look to Europe for your Thanksgiving wine?

Yes, I know — this time last year, I extolled the virtues of Beaujolais nouveau, a fruity French wine. For this week’s feast, however, I plan to give thanks while celebrating the best American drinks I can afford.

It’s a no-brainer to support the winemakers of northern California, who are now in the process of assessing the long-term effects of last month’s devastating wildfires. According to the Los Angeles Times and numbers reported by the Wine Institute, an industry advocate, only 10 of 1,200 wineries in Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino were destroyed, and 90 percent of the 2017 harvest was complete when disaster struck, but the region needs a boost. Short of a vacation to Napa Valley, buying their products will help winemakers and staff return to normal. Some wineries are also pledging a percentage of sales directly to fire victims. Look for Iron Horse Vineyards 2012 Gratitude, a pinot noir and chardonnay blend — $5 from every bottle sold goes to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. The entire proceeds from bottles of Limerick Lane’s 2014 Syrah Grenache, meanwhile, go to the North Bay Fire Relief Fund.

If you’d like to experiment without breaking the bank, the Top 100 Best Buys for 2017 at Wine Enthusiast lists plenty of affordable domestic wines that will shine at your special meal. The Glenora 2015 Riesling, which hails from the Finger Lakes region, costs just $14 a bottle. Or, for the same price, you can pick up Duck Pond’s 2016 Pinot Gris, which was bottled in Oregon’s booming Williamette Valley. Three out of the very top five wines selected by Wine Enthusiast‘s critics come from these shores: The A to Z 2016 Riesling, another Oregon wine; Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi 2015 Pinot Noir, a California wine; and Columbia Crest’s 2015 Grand Estates Syrah, which comes from the Columbia Valley region of Washington State.

Wine sales aren’t permitted on Thanksgiving Day, so unless your cellar is already well-stocked, you might have to expand your horizons to drink local.

With a few cups of Kentucky bourbon and an hour or two head start, you can make a gorgeous Earl Grey-Bourbon Punch. I found the perfect recipe in the November 2016 edition of Bon Appetit. Bonus points if you use local honey and rosemary sprigs cut from a bush in your own yard.

Food & Wine has a recipe for a Hard Cider Sangria that looks deliciously festive and can easily be made with local ingredients, beginning with one of the small-batch ciders brewed by the fabulous Long Road Cider Company. Pick up a bottle at their headquarters in Barretsville or at various locations around town, including Miss Cordelia’s Grocery on Mud Island and the Madison Growler Shop inside Midtown’s Cash Saver.

That hard cider can also be combined with cognac in a Collins glass for a drink that the writers at Epicurious have coined “The Fall Spritz.” Or pair hard cider with Tennessee whiskey, simple syrup, an orange slice, and a few dashes of bitters for a drink that Maxim magazine dubbed the Fall Fashioned.

If all else fails, pick up a six-pack or growler of Memphis beer on your way to dinner. Look for Memphis Made’s Rye Felicia or Fireside Amber, Wiseacre’s Gemütlichkeit Oktoberfest Marzenbier, the High Cotton Chocolate Rye Porter (perfect for those who want to skip pecan pie), or Ghost River’s Citra Smash. Ranging from yeasty and toasty flavors to the seemingly ubiquitous pale ale, any of these have attributes that earn them a seat at the Thanksgiving table.

Categories
Cover Feature News

King of (Memphis) Beer!

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Ghost River Gold is the best beer in Memphis, according to the nearly 1,500 voters in The Memphis Flyer & Aldo’s Beer Bracket Challenge.

The Golden Ale itself is light, delicate even, but the beer brand is tough and trusty and survived the early days as a pioneer in the Memphis craft beer wilderness.

Long before there were craft breweries everywhere, Ghost River went solo, a scrappy Memphis beer taking on the national brands. Ghost River persevered, pumping oceans of what was originally called Ghost River Golden Ale into the market and, judging from the voting, into the hearts of a legion of fans. 

“Overjoyed,” was how Ghost River’s head brewer Jimmy Randall described his feeling on hearing about Gold’s win. “I’m just so grateful for the continuing support we’ve received from our hometown.” 

