Tag: Wiseacre Brewing

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Art Art Feature We Recommend We Recommend

Artist Trading Cards Memphis Hosts Its Inaugural Event This Weekend

(Photo: Artist Trading Cards Memphis)

Some collect baseball cards; others collect Pokemon cards. For Alex Paulus, a kid in the ’90s, it was Marvel trading cards. “That was my favorite thing when I was a kid,” he says. “They were like these fully rendered oil paintings of Marvel characters.” Little did he know that his childhood hobby would inspire him to start a new kind of trading card in Memphis, almost three decades later.

In 2020, when lockdown rolled around and boredom took over, the artist explains, he had an itch to return to those Marvel cards that had once excited him, so he purchased a box of them. “I found out that in one of the packs in the box, you could get an original hand-drawn piece of art on a trading card,” he says. “And I got one of those cards. I was like, ‘Oh man, this is really cool.’ … So that kind of gave me the idea of what if I could buy a pack and it was just filled with all of these handmade cards and how cool that would be.”

Paulus, as it turns out, wasn’t the first to think of creating trading cards with original art. That honor belongs to a Swiss artist, M. Vänçi Stirnemann, who in 1996 initiated an ongoing and now worldwide performance whereby artists of all backgrounds create, collect, sell, and trade self-made unique works, 2.5-by-3.5 inches in size. 

Inspired by this, Paulus became determined to bring the phenomenon to Memphis. In 2021, thanks to a grant from UrbanArt Commission, he created 50 packs of his own artist trading cards, with three little paintings in each, and he sold all of them at his 2021 show at Off the Walls Arts. Some of these packs even had golden tickets — Willy Wonka style — that granted the recipient a full-sized painting hanging at the show. The goal, Paulus explained in his grant application, was to “inspire others to make their own artist trading cards and become part of the performance, too.”

Three of Paulus’ cards that will be for sale this Sunday at Wiseacre. (Photo: Alex Paulus)

Inspire it did, as this weekend seven other artists will join Paulus in the first-ever Artist Trading Cards Memphis event. They include Michelle Fair, Keiko Gonzalez, Mary Jo Karimnia, Tad Lauritzen Wright, Sara Moseley, Nick Pena, and Matias Paradela. “These are legit gallery-showing artists who are making these,” Paulus says. “It’s not just getting our friends who like to doodle on stuff.”

For the day, these artists will sell their 2.5-by-3.5 inch works at affordable prices, some as low as $10. Some will sell them individually, and others will sell them in packs. Some cards you’ll be able to see before purchasing, and others will be a surprise. Some packs will even have golden tickets for full-sized artwork if you’re lucky. Of course, you’ll be able to trade cards with other collectors at the event, and you can even bring in your own 2.5-by-3.5 inch works to trade if you so please.

By Mary Jo Karimnia
By Michelle Fair
By Nick Pena
The artist trading cards range in their subjects and styles. (Photos: Mary Jo Karimnia, Michelle Fair, Nick Pena)

“There’ll be tiny abstract paintings, really detailed pencil portraits, Ninja Turtle porn, altered baseball cards,” Mary Jo Karimnia, one of the participating artists, explains when asked what type of images collectors should expect. Clearly, there’s a range in subject and even medium. For her cards, Karimnia explores motifs of eyes and rainbows, and some incorporate symbols inspired by old Icelandic magical staves, with spells “to get protection from witches,” “to destroy all weapons,” “to nurture humbleness,” and so on. 

Karimnia, who “caught the [tiny-art] bug” after Paulus’ Off the Walls Arts show, says that the small form allows for more experimentation. “It’s a different challenge [than my usual work],” she says, “Plus if I don’t like one, I can throw it in the bin.” 

Paulus adds that working on a small canvas has influenced his “normal” work (in addition to giving him carpal tunnel in his wrist). “I’m incorporating some of the style that I’ve been doing [on the cards] back into my larger scale canvas paintings,” he says. “I thought this was just gonna be like a fun little side project, but it’s just altering what I’m doing.”

Overall, the artists hope that the trading cards will connect the arts community with the Memphis community at large. Anyone can attend, and everyone who does will walk away with original art. “It’s making art accessible,” Karimnia says, “and the cards are great to display, frame, or trade.” 

The group hopes to host more trading events in the future and add more artists to its roster. Keep up with the group on Instagram (@artisttradingcardsmemphis).

Artist Trading Cards Memphis (ATCM) Inaugural Event, Wiseacre Brewing Company, 2783 Broad Ave., Sunday, March 19, 2-5 p.m.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Coronavirus: Craft Breweries Close Taprooms, Offer To-Go Items

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Justin Fox Burks

This damn virus is closing down all of our favorite spots. (It’s for a good reason. I know, I know.) Slide on over to our How to Eat Now section of Hungry Memphis for the latest restaurant closings and to-go information.

