Mike Erskine knows beer.
He’s explored its many styles over the years. He’s made plenty of it himself. He’s written about it before. And he’s writing about it again, this time with a fresh approach and a laser focus on the Memphis craft scene.
Erskine, a veteran (and now former) Memphis newspaper reporter, launched the Memphis Beer Blog in January. The launch comes years after shutting down shop on FuzzyBrew, a must-read blog for Memphis craft beer buds that ran from 2010 to around 2017. Erskine ran the blog with his pal Grant Smith, and only stopped when Smith moved away.
FuzzyBrew was “a blog about homebrewing, craft beer, and beer news in Memphis, and beyond,” to quote its (still live) Twitter description. Erskine has focused the Memphis Beer Blog on local breweries, their beers, their events, and their stories.
His motives are simple.
“I want to expose more people to good beer,” Erskine said, “and I want to see our local breweries succeed.”
We caught up with Erskine to learn more about the blog, craft beer’s progression in Memphis over the past decade, and what’s next. — Toby Sells
Memphis Flyer: How did the Memphis Beer Blog come about?
Mike Erskine: I ran into Davin Bartosch at Mempho Music Festival last year. Davin is one of the two brothers behind Wiseacre. He suggested that I resurrect FuzzyBrew because there really was no resource for news about local breweries and local beers.
So, it took me a while to warm to the idea, but I decided that I needed a new creative project and I launched memphisbeerblog.com in January of this year.
It’s everything that I’ve always kind of wanted to do, but never had time to do it. It’s everything from different breweries to a roundup of all of them to different projects they’re working on to individual beers that they’re releasing. There are features on what I think are some of the tastiest beers in town and events happening at local breweries in the community.
I want to expose more people to good beer, and I want see our local breweries succeed.
We’re about 10 years into a craft beer boom in Memphis. What do you think about the progression and where we are now?
Yes, this is a big anniversary year for beer in Memphis. 2023 marks 10 years since Wiseacre, High Cotton, and Memphis Made opened.
So, Ghost River was the only game in town prior to that. I think it opened around 2007. But it was really an extension of Boscos — same ownership. It was a way to get Boscos beer in bars around town and on store shelves without using the Boscos name.
So, when Wiseacre, High Cotton, and Memphis Made opened that year, that really launched a new era of craft beer in Memphis and paved the way for the vibrant scene that we have now.
Prior to 2013 for fans of craft beer, what you could buy in Memphis was really limited. Back then you might head to Walgreens in West Memphis to get beers that are not sold in Memphis. You might travel to Nashville and bring home beers from breweries that didn’t distribute in Memphis.
So, when those three breweries opened in 2013, there was a shift, and all of a sudden you had options for a good, local beer.
Memphis is not gonna make it on a list of best craft beer cities in the U.S. anytime soon. But the beer scene in Memphis is healthy. It’s still growing, which is great.
There’s about a dozen breweries in Shelby County now. I think four of them have opened since 2021. There are more on the way. There are two that I know that are either opening or planning to open soon.
The growth of breweries in Memphis has been slow relative to places like Asheville, Boulder, Portland, and San Diego, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Other cities have seen many local breweries open and close in the last decade.
So far, everyone here has made it, and even more new breweries are opening. It will be interesting to watch how the beer scene in Memphis evolves in the next 10 years.
What is next for the Memphis Beer Blog?
With new breweries opening, new beers coming out, and events happening all the time, I have plenty to write about. But I’m also planning to expand the site to feature some of the best beer bars in town, as well as the best places to buy good beer on store shelves.
Also, one of my favorite things to do when I was writing on FuzzyBrew was to share stories about the breweries I visited when I traveled outside of Memphis. I’m planning to do that for Memphis Beer Blog, as well.