Justin Fox Burks

Memphis did, indeed, give Ghost River a lot of love during our week of voting. It was a 16-beer bracket, featuring brews from all four local breweries: Memphis Made, Wiseacre, High Cotton, and Ghost River. Two Ghost River beers — Gold and Grindhouse — made it to the final round. Gold won by only a few votes, but Ghost River was the winner, either way. 

The Flyer‘s Beer Bracket Challenge was broken up into four categories — light beer, dark beer, IPAs, and seasonals. We asked our breweries what beers they wanted to represent them in those categories. We knew, though, that a Kölsch couldn’t (and shouldn’t) compete head to head with a different style, like a pilsner. So, to ensure some kind of objectivity, I donned a blindfold and picked the match-ups out of my red, Bass Pro drinking hat at Aldo’s Pizza Pies Downtown on Facebook Live. 

With the bracket set, our voters did the rest. Hundreds of votes were cast during each round, for a final total of about 1,500 individual voters.        

Yes, we know we’re not the first to “bracket-ize” beers. The idea has been floated in other alt weeklies around the country. Heck, the Memphis Craft Beer blog ran Malt Madness in 2015. Consider our hats tipped all around. 

Running such a bracket is not without controversy. Beer styles are very different. Flavor choices — the brewing arts in general — are subjective. Our bracket was “just a popularity contest,” we were told. To which we say, hell yes! At its heart, that’s exactly what this was. Take it for what it is: fun.  

Thanks to this story, I got to get reacquainted with our local breweries. Except for Ghost River, they all opened for business in 2013, and after four years, they’re all still dedicated to making the best beer they can. 

But the craft beer boom is continuing. Look for one, possibly two, new breweries to pop up this year. Meddlesome Brewing, in Cordova, is planning to open this spring or summer. Crosstown Brewing pulled a $1.2 million building permit last week for its new building at (you guessed it) Crosstown Concourse.

Meanwhile, here’s a little fresh-brewed news on our breweries.  

Wiseacre Brewing: The Tale of Tiny Bomb

Davin Bartosch was making coffee. Kellan, Davin’s brother and business partner, was chatting up The Memphis Flyer reporter in the Wiseacre break room. Davin, however, was making coffee with a loving focus that afforded no bandwidth for small talk until that coffee was made. If it’s anything like their beers, I thought, that’s going to be some damn good coffee.  

Employees buzzed around the brewery, watching complicated brewing apparatus, answering phones, filing paperwork, or minding the bar. Kellan said the company now has about 20 full-time employees. They’re characters, every one, he said, but also hard workers who “really helped build this.”

The brothers long dreamed of opening a brewery and doing it in Memphis. It was realized in 2013, and they’ve gone full-steam ever since. Wiseacre is a formidable force in Memphis craft beer, and their beers are now sold in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. But their success has led to a happy problem: They’ve run out of room to make more beer. 

“We can’t put any more tanks in the building,” Kellan said. “So, we’ve heard from people in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, California, Florida — places that we could really pursue — but we currently can’t do anything else in our building in terms of production.”

Wiseacre is still mulling a move to expand their operation to the Mid-South Coliseum, but the Bartosches said no decision on that has been made. But, Kellan said, they’re happy as things are now. They love focusing on Memphis and making tons of Tiny Bomb, Ananda (the two best-selling Tennessee-made beers in the state, Kellan said), and Gotta Get Up to Get Down. 

Beer names that spring from Wiseacre are routinely unusual: Men, Not Machines, Azazel, Neon Brown, and Unicornicopia. Even Adjective Animal is a meta-play on beer-naming conventions. 

“I think our branding strategy is to either be clever or stupid, in the Beavis and Butthead kind of way, where it’s funny because it’s so dumb,” Kellan said. 

But the boys were clever when it came to naming Tiny Bomb, which seems like the most basic, everyday, poundable drinker. But it’s more complicated than that (really). 

Davin dreamed up and developed Tiny Bomb, a pilsner, years before Wiseacre opened. It came from his frustration with people “always drinking Bud Light.” “They’d say it was low in calories, so they could drink many of them at a time,” Davin said. “So, I thought, I’m going to find a way to satisfy everybody. So, tiny alcohol, tiny calories, flavor bomb.”