The virus is hitting the city’s craft breweries hard, too. Nearly all have closed their taprooms and are offering some kind of to-go options. Here’s a round-up of the latest info from their Facebook pages.

Coronavirus: Craft Breweries Close Taprooms, Offer To-Go Items (5)

Coronavirus: Craft Breweries Close Taprooms, Offer To-Go Items (3)

Coronavirus: Craft Breweries Close Taprooms, Offer To-Go Items

High Cotton Brewing

Coronavirus: Craft Breweries Close Taprooms, Offer To-Go Items (2)

Coronavirus: Craft Breweries Close Taprooms, Offer To-Go Items (4)

Coronavirus: Craft Breweries Close Taprooms, Offer To-Go Items (6)

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Cover Feature News

Splashdance: Announcing the Winners of the Flyer’s Beer Bracket Challenge

Meddlesome Brewing Co.’s 201 Hoplar is (once again!) the best beer in Memphis, according to the 1,634 voters in the 2019 Memphis Flyer Beer Bracket Challenge, graciously sponsored by all of the great folks at Aldo’s Pizza Pies.

The Dirty ‘Dova dudes were just getting off the ground when they took home the coveted VanWyngarden Cup last year. They brought the cup back to us during our Match-Up Monday event at Aldo’s at the beginning of this year’s challenge. After a quick trip to C & J Trophy and Engraving, we gave the cup right back to Meddlesome last week during a Facebook Live event. By now, they’ve surely returned the cup to its spot in the Meddlesome taproom, where it will reside for another year.

Meddlesome brewer Ben Pugh

“We’re still blown away,” says Meddlesome co-founder and brewer, Ben Pugh. “It’s crazy. We didn’t expect it the first year. We definitely didn’t expect it in the second year. It’s been wild and humbling.” 

Says co-founder and brewer Richie EsQuivel: “Last year was, like, ‘what the hell?’ I was hoping we could get into the last four this year, but definitely did not think it’d be 201 [Hoplar] again.”

EsQuivel calls 201 a West Coast-style American IPA, “straight up and through and through.” He says new IPAs are “soft and fruity,” while 201 Hoplar meddles with that. (Don’t worry. You’ll see that pun again later on.)

Chris Hamlett and Skyler Windsor-Cummings of Meddlesome with Flyer writer Toby Sells.

“This beer is intended to be kind of aggressive and bitter,” says EsQuivel. “It’s super-pineappley with citrus fruits.” 

We changed up the Beer Bracket Challenge this year. We did away with the four categories — light beer, dark beer, IPAs, and seasonals — and let the breweries choose any four beers they wanted to compete, regardless of style. This made for some interesting matchups. Ghost River’s Grindhouse vs. Crosstown’s Margarita Gose, for example.

In the first round, 624 people cast 3,416 votes. Most of these voters were in Midtown, but there were a surprising number from New York and Massachusetts. Somebody voted in Spain. In round two, 571 voters cast 2,911 votes from as far away as Miami to Bellingham, Washington, a town just outside Vancouver. 

Meddlesome dominated our Final Four with Broad Hammer, 201 Hoplar, and Brass Bellows all taking slots. Memphis Made’s Fireside was the fourth member of the dance.

“Fireside is easy-drinking,” says Memphis Made co-founder Andy Ashby. “It’s super-laid-back, just like Memphis. It’s accessible and easy to fall in love with.”

But it was Meddlesome’s Broad Hammer brown ale and that aggressive 201 Hoplar IPA that went to the title fight. It was a close battle; 201 Hoplar won by only five votes.

Water. Malt. Yeast. Hops.

I’ve made beer for years now. Here’s my latest recipe. 

• Walk into Sweet Grass Next Door.

• Find Bailey (or Dougan, if you must).

• Say, “Bailey, may I have a” and then say the name of a beer they have.

This produces optimal results every time. I get that perfect blend of roast-i-ness, bread-i-ness, hop-i-ness, with a perfect mouth feel and a cold, clean finish. Every. Single. Time. 

Listen, I don’t know shit about beer. I can confidently say that after spending a week visiting the crazy-smart, hardworking brewers at Ghost River, Meddlesome, Memphis Made, High Cotton, Wiseacre, and Crosstown. Those folks know a LOT about beer. 

They can trace a beer style back in time and across a world map, like a genealogist with a family tree. They can trace the ingredients they use back to their literal roots. They can talk about beer and sound like a fanatical foodie and a chemical engineer in the same sentence.

On the Facebook Live stream for our Match-Up Monday event, I said some of the best beer in America is made right here in Memphis. I stand by that. I drink local beer wherever I go, and I always compare it to stuff back home, asking myself, “Is it as good as Traffic IPA, or Tiny Bomb, or Mexican Lager, or Fireside, or Brass Bellows, or Grindhouse?” And no matter what I think, I’m always glad to come home to my Memphis favorites. 

