Tag: Wiseacre

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Aerial Memphis, Truly Scary, and Fly Wiseacre

Posted to X by @kyledelk

Memphis on the internet.

Aerial Memphis

Kyle Delk tweeted some must-see drone footage of the city at sunset last week. He said the clip had “movie-opener vibes.” He’s right.

Truly Scary

Posted to Facebook by Memphis Memes 901

Imagine your Memphis Light, Gas & Water bill showed up to your door on Halloween demanding candy and to be paid. Memphis nightmare fuel.

Fly Wiseacre

Posted to Facebook by Memphis International Airport

“There’s a new watering hole open at MEM!” Memphis International Airport officials announced on Facebook last week. “Passengers can now enjoy Wiseacre Brewing Co. beers for the first time at The Wise Omega Bodega, a new bar at MEM located between gates 21 and 23.”

The new 17-seat location opened last week and serves craft beer (natch), wine, and spirits. There’s also a takeout counter for salads, sandwiches, snacks, and — oh, hell yeah — to-go beverages to take to your gate.

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Cover Feature News

Beer Boom

Crosstown’s Traffic IPA (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)

Craft beer changed here in 2013 — and it changed Memphis.

Drinking local a decade ago gave Memphis beer fans two choices: a trip to Boscos or picking up a sixer of Ghost River Golden. 

However, that year, 2013, promised to be a watershed, flowing rivers of local beers and new styles to the Memphis market. That promise was delivered.

“Within the next year,” the Flyer’s Hannah Sayle wrote in April 2013, “Memphis will have three new craft breweries.”

And it did. By year’s end, Wiseacre, Memphis Made, and High Cotton began production, raising the total local beer sources to five. This changed the craft beer game in Memphis. This first rush of local breweries opened a gate — but not a floodgate, exactly — to more brands and breweries here. It all led the way to triple the total local beer sources to 15 in 2023.

The 2013 beer boom was good news for the curious craft quaffer. But local beer’s rising tide raised many other boats. It has brought new opportunities for business and development, new tourist experiences, new ways to build community, and new ways to celebrate the city.

“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,” Mike Erskine, founder and author of the Memphis Beer Blog, told the Flyer earlier this year. “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.”

Ghost River and Boscos were well-established in 2013. The Flying Saucer had poured craft styles from other markets since 1997. And other entrepreneurs had stabbed at (and missed) bringing local craft here before. Here’s how Sayle explained it in her 2013 Flyer story:

“Craft brewing entered the Memphis scene in the mid-1990s, when the first Boscos brewery and some other, less successful brewpubs opened around town. Chuck Skypeck [then] of Boscos and Ghost River Brewing Co. recalls a brewery in the old Greyhound station on Union Avenue, a chain brewpub on Winchester called Hops, and the Breckenridge Brewery above what is now The Majestic Grille, which still [at the time housed] all the old brewing equipment. Aside from Boscos, none of these brewpubs lasted more than a few years.

“In the mid-’90s, homebrewing hobbyists and beer nerds, whom Skypeck refers to as ‘old guys with beards,’ were determined to create an alternative to the big brewing industry: Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors. The enterprising ones among them opened brewpubs, assuming the quality product would drive demand and a market for craft beers would build up around them.

“‘The younger consumer was drawn to Smirnoff Ice and flavored malt beverages and froufrou cocktails,’ Skypeck says. ‘I told people that craft beer has to attract the 21-to-25-year-old, or it’s not going to go anywhere. The sea change that’s made craft beer grow now is that the younger consumer is now on board.’”

Cans of Wiseacre’s Tiny Bomb (Photo: Wiseacre Brewing Co.)

Millennials and Memphis Pride

They were and still are. You can tell that by having a look around a local taproom. Much credit is heaped on millennials for craft beer’s rise. For proof, look at a market research paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, “Millennials and the Take-Off of Craft Brands.”

“Millennials buy more craft beer than earlier generations,” reads the paper. “This shift in preference could overturn a nearly century-old structure dominated by a small number of national brands.”

In 2018, the Brewers Association said the huge millennial generation accounted for more than half (55 percent) of craft beer drinkers. They were willing to try new things, polls found, but they were also attracted to the authenticity of locally made beers over the mass-produced stuff still largely favored by baby boomers.  

Young people also loved where they lived and — as the urbanist adage goes — they wanted to “live where they lived.” In the early 2010s, a swell of civic pride gripped cities all over the U.S. Memphis was no different; just look to the Choose901 T-shirt catalog for proof.

Holly Whitfield fueled the I Love Memphis Blog for nearly a decade before helming the digital team at The Daily Memphian in February. The first story she worked on for the Memphis Tourism blog was about the opening of Wiseacre’s Broad Avenue taproom in September 2013. So while she had a front-row seat to beer and city pride for a long time, the movement was “about more than beer.”

“Breweries started serving as community gathering places, venues that can host other kinds of events like comedy shows, markets with Memphis artists, concerts with Memphis music, fundraisers — so, a gathering place for other aspects of culture,” Whitfield said. “They’re family-friendly, and casual, too.

“[Craft beer is] a local product with a local flair. The branding for a lot of breweries is locally flavored.

“Also, craft beer had been thriving in other places for a while so for Memphis to sort of finally have arrived and have our own scene, I think people were proud and happy about that.”

Younger drinkers and their love for the city helped push Memphis craft beer’s success forward. In turn, local beer helped forge a new Memphis identity and breathed new life into some dormant and sometimes “spooky” urban spaces. 