Tiny Bomb is suitable for slamming on a hot day, Davin agreed, but, being a light style, it is also delicate and a challenge to brew.

Kellan thought Davin was joking when he said he wanted to brew a pilsner for Wiseacre. The style was unfashionable at the time. But Davin stuck to Tiny Bomb, and now pilsners are en vogue. 

“(Davin) knew it a decade ago, and we’re just now getting it,” Kellan said. “(Vincent) van Gogh died before people liked his art. Thankfully, Davin is still alive to see people enjoy Tiny Bomb.”

Toby Sells

High Cotton’s Ross Avery (left) and Ryan Staggs

High Cotton: A Scottish Shocker

Ryan Staggs is flummoxed, happily flummoxed. 

Scottish Ale, a beer he developed in his garage, is High Cotton Brewing’s best-selling beer. But he doesn’t know why. 

“It’s crazy!” Staggs said. “Who would have thought that a dark beer like that would have been (so successful).”

When High Cotton opened in 2013 in the Edge neighborhood, Staggs’ Scottish Ale was the only recipe all three brewery owners decided was ready to go without further tweaking. 

“It was money from the get-go,” said co-owner Ross Avery. 

Staggs said Scottish is easy to drink but a challenge to “make it, ferment it, and take care of it.” He says the style is “not really exotic” and “super traditional.” There’s no crazy yeast strain needed and no crazy ingredients. 

“There’s no Scottish ales with mango or spruce tips,” Staggs joked. 

But the style demands a brew done “exactly right,” or “the flaws come through pretty quickly,” Staggs said. He tips his hat to the macro brewers (Bud, Miller, and Coors) for making “a lager that at least tastes consistent. Maybe it’s not good, but it tastes consistent. That’s a feat in itself.”

The process produces a beer with a clean finish, Staggs said, “But it’s also a robust enough style where it’s still kind of rich, and caramely; it’s toffee, it’s toasty, and slightly roasty. I know that — sorry [Beer Judge Certification Program] — people are like, Scottish ales aren’t roasty! But roasted barley is what lends that flavor and what people perceive as roasty, and that is absolutely traditional in the brewing process.”

Staggs brewed at home for about five years before helping to found High Cotton. His training and experience as a civil engineer launched his respect for “the nerdy science behind brewing beer.” Copious notes and numerous iterations helped him refine the recipe, and it has paid off. 

“What we drink today was kind of the final result of that [research and development] at my house,” Staggs said. 

Having a brewery, a taproom, and beers for sale in Kroger are dreams come true for Staggs. But he said he couldn’t have imagined it would have been his Scottish that won the day. 

“It’s sort of a gateway to craft beer for Memphians,” said Avery. “They had experience [with craft beer] with Ghost River Golden. So, we weren’t going to make another golden [ale]. And now it’s become our best seller.”

Avery said, “The summer before last, the temperature really started spiking up. I thought, a dark beer in the summertime? And yet sales remained steady. All I could imagine were people sitting in dark bars where it was cold.”

High Cotton recently expanded its seating capacity with a back bar that has huge windows looking into the brew house. Staggs said it’s always available during taproom hours and for private events. He said the company is experimenting with some new beers and is planning to be in new cans soon. 

Toby Sells

Memphis Made’s Andy Ashby (left) and Drew Barton

Memphis Made: A Fireside Mystery

Bombers on a bottling line. That was the first thing I noticed on a visit to Memphis Made last week. 
“Is that a temporary bottling line?” I asked, pointing at the machine. 

“I mean, it’s temporary, as in it will run until we break it,” said Drew Barton, co-founder and head brewer at Memphis Made. 

Memphis Made is the only Big Four Memphis brewery without a regularly available packaged product in local stores. They have done specialty bombers (750 milliliter bottles), and they canned up their Gonerfest IPA last year in a one-off deal. But the permanent bottling line will make packaged sales a more permanent fixture.

Those bottled beers will be exclusively high-gravity, Barton said. The first will be Soulless Ginger, a take on a brewery cult favorite, Soulful Ginger. Barton described Soulless Ginger as “a little more alcohol, a little more ginger, and way less soul.”

Barton said to look for the new Ginger soon in growler shops, package stores, some convenience stores, and — while he couldn’t say the names of them, specifically — some “grocery stores.”