I decided to fix some of my beer ignorance. I talked with brewers about their processes and their ingredients. I broke it down to beer’s four basic elements — water, malt, yeast, and hops. I learned a lot and have a new appreciation for brewers and the beer they make. But I’m not quite smart enough to change up my recipe anytime soon. 

Water

The skies above Meddlesome Brewing are a dark battleship gray. Inside, a heavy quiet lays upon the bar. But through a door and around tall, silver tanks, a gleaming white light exposes a scene that could be a laboratory, a laboratory that smells of bread and plays Alice In Chains over a noisy din of equipment whirring.

It’s a brew day, and the brewhouse is busy. Guys in rubber boots climb steel ladders to open steaming lids on massive silver tanks and check the couplings on long black hoses that snake across the ground, round as a python and tough as a snow tire. After the work of the day and a few weeks to ferment, they’ll have Broad Hammer and McRoy’s Irish Stout. 

“Our [Memphis] water is a fantastic vehicle for our beers,” says EsQuivel. “Beers are 90 percent water. So, it’s obviously super important.” Meddlesome’s Pugh says it takes about eight gallons of that famous Memphis water to make one gallon of beer. But Meddlesome reclaims and reuses much of that water.

EsQuivel says they may adjust the pH of the water and add some salts or acids to it sometimes. But mostly they don’t “meddle” with it, he says in a self-aware, corny dad joke.

Soft rain beats against High Cotton’s taproom windows. The room’s big “BEER!” sign bathes upturned barstools in a soft, yellow glow.

Through two enormous doors, bright lights fall on brick walls above a concrete floor and massive copper-colored tanks. It’s a brew day, and the brewhouse is busy. Guys in rubber boots check gauges and climb steel ladders to open steaming lids on those massive, copper-colored tanks. They’re making a batch of High Cotton’s new Thai IPA and a batch of Scottish Ale. 

“As Memphis brewers, we really don’t have to do anything to the water to make good beer,” says High Cotton co-founder and brewer Ryan Staggs. “We also don’t have to install a super-expensive, water filtration system. Out west, water is super-expensive, but it’s also terrible. A lot of places in California will even have to use reverse osmosis just to get that blank slate that we get right out of the tap at a great price.” 

Water is also the most local ingredient source Memphis brewers can use in their beers. The rest of the main ingredients have to be shipped from specialty sources (for now, anyway). 

Malt

Crosstown Brewing’s massive, yellow logo pops off the side of its massive, gray building. Inside, huge silver tanks sit in neat rows under high ceilings. Those tire-tough and python-thick hoses snake along the floor.

The place is nearly deserted, until two brewers come along, each with a French Truck Coffee in one hand and a pastry in the other. Soon they are busy, making a double batch of Traffic IPA. 

I point to a large bag of something with the word “Canada” written across it. Clark Ortkiese, Crosstown Brewing co-founder and brewer, says it’s their base malt.

The very patient brewers of Memphis explained to me that malt is malted barley, the same grain as in a beef and barley soup. Ortkiese says maybe 90 percent of every beer made in the world is made with a base of malted barley. If you ever see a plant that looks like wheat on a brewery logo, it’s probably barley. 

Brewers will use malt and some other grains for different kinds of beer. The list of all grains used in a beer is referred to as the beer’s “grain bill.”  

Barley is grown and harvested and then sent over to a malter. There, the grain is soaked for a time, dried, and roasted. That roast time will determine much about the beer. Lightly roasted malt will give you lighter beers, a pale ale or a pilsner, maybe. A golden-roasted malt will give you a Scottish ale or an Oktoberfest. A dark roast, of course, will give you darker beers, like a Guinness.

Ortkiese explains that the big Canada bag contains “just plain malt. You can call it two-row or pale malt. It’s a base malt. It’s all that goes into Traffic.” 

Steve Winwood’s “Roll With It” blares over the darkened taproom at Memphis Made. A pallet jack, tools, and sacks of grain spread across the floor where typically sit neat rows of tables and benches. 

By the late afternoon, the brewers are working on their second batch of the day. Back in the lighted brewhouse, they gang around a silver tank, opened at the top and just bigger and taller than a pool table. It’s filled to the brim with what looks like oatmeal. It’s not, of course. It’s that famous Memphis water and that malted barley combined to make a sugary water. One day, that hot, sweet-smelling oatmeal-looking stuff (called a mash) will somehow become an ice-cold Fireside amber ale.

Memphis Made co-founder and brewer Drew Barton says a lot of his company’s grain comes from Germany, but they get some speciality stuff from the U.S., Canada, and England. Outside of water and know-how, you can’t really source a lot of beer ingredients locally, he said. 