Sips ahoy at Memphis Brewfest (Photo: Memphis Brewfest)

Building with Beer

Urban planners might not have predicted that local beers and places to drink them could become building blocks to transform the city. But they did. The New York Times wrapped this idea up in a 2018 story headlined, “From Blight to Bright Lights in Memphis.”

“In a city long known for its crime problem, increased local efforts have transformed blighted areas into buzzy social hot spots, attracting tourists along the way,” reads the subheading. The story referenced Loflin Yard, Railgarten, Broad Avenue, the Tennessee Brewery, Rec Room, and more. All of them — in one way or another — were reactivated spaces because creative planners and developers gave Memphians a reason to go there, and many times that reason was to drink a local beer.

One sultry summer afternoon in 2014, the late Tommy Pacello looked around the packed courtyard of the once-crumbling, then-vibrant Tennessee Brewery and said, “It’s amazing what some string lights and a few kegs of beer can do.” The Tennessee Brewery Untapped event, which centered on a beer garden with local craft beer, drew thousands to the old building that spring and summer. For many, it was the first time they’d seen the building in years. For some, it was the first time ever.

We know now the brewery was saved from the wrecking ball, underwent a multi-million-dollar renovation, and is now the home of upscale apartments. Did Memphis craft beer save the building? Not on its own, of course. But it did draw people to the spot in a way that, say, local ice cream probably might not have.

It’s the same story with Loflin Yard and the south end of South Main. Overgrown and abandoned (save for carriage horses and their stables), the former safe and lock shop was an unlikely destination for anyone, local or tourist. But that changed in 2016 when visionaries reimagined the yard, its barn, and office as a hangout magnet with a laid-back yard, live music, and, of course, local craft beer.

“When I was in high school, I never would’ve thought in a million years that Florida and Carolina and Georgia would be a residential area,” Josh Whitehead, former director of the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development, told the Flyer in 2016. “It was one-story, kind-of-cool brick warehouses. But at night, it was, you know, spooky. The street lights were always out, and it was all these dark brick warehouses from a thousand years ago.” 

Loflin Yard gave people a new place to go. Local craft beer gave them something to do there. Again, beer didn’t do it alone. But it’s an important ingredient in the special sauce.

Pacello agreed. In 2013, he was part of the Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team. He later led the Memphis Medical District Collaborative. Pacello passed away in 2020. But he’s well remembered as one of the brightest, happiest advocates of Memphis, always finding ways to make it better through urban planning and development.

“There are lots of examples of craft breweries being urban pioneers and becoming an anchor for neighborhoods, especially if they have restaurants or taprooms associated with them,” Pacello told Sayle for her 2013 story. “They help activate the streets and become gathering spots for the neighborhood. Like how Boscos was a pioneer in Overton Square.

“All three of them [Memphis Made, High Cotton, and Wiseacre] have these common patterns. They’ve chosen core city neighborhoods, the key being neighborhoods. They’re not choosing to be buried in an industrial park. It’s a key part of revitalization. Is it a silver bullet? Probably not. But it’s definitely a key part.”

Memphis craft breweries are still creating destinations. They’ve opened their taps in different parts of town, giving even more people even more places to go, and something to do when they get there.

Eric Bourgeois is the marketing director for Packed House, the local-craft-beer-friendly parent company for Bardog Tavern, Slider Inn, Momma’s, and Aldo’s Pizza Pies. His company is a presenting sponsor of Memphis Brewfest, set for September 16th at the Memphis Sports & Events Center. 

On a recent call, Bourgeois referenced a Memphis beer map in his brain to point to Ghost River on South Main, High Cotton in The Edge, Grind City in the Snuff District, Soul & Spirits in Uptown, Wiseacre’s OG Broad Avenue location, and Memphis Made in Midtown.

“They’re creating all these different nodes and attractions for people to get out and experience local beer and, maybe, see a part of the city they hadn’t explored before,” he said. “From there, it branches out to the nearby retail and restaurant spots, a lot of which are partnered with those breweries. It’s a good synergy for everyone involved.”

All of this has helped to shape Memphis’ modern identity. The new places to go and new things to do gave a sense of moving forward. It helped give Memphis a new, positive narrative, and that helped push civic pride.

Grind City beers and a seltzer (Photo: Grind City Brewing Co.)

Beercation?

It’s a thing. Google it. Nielsen Media Data said an average American had visited 2.1 local breweries while traveling in the last year.

The Memphis Tourism website has a dedicated craft beer page that brags “our artesian wells produce the crisp water that has been filtered for 2,000 years to help create some of the best craft beer in the world.” That famous Memphis water is soft, and brewers say that’s great to create just about any style of beer they want.

Memphis probably does not rank high on beer tourists’ bucket lists, but many tourists make pints a point once they get here. Memphis Tourism even offers tourists a special Hop Stops program with directions to and descriptions of local breweries.

But Stephen Guenther’s company removes that step and takes beercationers directly to the breweries on the Memphis Brew Bus. It’s an example of at least one new business that began around the city’s craft scene. Every Saturday, tourists load up on the bus for a three-and-a-half-hour-long tour of three Memphis breweries. 

“It just really fit a certain class of traveler, like epicurean people who travel for food,” Guenther said of the tourists who board the Brew Bus looking for local craft beer. “[Craft beer] expanded our overall attractiveness to folks coming in. There’s just one more thing to do, especially when it’s hot here. When you can spend a Saturday afternoon with a cold beer on an air-conditioned bus; that’s a pretty good day.”

More sips and suds at Memphis Brewfest (Photo: Memphis Brewfest)

Where to?

Memphis craft beer has come a long way in the last 10 years. But there is room to go further, some say.

