Cooper-Young Beerfest: Pics and stuff I learned

The Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest yesterday was a smashing success.  I cabbed down there, getting there right as the festival opened at 1.  I stayed all the way through until 5.  I had a great time, drank some delicious beers, and learned quite a bit about beer as well.  Here are some pics and some information I learned.

The beerfest was in a huge parking lot at Walker and Fleece. Plenty of room to move around and plenty of room to expand if it grows next year.
Au Fond Farmtable (booth on the left) was the food vendor, selling bratwurst, veggie meatball subs, and focaccia pizza.
They had an education tent where festival attendees could hear about the beers and ask the brewers questions. This is a pic of Yazoo brewery's presentation.
Schlafly was next to present. I was pleased to see that the education tent was nearly full, and in some cases overflowing, for the brewer presentations. People in this community clearly want to learn more about good craft beer.
Next up was a representative from Southwest Distributors.

Okay, I want to take a break from pics for a minute to mention some things that were said in the Southwest presentation.  Southwest represents a lot of the smaller craft breweries who don’t devote a lot of resources to marketing, because they’re too busy brewing good beer.  He said that a lot of craft breweries are skeptical that there’s a market for their product in Memphis. If there are beers you want to see in the Memphis market that are not available here, his advice is to e-mail the breweries and let them know there’s a demand for it, both in grocery stores and in bars.

Southwest also hosts beer dinners around Memphis. Beer actually pairs with food just as nicely as wine does, as I have learned at the Flying Saucer beer dinners. To see a list of their upcoming beer dinners, visit memphisbeersandwines.com. You can also follow them on Facebook.

More pics…

Kelly in the education tent
Chuck Skypeck from Ghost River brewery in Memphis
Vino's from Little Rock talks about the beers they brought.

Okay, got some stuff to say about Vino’s.  First of all, their Rock Hopera beer was absolutely delicious.  If you’re a fan of hoppy beers, you’ve got to stop by there next time you’re in Little Rock (it’s at 7th and Chester) and give it a try.

The star of the show, however, was Vino’s Goldcrest 51 beer.  Goldcrest 51 was the beer that was brewed in the Tennessee Brewery for many years.  Not long ago, a recipe for the beer was found in someone’s attic, and Vino’s tried to recreate it.  They gave a sample to Jake Schorr of Westy’s.  Jake’s is a descendant of the people who ran the Tennessee brewery, and probably the only person who was around the brewery when the original Goldcrest was being made.  Jake reportedly said that Vino’s Goldcrest 51 was “very close” in taste to the original.

Then the Vino’s people told us they had this book for sale at their booth:

It’s a history of the Tennessee Brewery, from its opening in the 1890s, through Prohibition when breweries had to be very creative to survive, to its final days in the 1950s.  I bought a copy and hope to read it this week.  Then I will loan it out to friends who live near the brewery and have an interest in beer.

Excellent festival, even though it was a very warm day outside.  If they do it again next year, I’ll be back.