Yesterday I hopped in a cab and headed to the parking lot of LifeLink Church on Cooper for the 2011 Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest. I’ve said over and over that this is Memphis’ best beer festival, and it lived up to its reputation. Read on to see photos from the festival and learn some cool facts about beer.
This is one of the main reasons I like CY Beerfest so much. They have an education tent with a list of speakers and topics. I’d estimate that half the time I spent at the festival yesterday was spent in the education tent. And I don’t even brew beer!
A shot of the crowd. The parking lot provided more than ample space for everyone to mingle and talk about beer.
Above: The rep from Yazoo discussed the difference between cask beer and keg beer (and he brought samples of both). Cask beer is unfiltered, so you get more yeast than keg beer. There’s a lot less CO2 in cask beer, so there are fewer bubbles, and it’s more creamy.
(Nice street art in the background, by the way. You won’t see that if you go to a festival in Germantown.)
This is a black peppered bacon stout from Bluff City Brewers, a local club made up of people who brew their own beer at home.
The Bluff City Brewers gave a presentation. They said if you drink beer at home, you can save quite a bit of money by brewing your own beer. Mid-South Malts was there selling starter kits for $85. They were also selling ingredient kits to make a beer similar to Budweiser for $40. It lets you brew about as much beer as you’d get if you paid for $50 worth of Bud. The savings increase if you brew premium beers; for every batch of beer you brew similar to Guinness, you save $50-60. So, you quickly recover the cost of the starter kit.
The Bluff City Brewers invited the public to attend their next club meeting. Even if you don’t brew beer, you’ll be welcomed. You can find their calendar on their website at bluffcitybrewers.com.
Not long after I got to the festival, I grabbed some food. The fest had two excellent vendors this year:
Central BBQ was selling BBQ sandwiches, homemade chips, and nachos. Sweet Grass grilled up some brats. I got a delicious BBQ pork sandwich from Central, topped with slaw and hot BBQ sauce.
I always look forward to the Southwest Distributors presentation in the education tent.
Before Prohibition, he said, every community had its own brewery, its own unique taste of beer. We’re just starting to get back from that. I learned from another presenter that, once Prohibition ended, it took the U.S. until 2010 to have the number of breweries it had in 1900.
Quote of the day came from the Southwest rep. “I’m not knocking Bud, Miller, Coors. There’s a place for every beer, even if it’s on the beer pong table.”
Check out memphisbeersandwines.com to find out about upcoming beer festivals, dinners and tastings.
One of the most interesting events they do is beer vs. wine dinners. Each course is paired with a beer and a wine, and you get a scoresheet where you can vote for the winner. They have done 3 of these dinners thus far, and in all 3 the winner has been beer. The next one is tentatively planned for January, venue yet to be determined.
The SW rep named Whole Foods, Fresh Market, and Raffe’s as “retail best bets” for finding craft beer. He said that if Kroger doesn’t carry the beer you want, ask for it. If enough people ask, they’ll get the hint and expand their craft beer selection.
Probably the longest lines of any booth were at Bayou Teche, a Louisiana-based brewery that I’d never heard of before yesterday. Their beers were delicious and I hope to see them in the Memphis area soon.
The Schlafly rep discussed “What is craft beer?” Here are the notes I took, but warning: I was starting to get pretty wasted by this point, so I’m not 100% sure everything I wrote is correct. Craft breweries are defined by the following:
- Size. Craft breweries must brew no more than 6 million barrels per year. Sam Adams, currently the largest, brews 2 million. Budweiser, by comparison, brews 100 million.
- Independent. Less than 25% owned by a larger alcohol corporation. Goose Island used to be considered a craft brewery. Bud was part owner, but less than 25%. They lost their craft brewery status when Bud purchased them outright.
- Purity. (This is where my note taking got sloppy.) Ideally, beer should be brewed from four ingredients: Water, yeast, hops and barley. The brewery’s flagship beer should be an all-malt beer, with no adjuncts such as rice or corn used.
In 2010, beer sales across the U.S. were down 1%. Craft beer sales were up 11%.
Budweiser employs 1 person for every 50,000 barrels brewed. Craft breweries employ one person for every 1,000 barrels brewed. Therefore, you should stimulate the economy by drinking craft beer.
Audience question: Where can we get Schlafly’s high-alcohol beers? For those unfamiliar with TN state law, beers over 6% ABV are classified as liquor and have to be sold in liquor stores. The rep said that Party Mart in Jackson, TN, 1 mile north of I-40, is the best place to go.
The final speaker of the day was Chuck from Ghost River Brewery here in Memphis.
Chuck told us that Boscos’ 20th anniversary is next year, and to expect a lot of exciting events. He then gave a history of craft brewing in Tennessee, ending with a sampling of some of the first bottles of Ghost River Golden.
Complete photo album (about 25 pics) here. Outstanding beer fest all around, and thank goodness the weather was not sweltering hot like last year. I actually ended up leaving a bit early: About 4:15 I checked Foursquare and saw that my friend John D had checked in at Slider Inn. I decided to have a beer with John on his home turf, and bid the festival adieu. To everyone who was involved with the festival, absolutely a fantastic job! I’ll see you in 2012!