A few years ago, Kyle Johnson, an avid craft fan, moved to Memphis from Atlanta, a city with “an incredible brewery scene and overall beer scene” jammed with brewpubs and beer bars. He’s come across many beers here that are just “forgettable,” he said, and beer bars do too little marketing to make the scene seem fresh and exciting. 

Breweries here, Johnson said, either have all the same stuff to appease many tastes, or they brew to the tastes of the brewers with little regard for the market. Either way, Johnson hopes Memphis breweries will take more chances down the road.

“More people are coming through this city either via tourism or just moving here in general, and a lot of them have experienced other cities,” Johnson said. “If you take a chance and try something new or possibly ‘out of the norm’ for Memphis, you might be surprised that it’s what the crowds are craving.”

There’s another national craft beer trend that vexes industry insiders and makes outsiders roll their eyes at craft as a “white person thing:” racial diversity. It’s a nationwide issue but is easily seen in Memphis. Just have a look around many local taprooms. 

The latest study (in 2018) by the Brewers Association, the industry group for small and independent brewers, showed that more than 85 percent of craft drinkers were white. Minority groups made up the rest, and while that was an increase, it wasn’t enough.

“Given that only 68.7 percent of the 21+ U.S. population is non-Hispanic white, that’s not progress,” the study said. “Minority craft drinkers are growing, but only because the total population of craft drinkers is growing, not because craft drinkers are getting more diverse along racial lines.”

What’s Ahead?

In our 2013 beer story, Sayle called Skypeck “the godfather of craft brewing in Memphis.” He left Memphis that year for a job with the National Brewers Association group.

While he’s not current on the Memphis beer scene, he said he’s seeing the craft beer industry leveling off. Brewers, like many other businesses, are facing the headwinds of inflation. For example, the costs of malt and cans rose by 40 percent recently, he said. This could mean Memphis might not see many new breweries soon.

But Skypeck said the leveling off could just be a market cycle as craft beer competes with other products like hard seltzers, flavored malt beverages, and, now, ready-to-drink cocktails. But, Skypeck said, “Those things come and go, and craft beer always stays.” 

In his 30 years in the craft beer business, Skypeck said he’s heard many ring the death knell for his industry, especially when a high-profile brewery closes.

“How many times do you see a high-profile restaurant close and people say it’s the end of dining out?” he asked. 

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Defaced, Tiny Bombed, and Ja 2K24

Posted to FAcebook by Jerred Price

Memphis on the internet.

Erasing the Hate

A Saturday-morning power-washing erased the hate at Cooper-Young’s Rainbow Crosswalk last weekend. A hateful someone scrawled a hateful word on the street in white spray paint. The act was all over the MEMernet and local television broadcasts. Jerred Price, the principal mover to get the crosswalks installed, and others washed the word away.

“But this small act of hate was trumped with the outpour of love today from all those who helped clean it up,” Price wrote on Facebook. “Thank you [Memphis Police Department] for your help and investigation into this as well as to all those who helped clean this mess up.”

Tiny Bombed

Posted to TikTok by Sarah Galyean

Sarah Galyean put beer — Wiseacre’s Tiny Bomb, to be specific — in her hair. The TikToker was testing a conditioning method used by Catherine Zeta-Jones, mixing beer with honey. The two-part post had Galyean joking as she mixed the ingredients in a NutriBullet before pouring the mix in her hair in the shower. Verdict?

“Does my hair smell like the floor of a Dave & Buster’s? Yes,” she said. But, “this is the first celebrity beauty secret I might actually do a second time because it really does work. I’m shook.”

Ja 2K24

Posted to Instagram by @jujueditzzz on NBA Showcase 

Not official or anything. But who are we to argue?

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Wiseacre Expands Distribution to Indiana and Missouri

Credit: Wiseacre

Beer drinkers rejoice: the Wiseacre craft beer empire continues to grow. Earlier today, the brewery announced plans to extend its distribution to the states of Indiana and Missouri, making its beer now available in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

Five of Wiseacre’s year-round beers — Ananda, Bow Echo, Gotta Get Up to Get Down, Puffel, and Tiny Bomb — will be sold in the new states, along with seasonal and specialty releases.

“My brother Davin and I also have a very personal connection to St. Louis, in particular, because that’s where our father is from,” said Wiseacre co-founder Kellan Bartosch. “We grew up going to St. Louis for Blues hockey games in the winter and Cardinals games in the summer.  Hitting up Ted Drewes Frozen Custard and places on the hill like Rigazzi’s for toasted raviolis was an important part of our childhood. It’s thrilling to think that you could have authentic t-ravs and a fresh-from-the-tap Wiseacre beer at the same time!”

Wiseacre had already built up a following in the two states after brewmaster and co-founder Davin Bartosch had produced collaborative beers with St. Louis-based Perennial Artisan Ales, 2nd Shift Brewing, and Rockwell Beer company, as well as Indianapolis-based Sun King Brewery.

“When I was living in Chicago brewing beer for Rock Bottom, there was a ton of connectivity with Indiana breweries which led to great relationships and travel to visit friends’ breweries,” added Davin.  “The state is full of world-class breweries that have created an amazing beer culture alongside bars, restaurants, and smart consumers.  It is an honor for us to begin distribution there this month.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

High Point Grocery: The Same, But Better

CREDIT: Richard Murff

It was my friend P.C. Magness, the brain behind The Runaway Spoon, who said she hoped that someone would buy the old High Point Grocery and “keep it the same, only better.” True, that’s a tall, tricky order, but this is a lady who wrote a cookbook that actually makes you look forward to funeral food. So, anything is possible. As it happens, she got her wish.