“We don’t grow hops around here,” Barton says. “We don’t grow barley around here. There’s no yeast labs around here. At this point, it’s more of the skill set … of the brewer and the equipment you use that’s more important than if you got the ingredients right down the street. The source is important but not the locality of it.”

Yeast

Barton says much can be done along the brewing process to change the flavor components of beer. Yeast, he says, is one the biggest contributors to flavors “that people don’t realize.” And it’s not just the casual beer drinker who doesn’t get it. 

“The most important ingredient in brewing was the last one discovered, because yeast is a single-celled organism that is invisible to the naked eye,” according to All About Beer magazine. “Still, brewers have long known that some unseen agent turned a sweet liquid into beer. Long ago, the action of yeast was such a blessing, yet so mysterious, that English brewers [in the Dark Ages] called it ‘Godisgood.'”

Barton says yeast is vitally important to flavors. “We can have 500 gallons of wort [beer before yeast and fermentation] and split it up into five 100-gallon tanks with five different kinds of yeast in them,” Barton says, “Even though everything started out the same, you’d get five very different beers.” 

Ortkiese rattles off the name of the yeast used at Crosstown — US-05 California Ale yeast — quickly, from the top of his head. But then, his eyes light up as he courses through the history of that yeast strain from a now-defunct California brewery to its rediscovery and “rescue” by Ken Grossman, billionaire founder of Sierra Nevada. 

“I’m guessing here, but I’ll bet half the beers in the United States are fermented with that yeast; it’s just a workhorse,” Ortkiese says. “It’s very neutral. So, it lets all the hop flavors come forward.”

Yeast also gets you drunk. 

Those little fungi eat all that sugar we made with the water and malted barley, remember? It chews it up somehow and poops out — you guessed it — alcohol. Thanks, yeast. You really are the best. 

Hops

But for the gentle hum of some equipment and a hiss of running water somewhere, things are quiet at Wiseacre, relative to the size of its big brewhouse. The brewers are busy, but they’re spread out, working somewhere amid silver tanks that seem two stories tall. Somewhere in here, I think to myself, is an Ananda that I will drink sometime in the future. Weird.

Inside a walk-in cooler, brewer Sam Tomaszczuk pours bright green pellets from a futuristic, metallic-silver pouch. While you might not recognize them in their pelletized form, you’ve seen hops before. Have another look at a brewery logo. You might find a small, green plant the same shape as strawberry. Heck, a hop plant is the central feature of Meddlesome’s logo. 

Hops are little green flowers, cousins to marijuana. Brewers primarily use hops to bitter beer, to balance out that sweetness from that sugary barley water.

“There are a lot of beers that are quite hoppy out there that aren’t bitter at all,” Tomaszczuk says. “We have people who say they don’t like a hoppy beer and then we have them try something like Adjective Animal. It’s 8.6 percent alcohol … so it has a lot of sugars to it. It’s actually kind of sweet, compared to some of our other beers. So, when people try that, they tend to like it, even thought that’s a ‘hoppy beer.'”

Tomaszczuk pours those green, pelletized hops into a the steaming hole of a massive silver tank. In a few weeks, it’ll be a Hefeweizen, a light wheat beer, just in time for spring. 

Chunky, heavy-metal guitar riffs blend somehow over the hiss, clatter, and conversation spilling out of the open bay door of Ghost River. It’s a canning day, and the brewers are canners for the day. 

A pallet of naked, empty, silver cans glide from their stacks in satisfying single file through a machine that would make Willy Wonka smile. The cans are filled four at a time, sealed with a lid, twirled with a label, and six-packed by hand. It’s the very first time Ghost River has canned its new Grind-N-Shine, a light cream ale with coffee and vanilla. The beer is cold, and the freshly filled cans sweat in the tropical brewhouse environs. 

Back in the quiet of the taproom, Ghost River head brewer Jimmy Randall explains that it was “time to move forward.” Ghost River replaced its 1887 IPA with Zippin Pippin, and hops were a big reason why.

“We really wanted something … that would reflect those flavors that you get in IPAs and the hop profile was a big one,” Randall says. “We wanted to give it those big, up-front hops, the aroma, the flavor of them. So, we changed the way we hopped the beer completely.”

Add hops to the end of the boil, Randall explains, the more aroma you’ll get. Boil them longer, you’ll get a more bitter beer. Add hops at the end, you’ll get different flavors. And the types of hops you use will change everything. 

“So, take your Centennial hops, for example, which are kind of your classic, American IPA hops,” Randall says. “Bells Two Hearted IPA? That is 100 percent Centennial hops.”

Mosaic hops will give you juicy, tropical-fruit flavors, he says. Citra will give you citrus flavors.  

Get Crafty

There are about 100 craft breweries in Tennessee. About two dozen of those are in Nashville. Knoxville has 15 along its “Ale Trail.” 