“It’ll be small-batch stuff,” said co-founder Andy Ashby. “So, it’s not going to be everywhere all the time. We’re north of 150 accounts in Shelby County. Basically, some of the places we’re at now are going have it, including some grocery stores.”

Memphis Made opened in 2013’s Great Craft Beer Awakening. Nearly a year later, the company opened its Cooper-Young taproom. Brewing new beers and hosting tons of taproom events has made life busy for Ashby, Barton, and Memphis Made’s small cadre of employees.

“We’re tired, but we’re happy,” Barton said. “We threw out the business plan a long time ago.”

Memphis Made, too, is known for its beer names that range from inside jokes to super-Memphis-y public scandals. (See: RockBone IPA.) The name Fireside, for its amber ale, comes with permission from a North Carolina brewery already using the name. The non-mystery about the beer is that Barton and Ashby just liked the name. The real Fireside mystery is how well it sells. 

“I’m baffled by it,” Barton said. 

Ashby said, “It’s different, but it’s accessible. Every brewery out there has an IPA. But a nice, malty amber that is drinkable? People just really tend to gravitate toward it.”

Memphis Made was planned as a seasonal brewery, aimed at changing its beers every few months and never keeping on any beers year-round. Fireside began its life as a fall seasonal, Ashby said. When it left the taps, “I’d get lambasted,” Ashby said, by Fireside fans worried that they wouldn’t see their Memphis Made stand-by for another year. 

So, they brought it on full-time. Ashby said he didn’t worry about its success in the spring but certainly did in the Memphis summertime.

“Is this amber going to sell when it’s 110 degrees outside?” Ashby wondered. “It didn’t miss a beat. It’s pretty crazy. I didn’t see that one coming, either.”

Ghost River:
A Solid-Gold Success Story

Everything has changed at Ghost River, and also nothing has changed at all.

This New Year’s Eve will mark the 10th anniversary of Ghost River’s first brew. When they celebrate, they’ll have new branding, some new beer names, and a brand new taproom.   

Much of this was done to simply refresh the brand, to match Ghost River to what was happening in the craft beer world around it. But there’s one thing that will be almost exactly the same — the beer. Randall said none of the recipes have changed, really, and neither has its starting lineup of beers, though Grindhouse has been added.   

For years, Ghost River was the only local choice for locally made beers, except for the taps at Boscos. (Both companies are owned by the same parent company.) Back then, you’d ask a bartender what was local, and you wouldn’t hear brewery names, you’d hear “1887,” or “the (Riverbank) Red,” or, mostly, you’d hear “Golden.” You knew this all meant different Ghost River styles. At the grocery store, beer fans’ eyes were trained to find that slightly green label with the big, spooky-looking cypress tree.  

“Losing that tree made me cry,” said Ghost River owner Jerry Feinstone, speaking about the brewery’s recent redesigned branding. 

“You and a lot of other people,” said the company marketing vice president Suzanne Williamson.

“But I think it’s okay,” Feinstone said. “We may end up with some retro products one day.”

The old cypress tree logo was a brand icon, but it was also a direct link to a part of Ghost River’s conservation mission. The brewery uses water from the Memphis Sand aquifer (as all Memphis breweries do). To give back, Ghost River donates $1 from every barrel of beer they sell to the Wolf River Conservancy.   

Last year, that old, haunted cypress tree logo was replaced by a lantern, which now adorns the company’s bottles, tap handles, and the neon sign hanging outside the company’s South Main taproom. 

“As [The Memphis Flyer and Aldo’s Beer Bracket Challenge] showed — being the first — the leader always carries the lantern,” Feinstone said. 

I asked Feinstone where the name “Gold” came from for his golden ale.

“It’s just a color,” he said, laughing. “It’s a style. I guess if you’re the only game in town, you have all the names available to you. We weren’t smart enough to think of something fancy for Golden Ale.”

But a lot of thought went into brewing Golden Ale back in the day.  

“Being the first, we were the introductory to craft for Memphis palates,” said Williamson. “We wanted to, maybe, set the Golden next to a major brand that wasn’t necessarily craft. We’d say, you’re drinking this, how about trying this?”