For anyone who has actually lived in the neighborhood, the small, ’50s-era grocery store is almost always known as “the Little Store.” It was quaint, timeless, friendly, and convenient. It looked a little tired, sure, but it was such a fixture, the regulars ignored it. Even embraced it. Then COVID happened, and in April the Little Store closed with nearly everything else. With the lease coming up, and longtime owner C.D. Shirley eyeballing retirement, he made the decision not to reopen.

Richard Murff

Like losing naptime when you graduate to first grade, you just don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it. Then Mrs. M announced that the fella from Cash Saver had stepped in to buy it and wasn’t changing the name. The fella’s name is Rick James, by the way, and whether he knew it or not, he did exactly what P.C. had hoped for: kept it the same, but better. I’ll admit some selfishness here because I was hoping that he’d recreate that great whacking hall of beer they’ve got in Midtown. Did that, too, up to a point.

Obviously, the Little Store is still pretty, well, little. You may not find some random Czech pilsner there, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a Memphis beer that isn’t on the shelf or in the cooler. And Memphis beer-can art is something to behold. To be sure, there are some solid non-local crafts to choose from, as well as Budweiser and other summer cooler-stuffing brands. It is still the Little Store, but Memphis beer is the star of the show. And there is a lot to choose from.

Since this foul year of our Lord went sideways, it’s been hard to keep up with the local craft scene because so much of it involved hanging around the taprooms, which have largely been closed. I’ve made a few attempts to turn my patio into a Murffhaus taproom, but it was just missing something — like other people (including that one guy who takes it a little too seriously) and that kid-in-a-candy-shop selection on tap.

I was pleasantly surprised at the simple variety being put out locally: standbys like Memphis Made’s Junt and Wiseacre’s Ananda, to newcomers like Beale Street Brewing’s 528hz of Love & Hoppiness. High Cotton has come out with its Oktoberfest, which, because this is Memphis, has a swine in lederhosen on the can. If memory serves, back in the spring October became our backup May before being re-canceled altogether.

To recreate a rescheduled and re-canceled May, you can always grab a can of something local and go get barbecue takeout for every single meal for a long weekend and get roughly the same effect as Barbecue Fest. To recreate Music Fest, go to Rachel’s and buy enough garden statuary so that your backyard seems crowded, drink enough so that you think taking your shirt off is a good idea, and then listen to music you thought you liked but really don’t. It’s not a perfect fit, but it’ll do.

For everything else that has gone away this year — crowded festivals and bars, schools, common sense, and an even remotely professional concern for personal appearance — the Little Store survived, the same just better. The local beer scene has managed to float along as well. That’s not by luck or government policy (or lack of). That’s just people sticking together through a really bad year.

And if that’s not worthy of a toast, I don’t know what is.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Wiseacre2 Opens Friday

CREDIT: Brandon Herrington

Brandon Herrington

Wiseacre Brewing Co. will open its new Downtown brewery and taproom Friday.

The 40,000-square-foot facility, dubbed Wiseacre2, has a 120-seat (socially distanced) taproom for guests and a massive outdoor patio.

To go, though, you’ll need to get a ticket at Wiseacre’s website. Sadly, all tickets for Friday and Saturday have been snagged already.

Wiseacre2 Opens Friday

The ticket situation is an effort to limit the number of guests in the taproom at one time. One ticket will get you a two-hour slot at Wiseacre2. Seatings are spaced one hour apart to give staff time to clean and disinfect all surfaces.

Guests are asked to wear a mask, bus their own tables, and pay tabs through a free mobile app called Arryved.

“After weeks of being closed to guests, we’re thrilled to be open, even with this limited capacity,” said Kellan Bartosch, Wiseacre co-founder. “Of course, we would have never chosen to open our new brewery during a global pandemic – definitely not what we had in mind when we started planning this two years ago.

Wiseacre Brewing Co.

Brothers and Wiseacre co-founders Davin Bartosch (left) and Kellan Bartosch (right).

“But while we were closed to guests, our new facility did give us increased canning capacity, which allowed us to introduce new packages like 16-ounce cans and 12 packs and to meet the demand from our grocery and retail partners.”

The original Wiseacre on Broad, dubbed Wiseacre-OG, will continue to operate.

The company was founded in 2012 and has grown steadily in production and distribution. Wiseacre beer is now available in six states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and Tennessee. Kellan Bartosch and co-founder Davin Bartosch hope the new taproom will draw some of Wiseacre’s faraway fan base to visit Memphis. 

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Memphis Sands is a Great Festival Beer … Even If There Aren’t Any

It was a cruel joke on the part of Mother Nature. No, not the one where we accidently import the weapons-grade fauna from East Asia — twice. I mean the wheeze where we are blessed with a perfect week for Memphis in May Music Fest — comfortable, sunny but not hot — and have to cancel because it was just a hair too COVID-y. We’ll try again in October.

Barbeque Fest has been moved to late September, but we aren’t inviting Ghana back to dinner until spring of 2021. Live at the Garden has gone quiet for the duration, and there will be no rip-roaring “Hip Hips!” from Carnival. All we’re left with is swarms of murder hornets. Swell.

The truth is, in spring and summer Memphis is a festival. Which is something I’d never really thought about until this year. Like naptime in kindergarten, you never know what you have until you’ve lost it. With the city opening up somewhat, can we recreate that Memphis festival vibe at home? Well, not really. The whole point of a righteous festival hootenanny is to leave home and pack yourself butt-to-flank in a sweating mob.

Unless you are pining for a second act of the COVID shuffle, don’t do this.