The craft beer scene is still fairly new in Memphis. Boscos was Tennessee’s first brewpub, opening in 1992. Ghost River opened here in 2007. We’re now about five years from the Great Craft Awakening of 2013, the year that saw High Cotton, Wiseacre, and Memphis Made open. Since then, the city has added Meddlesome and Crosstown, each of which has been open for just more than a year. 

The Memphis scene isn’t small. It’s right-sized, and more is on the way. We’ll hopefully see Grind City Brewing in next year’s Beer Bracket Challenge. They’re planning to open in July. Plans to open Soul & Spirits Brewing in Uptown were revealed last week. There are more breweries coming, I’m told, but nothing we can report just yet. 

Until then, support your local craft brewers. Go drink a beer. And feel free to use my recipe.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Flyer “Beer Bracket Challenge” Down to Final Four

The whole thing started a few years ago, when Flyer associate editor Toby Sells blindfolded himself to pick the match-ups for the Flyer‘s first Beer Bracket Challenge. It was all kind of a goof that first year, replete with a “trophy” made from an old ice bucket that editor Bruce VanWyngarden found in his garage. Now, the Beer Bracket Challenge has morphed into a lineup of 24 local beers from five breweries going toe-to-toe against each other for votes from Flyer readers. It is a friendly competition, but it is a competition — and these Memphis beer gurus want to win.

For the more casual craft beer fan, the Beer Bracket Challenge, assisted by some delicious pizza at Aldo’s Pizza Downtown, where this year’s seeding ceremony took place, is one of the best ways to take the aimlessness out of your tour of the booming Memphis craft beer scene. Sure it’s fun to simply toss a ball idly into the air on a lazy day, but sinking it through the hoop when there is a mob trying to stop you is just more fun.

There are four divisions in the challenge. The “Tapped Out” division was seeded with two big winners from last year, Meddlesome’s 201 Hoplar and one of my long time go-tos, Wiseacre’s Ananda — two IPA heavyweights in a town that loves its IPAs. In the first round of voting, 201 Hoplar beat out Midnight Magic, a German Black Ale from Memphis OB (Original Brewer) Ghost River. Ananda lost out to another Meddlesome entrant, Dirty Dova. This was a little surprising, but as beers go, Dirty Dova, a crisp and refreshing double IPA, is a winner. In fact, it may go down a little too easy; its 8.5 percent ABV makes it a brew on a mission. Get a Lyft home.

In the “Perfect Pour” division, Wiseacre’s Tiny Bomb lager beat out another top seed from last year, High Cotton’s Thai Pale Ale, making it to the third round, where it was voted out, losing to Memphis Made’s Fireside, a malty roasted Red Ale.

In the “Drafted” division, Meddlesome continued its winning streak, as its Broad Hammer American Brown Ale edged out Memphis Made’s Cat Nap IPA. Broad Hammer then went on to beat out Crosstown’s Siren Blonde Ale in the next round and, then, finally, steal a win over Wiseacre’s Regular Pale Ale to make the Final Four.

Over in the “Frosty Mug” division, Wiseacre’s coffee stout (and nearly guaranteed hangover cure) Gotta Get Up to Get Down, beat out Plaid Attack Scotch Ale, another perennial favorite from Memphis Made. Gotta Get Up was beaten in the next round by this year’s Cinderella story, Meddlesome’s Brass Bellows, a great blonde ale. For the record, Brass Bellows had some fearsome competition from long-time favorite Ghost River Gold, followed by a close contest with High Cotton’s Mexican Lager, a sort of cosmic ideal of Corona.

The Beer Bracket Final Four for 2019: 201 Hoplar, Broad Hammer, Brass Bellows, and Fireside. The big winner in the tourney has been Meddlesome Brewing. If not exactly the new kid in class, they are certainly not the old guard either. Their tap room, out near the end of Shelby Farms, might be a bit out of the loop, but their beers are hard to ignore.

Final Four voting ended at press time. We know that Meddlesome will take home our Beer Bracket Challenge Cup. But to find out which beer won, you’ll have to check next week’s Flyer.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Prank Calls to Satan: Wiseacre’s Wicked Good Beer.

Once, in my younger days, I thought it was a terribly clever idea to prank call the planet. Which is how I know that at one point in history there were three people named Mortimer Underhill living in London, England. With long distance rates being what they once were, I didn’t pull a stunt like that on my phone. So, about three weeks later, there was also one set of parents in Baton Rouge who had a terrible time reconciling their daughter’s overseas phone bill. She later admitted it was pretty funny, but I was still on the hook for dinner.

So when I saw that Wiseacre Brewing had a black IPA called Prank Calls to Satan, I was intrigued. And why not? My ill-advised yet expensive quest for Mr. Underhill was entirely fueled by barley-water. This is the sort of imbecility we used to do in a world before the internet and Caller ID.