While craft has taken off, Gold hasn’t changed (except for the name). Randall said the recipe has gone largely untouched over the years. While it’s still a gateway beer for new craft drinkers, it’s become a trusty go-to beer for seasoned consumers. 

Gold itself is an American blonde ale, Randall said. When it comes to flavor, consider Gold a balanced Goldilocks. 

“It has very soft malt flavors, enough hops to kind of balance the profile out,” Randall said. “It doesn’t come across as hoppy or bitter. It doesn’t come across as malty.”

Feinstone said Gold’s win on the Beer Bracket Challenge is a “real good feeling.” Getting there was done one beer at a time.

“We just have to blame it on people going out and trying beers and saying, ‘This fits my palate. I’ll have another.'”

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Changes at Ghost River

The space is a mess — dusty concrete floors, hanging wires, pipes sticking out of the floor, plastic hung over doorways. But soon, this will be Ghost River Brewing’s new taproom.

The new taproom comes, along with a change in branding, just in time for the craft brewery’s 10th anniversary.

The space was carved out of the front of the Ghost River building. Office space and storage was sacrificed for the taproom, which will feature a bar along the front with 12 taps and a large window into the brewing operations with the big, gleaming steel tanks (six 25-barrel tanks and 12 50-barrel tanks).

Family photo with with baby Randall and granddad in Budweiser shirt

“We got our hands dirty first,” Jimmy Randall, Ghost River’s head brewer, says of Memphis’ craft beer scene. “But when we started, we legally could not open a taproom.”

Then, with High Cotton leading the charge, the law requiring food be served wherever alcohol is sold was changed.

The question subsequently arose about where to put Ghost River’s taproom. Off-premises seemed the most logical conclusion. But, says Randall, it wasn’t feasible to run an operation off-site for 20 hours while maintaining the brewery. Ghost River’s building offered no give, either — until it did.

“We didn’t have room,” Randall says. “Then we said, ‘Let’s tear down some walls.’ Sure enough, we have the space.”

Ghost River offers three core brands: Ghost River Gold (formerly Golden Ale), Riverbank Red, and 1887. The 1887, an IPA named after the year the sand aquifer was first tapped, is now offered year-round — a nod to Ghost River’s overall rebranding.

owner Jerry Feinstone

The cypress tree, the unifying visual element of all of Ghost River’s beers, has been axed for a look that gives each beer a strong identity.

“When we first started, we needed brand recognition. We needed people to know Ghost River,” Randall says. “Well, people know Ghost River now.”

Hieroglyph was enlisted for the rebranding.

“You can’t have a name like Ghost River and not do something really great with it,” says Josh Horton of Hieroglyph.

Initially, the idea was to do something outdoorsy. That was struck for coloring and images for each beer that tell a story.

There are gold coins on the Gold label; the beer is Ghost River’s best-selling beer by far. “It’s been our bread and butter beer. It speaks well to the palates of non-craft beer consumers,” Randall says. “It’s a wonderful stepping stone out of mass-produced light lagers and moving into craft beer.”

The Riverbank features a copperhead snake on the label, which delves into a bit of Ghost River history. Riverbank started as Home Run Red, which was brewed to be served at AutoZone Park during Redbirds games. The beer proved to be a hit, so they decided to make it year-round, which necessitated a name change. They landed on Copperhead Red, but were thwarted when they discovered a Copperhead Pale already existed.

The 1887 has a bird’s-eye view of a well, a tribute to the sand aquifer. “It’s a nighttime scene. You can see the crescent moon reflecting off the water in the bottom of the well, and there are ripples across the water like someone’s thrown a coin down and made a wish,” Randall says.

Each label has a black background, connnoting mystery and harking back to the ghost. On the bottle neck label is a lantern, which has multiple meanings, including the idea that Ghost River, as the first modern brewery in Memphis, led the way.

As for getting rid of the cypress tree, there was some pushback.

“There’s a lot of love for the cypress tree, and there are a lot of people who miss it,” Randall says. “Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a story associated with it, and we’re finding that our prime market really wants to have a story involved.”

The new branding kicked in about six weeks ago, and the taproom could be open as soon as early October.

“It’s coming up,” Randall says. “Closer and closer.”