You can, however, get the taste of a Memphis festival at home — with a local lager. If you are going to be a purist about it, you could head to the smallest room in the house with a space heater, invite everyone you’re quarantined with to pack in, and drink enormous Natty Lights from those cheap paper cups and hope that you finish before the bottom drops out. Bring in a few thousand of your pet mosquitos and it’ll be just like Tom Lee Park!

I wouldn’t do this either, to be honest.

A better option is to mask-up and go get a curbside growler or a few cans of Memphis Sands, which is whipped up by Wiseacre. It’s a German Helles style — and why not? The Germans invented wholesome day-drinking with light, effervescent, and low-alcohol beer. Back in the old country, this was considered a perfectly normal family-friendly activity. This is important these days if your carousing is limited to your own home. It’s hard to shake the little blighters.

If you are going to day-drink — and are someone who still plans to be employed at the end of all this — Sands isn’t a bad choice. Both the beer and that groovy Wiseacre artwork are inspired by our famous aquifers that supply the softest water in the country. (On a non-beer note, this soft water is why you’ll get better results from dish and clothes washers if you use a lot less detergent.) I digress.

Sands is a light, crisp, and refreshing lager. Mostly it is beautifully simple: Pilsner malt, lager yeast, and that lovely Memphis water. It is low on bitterness and has an ABV of 5.1 percent. To be clear, all local beers are made with that lovely Memphis water, but Wiseacre has turned the can into something of an homage, so it’s hard to miss.

Either way, it’s the perfect, simple, summer style and is probably what you wish your festival beer tasted like when the wood smoke wafts through the crowd and fills your nose on a warm day surrounded by all the best pork in the world. I’m going to make my own by throwing meat from Charlie’s on a grill from Bishop’s Hearth and Home that’ll smoke up the back yard while I sip a great hometown beer.

Get yours from wherever you want, but do make it local. If we keep our heads about us — despite bat soup and the murder hornets — we might just return to the place where day-drinking was for the weekends. And after breakfast.

Or at least it will for you, gentle reader. I do this for a living.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Supporting Local Breweries When the Taps Get Turned Off

“That’s so cool!” This was the most common response I got when people heard that I owned a small brewery. In reality, I didn’t own a brewery. I owned an LLC that contract brewed our own beer on a “real” brewery’s equipment (Lazy Magnolia in Kiln, Mississippi). This distinction was hard to explain. It required complicated descriptions of the business of beer and could veer dangerously close to my standard pitch to potential investors. Both instantly killed the cool vibe, so I often omitted the distinction, opting instead for some witty response like, “Yeah, it’s really cool!”
  

My brewery (or LLC masquerading as a brewery) ultimately failed, but even if it had survived, it would certainly be on the brink of destruction now — an eventual casualty of COVID-19. Our local Memphis breweries are on far better footing than my fly-by-night business ever was, but the pandemic is closing or limiting brewery tap rooms, and it is hard to overstate the impact this will have on them. For a small craft brewery, a tap room can provide a disproportionate amount of overall revenue.

Indeed, my brewery’s entire business model was based upon opening a tap room. When we started the brewery, tap rooms were not yet legal in Mississippi (where the brewery was based), but we were betting that would change. Contract brewing, basically paying another brewery to use its equipment to brew and package our beer, was merely a way to build our brand and woo investors while we waited for more enlightened state beer laws. It was a PR stunt to put our beer in bars and on retail shelves, not a sustainable business. The end goal was the tap room.

To understand our plan, you have to get into some of the complicated beer business details that I tried to avoid in casual conversation. Beer is a low-margin business. This is primarily true for two reasons. First, state laws make it this way. In Tennessee (and most states), with the exception of tap rooms, breweries can only sell their beer to a state-licensed distributor. These distributors then mark up the price and sell to retailers (restaurants, bars, grocery stores, package stores, etc.) who then mark up the price again and sell it to you. Even in the current craft-beer renaissance, there is only so much you or I will pay for a beer, so this three-tiered sales system pushes down a brewery’s profit margin. The profit is split three ways.

The second reason beer is a low-margin business comes from the way we consume beer. Unless it’s coming out of a tap, beer is a highly packaged product. There are cans or bottles. There are six-pack containers. There are boxes that all of this is shipped in. The owner of Lazy Magnolia once joked that I was really getting into the cardboard business, not the beer business, because the price of sourcing cardboard would likely determine my brewery’s profit margin. Even with kegs, the kegs themselves are expensive and hard to keep track of. And regardless of packaging form, all of it needs to be shipped to wherever we want to buy beer. This is expensive. When combined with the realities of the three-tiered sales system, it means that your local brewery makes very little on each pint you purchase in a bar, and even less on each can or bottle you enjoy, regardless of where you buy it.

Tap rooms, however, are magical places where breweries can either eliminate or limit these profit-minimizing realities. There is no three-tiered system in a tap room. The brewery sells directly to the public — the beer version of a farmer’s market. Transportation costs are also eliminated. You buy the beer from the source and transport it yourself (either by lifting a glass to your lips or carting your beer home). Even packaging costs are minimized. Kegs never leave the brewery and thus can never be lost or stolen. Carry-out beer still requires basic packaging (cans, bottles, six-pack carriers), but not additional shipping packaging. There is even the option of the growler fill, which holds packaging costs to a minimum. In short, tap rooms are vital revenue sources for many craft breweries, but the pandemic is literally and metaphorically turning off the tap.