There is no real history to black IPAs. The brew is still considered an emerging style, although you see it around fairly often, these days. It is an ale with IPA-level hopping that also has a distinct toasted malt flavor. While it looks like a stout, it lacks the heavy body of that style.

I’ll admit that I’ve never been an unqualified fan of some of these “emerging” styles. Some of them can be too clever by half. And there are plenty of very traditional practices that, like the Salem Witch trials, really ought to remain a historical curiosity. I’m looking at you, Sour Beer. On the other hand, it’s no good standing in the way of innovation, either.

It was on a rainy, almost warm day that I headed over to Wiseacre to test Prank Calls to Satan.

It’s available in cans, but a trip to the taproom over on Broad is almost always worth it. The rain coming off the overpass gives the porch an urban groovy backdrop, and inside it looks like a family garage that has been taken over by an artistic, pot-smoking son — the one no one trusted to go to college out of state.

Wiseacre calls Prank Calls “deceiving and fun.” It’s deceptively drinkable is what it is. Honestly, I was annoyed it had taken me this long to try it out. The highly toasted malt gives it a deep, dark color, but it’s much lighter than anything we’d call a stout. With the just right amount of Delta and Chinook hops, this ale has a crispness that isn’t usually found in a toasted beer. It is a solid 6.5 percent ABV, but the 40 IBU hits a great balance of bitter body.

In short, this is a beautiful note to hit on a Memphis afternoon that can’t decide if it’s winter, spring, or summer. And I imagine that it would go well in the fall as well.

As for what to eat with it, the hoppy crispness opens up possibilities, because it likely won’t overpower other flavors. All kinds of tapas and appetizers would do the trick, especially the stinky cheeses. To be clear, Ramen noodles wouldn’t stand up to it, but this Black IPA will play well with a cheeseburger or a pizza. As much as I love barbecue, however, I can see how it might confuse the issue.

The guys over at Wiseacre named the beer after a Far Side cartoon that made them giggle. For me, all I could think of was making phone calls at 2:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m., London time) looking for a chap whose parents had saddled him with some ridiculous name I’d just made up. Mentally, that’s a strange place to go for a beer, but it was fun. The perfect beer to toast idiotic collegiate foolishness ruined by technology, and the manual transmission, while I’m at it, and, of course, one Mortimer Underhill, Esquire.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Beer Me!

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

In 2012, the hundred or so additions to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary included “game changer,” a newly introduced element or factor that changes an existing situation or activity in a significant way, and “craft beer,” specialty beer produced in limited quantities.

As craft beer puts the squeeze on Big Brewing’s market share each year, “game changer” is an apt description for this revival of local, small-batch brewing.

Within the next year, Memphis will have three new craft breweries. And though this isn’t the first time craft beer has made a play for Memphians’ hearts, this time around big differences in the market climate promise an easier road for these upstart microbreweries. Not only are changes to state and local laws making life easier for craft brewers — the Beer Tax Reform Act of 2013 sponsored by state senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown certainly lifts some of the disproportionate tax burden from craft brewers — but also beer drinkers are more savvy.

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 of Boscos and Ghost River Brewing 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 houses 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.

“I called it the Field of Dreams scenario,” says Brad McQuhae of Newlands Systems, a brewing equipment manufacturer in Abbotsford, British Columbia, that furnished Ghost River’s brewery. “These guys had a great idea of making wonderful styles of beer, but they weren’t marketers and they thought their beer was going to sell itself. In some cases, it worked, and, in most cases, it didn’t.”

Skypeck believes their craft beers were an unfamiliar product, and many beer drinkers, particularly young beer drinkers, weren’t buying.

“The people who liked craft beer then were old guys with beards. 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.”

Indeed, the demand for craft beer has been steadily growing, so much so that a second wave of craft breweries has been rolling in to meet that demand. According to the Brewers Association, in 2011, 37 breweries closed, but 250 new ones opened; in 2012, there were 43 brewery closings but 409 brewery openings, bringing the total number of breweries to an all-time high of 2,347.

“Distributors wouldn’t carry craft beer years ago,” McQuhae says. “Nowadays, we have clients starting up. They’ll have three distributors approach them and say, ‘Whatever you can make, we’ll take 100 percent.’ So you have a guy getting into business with three distributors knocking on his door and saying, ‘I’ll take all of whatever you brew.'”

With this new wave of craft breweries, beer drinkers young and old are driving the market with a seemingly insatiable appetite for craft beer.

“There are about 10 or 12 breweries that really connected with younger consumers and helped expand craft beer’s market share in those younger consumers,” Skypeck says. “And once your idea of the world of beer includes craft beer, it’s always going to include craft beer. Now, every new beer consumer when they turn 21 is a craft beer drinker.”