So, what can we do to help? Obviously, the answer is not to go hang out in a crowded space and drink beer. As therapeutic as that would be right now, it would only make the underlying problem worse. If you plan on adding beer to your provisions list for this period of social distancing, however, consider what you buy and where you source it. Obviously, you should buy local beer. The Memphis breweries need your business now more than ever. But also consider buying directly from our local breweries. This can help to offset the lost tap room revenue that is so important to these businesses. A couple of Memphis breweries have already set up to-go protocols, despite closing their tap rooms for on-premises consumption. Wiseacre Brewing Company has created a to-go request form through its website (also included in its Instagram bio) that allows you to order beer from the safety of your home. After ordering, the brewery will follow up with link for payment and arrange a pickup time at the brewery. Wiseacre also has an optional gratuity option for to-go orders with all funds will go directly to its bartending staff. Crosstown Brewing Company also has curbside pickup for to-go orders. You can place an order by calling the brewery or messaging them through social media. Although for both breweries, staff will still need to card you before you head home with your beer, this is the same level of face-to-face contact you would have in a grocery or package store. No doubt, other breweries in the area will come up with similar plans.

When the crisis has ended and we are all free to go back to enjoying Memphis collectively, we will likely need a beer, and we will certainly need places to meet face-to-face (“social normalizing?” “social associating?” “social crowding?”). Our choices now can help ensure that all of our favorite places are still around when that day comes. So, go buy some Memphis beer, and after you do, you can tell people that you helped save a local brewery. It will be at least as true as my brewery ownership claims and infinitely cooler.

Cameron Fogle is a professor of legal writing and a one-time owner of Sweetgum Brewing Company, LLC in Starkville, Mississippi.

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Cover Feature News

Meddlesome Wins Bracket Challenge. Plus, News on Brews from All Over Town

Meddlesome Brewing Company’s West Coast IPA — 201 Hoplar — is the best craft beer in Memphis, according to the 530 voters in the Memphis Flyer‘s 2020 Beer Bracket Challenge, sponsored by our fine friends at the Young Avenue Deli.

This marks the third year in a row that 201 Hoplar has won the top spot in our challenge — a stunning three-peat made even more stunning as Meddlesome’s winning streak began the very first year of its operation.

“It’s an amazing feeling knowing that all of our patrons, fans, friends, and family care so much about us and our brand,” says Ben Pugh, who owns and founded Meddlesome with home-brewing pal Richie EsQuivel.

Each year, Pugh and EsQuivel have said they cannot believe their win and never expected it. Each win has been “crazy,” Pugh has said, leaving them feeling “blown away.” EsQuivel said of 201’s first-year win, “What the hell?”

According to EsQuivel, 201 Hoplar is a “West Coast IPA, through and through.” But while some new IPAs can be soft and fruity, EsQuivel says 201 Hoplar is “aggressive and bitter” but also “pineapple-y with citrus fruits.”

This year, we returned to our original format. The four bracket divisions separated Memphis craft beers into four very basic categories — light, dark, IPA, and seasonal. We blind-seeded the breweries’ beer choices in an event last month at Young Avenue Deli. Voters took it from there, moving 24 beers toward the championship.

Cheers to these meddling kids! (l-r) Richie EsQuivel, Ben Pugh, brewer Amber Rogers, and volunteer Larry Stone (back) celebrate Meddlesome Brewing Company’s three-peat victory in Memphis Flyer’s Beer Bracket Challenge.

Along the way, four beers emerged as winners in each of their categories. Wiseacre’s Tiny Bomb took top honors in the light division. Wiseacre’s Gotta Get Up to Get Down won in the dark division. Meddlesome’s 201 Hoplar was (obviously) the best IPA. Meddlesome’s Dirty Dova emerged on top of the seasonal division.

Here are some questions left after our fourth year of the Beer Bracket Challenge: Is Memphis an IPA town? What is Meddlesome’s secret sauce? And it appears new competitors will be lining up for next year’s challenge. So, can Meddlesome and 201 Hoplar do it again?

Meddlesome Brewing Company’s award-winning West Coast IPA 201 Hoplar is flowing into shiny, new cans — and hitting shelves this month.

Beer News You Can Use

The Memphis craft beer scene will look different this time next year. New breweries are on the way. New locations of existing breweries will come online. New beers will line local shelves. And familiar beers will line shelves farther from Memphis.

One brewery has new owners implementing a raft of changes. And, certainly, new beers will flow from all of the local brewers in the next 12 months.

In short, it’s a great time for Memphis craft beer and craft beer fans. And it’s about to get better.

There will be growth, for sure. But it won’t be like the rapid ramp-up of 2013 when three new breweries — Wiseacre, Memphis Made, and High Cotton — all opened within six months of each other.

But here’s a big win: Every craft brewery that has opened here since 2007 is still open. Maybe that sounds small, but it’s huge. Craft breweries in other cities open and close, sometimes with the regularity of local restaurants. That hasn’t happened here, and it speaks volumes about Memphis’ craft scene.

As craft beer’s profile has deepened, Memphians understand craft better than ever before. Our breweries continue to up production volume, settling their beers into more and more places and into the mouths of more and more consumers. And they ain’t slowing down.

The next 12 months will bring changes — big and small but all good — for the city’s craft scene. I’ll raise a pint to that. You should, too.

Ghost River

Bob Keskey and a group of partners bought Ghost River Brewing just more than a month ago. One of their first moves? They’re bringing back the tree.

Ghost River’s original, iconic logo — that spooky-looking bald cypress tree — will return soon to the spotlight of the iconic brand’s aesthetic. The tree was replaced with a lantern (another apt nod to the brand’s “wandering” spirit and to the Ghost River itself) in a brand redesign a few years ago.

Keskey says he started the pursuit to buy Ghost River about two years ago. It was an “on-again-off-again” situation for awhile with the Feinstone family (the previous owners). It was a “long dance,” he says, but the deal closed in January.