Twenty years into the business, Skypeck is the godfather of craft brewing in Memphis. He opened Boscos, the first brewpub in the state, in 1992 in the Saddle Creek shopping center in Germantown. While other brewpubs popped up around Memphis and shuttered within a few years, Skypeck expanded to Little Rock and Nashville and then opened Ghost River Brewing Company in 2007. Since then, Ghost River has expanded three times and is already working on a fourth expansion.

Skypeck attributes his success to two things: Memphis water (“which is really good and awesome for making beer,” he says) and his focus on the local market.

“There have been some other people who have come and gone, and very interestingly, most of those people who came and went weren’t locals,” Skypeck says. “We’re more of a local brand than a craft brand. We turn our beer over so quick, there are times we would keg a beer Friday morning, the distributor would pick it up Friday afternoon, and it would go straight down to Beale Street. You’d be having beer on Beale Street that was kegged at the brewery that morning.”

The immediacy of Boscos and Ghost River is central to Skypeck’s vision. Though pressed at every turn to expand beyond the Mid-South market, Skypeck has resisted, choosing instead to fill the ever-expanding local market. Supplying that market is plenty of work, he says, noting that Ghost River still hasn’t been able to fully meet demand because demand is so high and their brewing capacity is limited by space (hence the upcoming fourth expansion).

“Honestly, I’ve always contended this since the day we opened Boscos: Beer is a fresh, local food product,” Skypeck says. “It isn’t meant to ship around the country, much less around the world. After the 1950s and the development of the Interstate Highway System, we just got used to everything being national brands, but, before that, beer was always something fresh and local.”

(This mid-century shift likely precipitated the downfall of Memphis’ Tennessee Brewing Company, a behemoth former brewery that was once one of the largest breweries in the South. It now looms over Tennessee Street downtown, unused and in near-hopeless disrepair. Established in 1877, the brewery survived Prohibition but closed in 1954 after national brands like Budweiser swept in with national advertising campaigns, which caused local brands like Goldcrest 51 to lose favor.)

A burgeoning enthusiasm for all things local has included a demand for local beer, for an alternative to the mass-produced. With this demand for local beer has come the revival of the neighborhood brewery across the country, including in Southern cities like Birmingham and Asheville.

“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. They help activate the streets and become gathering spots for the neighborhood,” says Tommy Pacello of the Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team. “Like how Boscos was a pioneer in Overton Square.”

The three new breweries set to open in Memphis within the next year also follow this trend.

“All three of them have these common patterns,” Pacello says. “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.”

As for how Skypeck, who has enjoyed two decades free of local craft beer competition, will adjust to the addition of three new breweries, he remains sanguine.

“The fact that we’ve existed without a lot of other breweries is unique in the world of craft brewing,” he says. “Portland supports about a hundred. On a very basic level, they aren’t going to cut into our sales. The market’s growing so fast. It’s been demonstrated over and over in other markets in the United States that a rising tide floats all boats.”

High Cotton Brewing Company

The story of High Cotton Brewing Company begins like a joke: A lawyer, a pilot, an engineer, and a home brewer walk into a home-brew shop. From there, Brice Timmons, Ross Avery, Ryan Staggs, and Mike Lee began the whirlwind process of starting a brewery.

“As any home brewer does, we had this grand illusion, a pipe dream, that we would own a brewery,” Avery says.

“Only, Ross Avery’s way of dealing with a pipe dream is a little different from most people’s,” Timmons shoots back. “Ross already owned all the equipment.”

Eight years ago, Avery went to an auction and purchased all the brewing equipment from a former brewery. But without an actual brewery to put the equipment in, Avery’s auction purchase sat in storage. When the four finally got together, meeting through Mike Lee and his home-brew supply shop, Mid-South Malts, the fact that the equipment was on hand expedited the opening process. They purchased the space at 598 Monroe in June 2012, started construction in August 2012, and now brewing is under way. It’s impressive, especially considering all four of them have day jobs.

“It was the right mix of people at the right time,” Timmons says. “Memphis was really ready for it. Mike has been brewing here for 35 years. Ross has been at it for 20 and had all the equipment. And having a lawyer and an engineer handy was not unhelpful.”

Having a lawyer also helped when it came to changing a few laws in the process of opening the brewery.

In July 2012, Timmons, an attorney, worked with city councilman Jim Strickland and Josh Whitehead from the Office of Planning and Development to remove the city alcohol code’s food requirements for brewpubs and allow microbreweries to have taprooms on site for on-premises consumption of pints. Before the code change, brewery owners had to offer meals, including a meat and vegetable prepared on the premises, in order to open a tasting room.

High Cotton Brewing, set to begin full-scale operations this spring, plans on eventually having a tasting room in the front of its warehouse space on Monroe. Directly down the street from Sun Studio and AutoZone Park, High Cotton’s tasting room will feature 10 to 12 beers, including seasonal and experimental varieties, large open windows, and the reclaimed bar from the erstwhile Butcher Shop downtown. But for now, the group is focused on getting kegs out the door — and into local restaurants like Jim’s Place, Hog & Hominy, Central BBQ, Ciao Bella, and Bayou Bar & Grill.

Wiseacre Brewing Company

From Davin Bartosch’s brewing degrees to Kellan Bartosch’s custom sneakers with “wiseacre” on the heels, this band of brewing brothers behind Wiseacre Brewing Company has craft beer covered from head to toe.

“We went about this in the most comprehensive way possible,” Davin says. “I over-engineer everything. When Kellan said, ‘Let’s open a brewery,’ I said, ‘Okay, let’s make sure we know how to do this better than anyone who’s ever opened a brewery before.'”

Graduates of White Station High School, the Bartosch brothers are best friends, beer lovers, and, yes, wiseacres. Kellan, 32, spent five years working on the business side of brewing, first as a distributor in Nashville and then as sales rep for Sierra Nevada. Davin, 33, has been homebrewing since he was 19, before going to brewing school in Chicago and Germany and then working for Rock Bottom Brewing in Chicago. Finally, after 10 years of planning, the two have returned to their hometown to start Wiseacre Brewing Company.

“Having a brewery is about more than having great beer,” Kellan says. “You can have awesome beer, but if you don’t have someone who knows how to move it, how to approach people with it, how to tell the story of your beer, then it’s not going to go anywhere.”

The Bartosch brothers purchased warehouse space at 2783 Broad Avenue, where they hope to have their brewery open by this fall. Like High Cotton, they are building a taproom into their brewery plans, a place for patrons to try whatever Davin has brewing. And, like Ghost River, they’re focusing on the local market.

“People want to know who made what they’re eating and what they’re drinking,” Kellan says. “Right now, people are grasping for what they can get locally. It has to do with people wanting to see their dollars go to people locally. But even the huge conglomerates are cranking out stuff that looks like craft beer, that looks like someone took care of it, when, in reality, it’s mass-produced.”

Wiseacre won’t be cranking out the same beers over and over again. Though the model has been successful for Ghost River (80 percent of Ghost River’s production is in its Ghost River Golden Ale), Davin’s brewing repertoire will be more fluid.

“We’re going to make everything. We don’t ever want to lose the experimental side of making beer,” Kellan says. “For Davin, as a brewer, it’s about inspiration, and if something comes to mind and he wants to make it, we don’t want to be handcuffed by any kind of calendar we’ve created for ourselves.”

And though they are self-professed beer nerds, the Bartosch boys aren’t looking to bring craft beer snobbery to town.

“Craft beer is so cool. I think some people are turned off by that,” Kellan says. “We don’t ever want this to be pretentious. We don’t want to condescend to people for what they enjoy drinking.”

Memphis Made Brewing Company

The Memphis Made Brewing Company T-shirt will win fans long before they taste a drop of Memphis Made beer. “When you’re bad, you get put in the corner,” the shirt reads, with a map of the state of Tennessee below it and a star to mark the spot where Memphis sits. Outside the brewery, which is located at 768 Cooper, the “I Love Memphis” mural echoes owner and brewmaster Drew Barton’s love of his hometown. Inside, Barton’s plans for the brewery bespeak a second passion.

“I started homebrewing when I was in college in Michigan, and I fell in love with it,” he says. “I bought a homebrewing book and read the whole thing cover to cover. Twice.”

He returned to Memphis to finish his schooling and got a degree in zymurgy management, the art and science of fermentation. Barton left again to work in a brewery in Asheville, the French Broad Brewery. He started out as a delivery driver, and within 18 months, he was head brewer. In 2010, after a few years running French Broad, he moved back to Memphis to work on starting his own brewery. Construction is under way, and Barton hopes to be open by late summer or early fall of this year.

“Right now, we’re looking at doing an IPA and a Kölsch,” Barton says. “Those will be our year-round beers. Everybody’s making IPAs, and IPAs sell. So, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The Kölsch will be something nice and new for this market. It’s a German golden ale, very clean, crisp with a slight, spicy, hot note. It’s good in the summertime, so on a hot summer day in Memphis, it’s going to be gangbusters.”

Barton is limiting the number of year-round beers to two, making room for plenty of seasonal and small-batch brews. They will also have a taproom eventually, though Barton admits that will come later in the process. As for how he feels about the influx of breweries in Memphis, Barton says there is plenty of room for more beer.

“In terms of competition, there’s room for a lot more here,” he says. “Having four breweries located in Memphis? I don’t think that’s a problem. We could have 15 breweries here. The craft brewing industry is such that we could all get together on a Friday night and drink beers and talk shop. For the most part, craft brewers help each other out. And if you’ve got good product, you don’t have anything to worry about.”