Keskey lives in Memphis but is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where “beer is a staple of our diet.” He originally fell for Ghost River Golden, a “nice, easy, drinkable beer.” Then he was “hooked” on Grind House, tried the rest of the beers, met head brewer Jimmy Randall, checked out the taproom, brought his investor group in to do the same, and began the pursuit to purchase the operation. He says Ghost River “just fit well with me.”

Changes at Ghost River will go well beyond the logo. The new group is investing capital (Keskey wouldn’t say how much) for a new canning line and a new keg line. He says they “completely redid the back production area” with new floors, new LED lighting, and new paint on the walls. “We’re giving the whole thing a facelift,” he says. Out front, work is underway for an expanded taproom to include a private area for indoor and outdoor events. All of it, Keskey says, will be complete by March 30th.

“Everything we’re doing comes either at the suggestion of the employees or customers or from [taproom manager] Victoria Keskey,” he says. “I’m not one of these owners that pushes his way through. So, this is about what the employees need, and I just made it happen.”

Memphis Filling Station

A simple question set Memphis Filling Station (MFS) on a new path, a journey that may conclude this year.

You may already know MFS, or think you do. The company began as a growler filling station, and they’ve poured other companies’ craft beers at dozens of events. But things changed when MFS co-founder Bryan Berretta was invited to bring some of his beers to an annual Brew Movement Against Muscular Sclerosis event.

“I was like, uh, no one drinks mine,” says Berretta. “I’m the only person who knows what it is. [The event organizer] said, ‘Well, bring it anyway.'”

So, Berretta and co-founder Heather Reed showed up with about 120 bottles and poured through almost all of them. At the end, Reed asked a path-changing question: “Why are we selling other people’s beer?”

That question led Berretta and Reed to negotiating on a space to allow them to sell MFS beer. The space would be shared with a food vendor in a sort of co-op situation. But Berretta isn’t providing more details than that.

As for beer, Berretta says he wants to do something different in the market. He says he’s into beers with “heavier, fruited, stronger flavors” and “crazy stuff” like a salted caramel pastry stout. “I want to be seen as the brewers’ brewery, where the other brewers feel comfortable coming in and doing collaborations with us, and it’s just fun and creativity and just forget the rest,” Berretta says.

Wiseacre

“We expect summer.” And that’s as close as Kellan Bartosch, owner and co-founder of Wiseacre Brewing Co., could predict for the opening of the company’s second location, a 43,500-square-foot, $7 million taproom and brewery now rising from the earth Downtown on B.B. King Boulevard between Butler and Vance. The taproom will make up only 5,000 square feet of the space. The magic for Bartosch and his brother and co-founder Davin Bartosch is in the rest of the space — the brewhouse, warehouse, lab, cellar, and grain mill.

“The biggest thing that [the new location] does for us is just allow us to fulfill our potential as a business,” says Kellan Bartosch.

Production capacity at the original Broad Avenue location was frustrating and tough, he says. The new location will allow growth. While many have asked, Bartosch says the opportunity for a regional brewery to go national (like Bell’s or Founders) just doesn’t really exist anymore, especially with the amount of breweries in the country now.

But for Davin Bartosch, Wiseacre’s head brewer, it’s more than that.

“The new location has more to do with us being able to make the best beer we can,” he says. “My goal, ever since we opened, was to make the best beer in the world. Having nicer equipment allows us to get much better at making beer.”

A new canning line will help eliminate more oxygen in the cans, which extends shelf life and creates consistency.   

For now, look for Wiseacre’s Regular Pale Ale year round, a fresh series of “new-age-y” IPAs, and new packaging, including 16-ounce cans, more 12-packs, and even 24-packs.

Crosstown

It was a hell of a party, especially for a 2-year-old.

The planning was intense, tons of new beer was made and poured, tons of friends came, and at its height, the party was a raucous, full-tilt boogie. It’s not every day a brewery turns 2. Even though Crosstown Brewing Company sold more beer on its second birthday than it did on its opening night, co-founder Clark Ortkiese won’t ever forget that first night.

“Of course, we’re better at serving than before, and our point of sale [system] didn’t crash, and the draft system wasn’t completely screwed up like it was on the first day,” Ortkiese remembers.

Two years on, it’s creativity that keeps Ortkiese feeling like work ain’t work.

“That’s how I get to cut loose creatively and how [head brewer] Stephen Tate gets to cut loose,” Ortkiese says. “We just figure out how we’re going to do this … and work toward it.”

Look for that creativity in new, seasonal cans including Delta Cat, a low-alcohol, Euro-born grisette (dropping this week), and a New England IPA called Chowda, out later in March.

Ortkiese says taking risks on esoteric styles comes easier as the Memphis craft beer market matures. For proof, he points to two “successful” sour-beer can releases over the last two summers.

“So, yeah, I trust the market enough to say let’s go do some weird stuff and some old-school stuff,” Ortkiese says.

Meddlesome

Meddlesome Brewing Company is readying to answer the question its fans have been asking since they opened: When can they find Meddlesome beers in stores?

“Every day we get phone calls and Facebook messages: Where can I buy your beer?” says Meddlesome owner and co-founder Ben Pugh. “Well, I can give you a list of places, but if you’re not going to bars or restaurants you’re probably not going to find it.”

Pugh says Meddlesome is a self-funded operation, and canning (either contract or in-house) was put on hold until they could afford it. Now that time has come. The award-winning 201 Hoplar is now flowing into silver cans, 12 ounces at a time. Pugh says to look for Meddlesome on shelves this month.

The brewery hit the ground running after they opened about two years ago, winning the hearts (and tastebuds) of Cordova craft fans and enough votes to win our Beer Bracket Challenge for three years in a row. They’ve been competing for taps all over town and will now compete for shelf space.

At the same time, they haven’t stopped meddling (you knew it was coming) creatively. Meddlesome did a special bottle release each Saturday in November, including Hot Mess, an imperial red ale made with Red Hots; All the Cookies, an imperial oatmeal raisin cookie brown ale; and Devil’s Water, a Belgian quad.

Memphis Made

You (probably) haven’t had a beer in the Ravine yet. But you (probably) will have come this time next year. The Ravine is a $5 million public greenspace concept now underway by Development Services Group and the Downtown Memphis Commission.

Before long, you’ll be Instagramming the hours away and drinking craft beer in a ravine on an old rail spur behind nondescript buildings between Union and Monroe (close to the old Commercial Appeal building).

“We kind of specialize in unique spaces here at Memphis Made,” says company co-founder Andy Ashby. “Our taproom is definitely different than a lot of others. So the unconventional design [in the Ravine] didn’t faze us in the least. We actually think there are opportunities there.”

New production space there will allow Memphis Made Brewing Co. to up its volume. It’s good timing, as the company readies to enter new markets after a recently signed distribution deal with Ajax. But the location came first and the distribution deal came second, says company co-founder Drew Barton.

“Finding that second location and knowing that we could push production was not a necessity to go find a distributor, but it definitely made the choice a little easier,” Barton says. “Had we not gone and found the second location or knew that we wanted to expand that way, we would have been totally happy just brewing on Cooper. But we knew that we could move beyond the volume we were doing to get to that next level.”

Timelines on projects like these can get squishy, but Barton says to look for the Ravine location to open “this year.”

Memphis Made also recently signed a separate distribution deal with Clark distributors in Mississippi. So, very soon you’ll be able to find Junt, Cat Nap, and more in stores outside of Shelby County for the first time.

Grind City

Back then, the area didn’t have a fancy name, really. There was a hill with a ragged collection of decrepit buildings. But there was that view. When Hopper Seely climbed the hill and saw the view, he knew.

“Once I saw that view, I was like, I don’t care how bad this place is to open …” Seely says, trailing off amid the construction noise. “Some days I wish I really didn’t ever say that. Once we got construction started — and if I’m ever having a bad day — I just look at that view and know it’s going to be worth it.”

Seely’s Grind City Brewing Co. sits behind the carriage and horse barns on North Second, above the east bank of Wolf River harbor. Signs in the area herald it as the “carriage district,” but it’s always kinda sorta been in the Uptown area and is now in what developers call the Snuff District.

All of it sits just north of Downtown, and now, atop that small hill, is a site under full construction, with one modern building that shines like an iPhone at a barn-raising. Walk out the back of Grind City Brewing’s massive taproom and onto its patio and you’ll see that view — the Pyramid, some of the city’s most iconic skyscrapers, and the big “M” of the Hernando de Soto Bridge.

Open in the “spring-ish” time, according to Seely, that patio and view should be very Instragram-friendly.

But Grind City is way more than a patio. Seely was 12 when he began brewing beer with his dad. He was 19 when he quit college and entered a brewing school in England. And in his early 20s, he won awards for his beers and business plans.

Seely and Grind City head brewer Mark Patrick are already cranking out beers. Out of the gate, Grind City will offer a light beer, an IPA, and a black (nitro!) lager. Later, they’ll begin offering up seasonals and one-offs. 

Soul & Spirits

“We are in very deep construction,” says Soul & Spirits Brewery co-founder and head brewer Ryan Allen.

Soul & Spirits is planned for an old building, also in the Uptown/Snuff District on Main Street. But Allen says it’s way too early to talk about a timeline to get the doors open, though the company’s Facebook page says “coming 2020.”

But Allen did talk beers: “We make a diverse range of beers for a diverse range of people,” he says. “We’re looking at both old-world styles and new-world styles and even being creative in our right, doing some of our own things that you may not have seen before.”

Allen earned his Masters Brewing Diploma in Germany. It’s much of that “old world” education that leads him to the mindset that brewers should really know how to brew “a great light lager beer.” Then, apply that knowledge to any kind of “new-world styles.”

High Cotton

You’ve definitely started to see more High Cotton out there. Thanks to a November distribution deal with Eagle, the Edge District brewery plays farther afield in the Memphis market (like the suburbs) in more grocery stores, convenience stores, and other spots.

Ryan Staggs, High Cotton Brewing Co. co-owner and co-founder, says for the first years of operation, “We were a man in a van. Now we’ve got dozens of delivery drivers and trucks that are out there every day, beating the street and putting more craft beer in more places than we can dream up.”

But those first years of self distributing were crucial, Staggs says, as the market was developing and they slowly ramped up production volume. 

Consumers are now well used to seeing three High Cotton beers in cans: Scottish Ale, IPA, and Mexican Lager. A fourth can — a seasonal — will be added later this year.

This spring, the brewery’s Thai Pale Ale will replace another saison as its seasonal beer. Staggs says the beer’s exposure in the Flyer Beer Bracket Challenge and the demand for the beer in the taproom helped High Cotton make the switch.

In the next couple of months, keep an eye out for a Flanders red ale. It’s been fermenting in wine barrels for two years, Staggs says, and so far, “It’s pretty phenomenal.”

Memphis Brewfest

If any of this has you craving a craft beer, you’re in luck. Memphis Brewfest is returning to Liberty Bowl Stadium. So far, 33 breweries and cideries are set to tap their stuff on the field on Saturday, March 28th, from 3 to 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $50-$100 at eventbrite.com.

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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.