Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of sitting down withAndy Ash
by, one of the founders and organizers of theCooper-Young Regional
Beerfest, to talk a
bout the history of the festival and what we can expect this year.The Cooper-Young Regional
Beerfest will
be held this Saturday, Octo
ber 15th, from 1-5 p.m., in the parking lot of Life Link Memphis.Where’d the idea of the CY Regional
Beerfest come from?I’m on the
board of the Cooper Young Community Association, and a lot of the
board mem
bers are also really into
beer...I was thinking we needed another fund-
Brewing equipmentraiser, and we were all like, ‘wouldn’t it
be cool to do a
beer festival?’ We’re all friends and we’re all into
beer, so it didn’t even really feel like a lot of work.Why do you think Cooper-Young is especially suited to host a
beer festival?You’ve got a city like Asheville, North Carolina, where they’re crazy a
bout their
beer. They’ve got something like eight or nine local
breweries in a relatively small town. It’s kind of a point of pride for us that we’ve got this very tight-knit neigh
borhood [which isn’t unlike a scaled-down version of Asheville], and we love the idea of a local community and craft
beer.It feels like one of those win-win things: we’ll get a
bunch of
beer that we can’t normally get here,and have it
basically delivered to our doorstep. And on top of that, you get to meet a
bunch of really cool
brewers like Ivan Chester from Yazoo, the folks from Lazy Magnolia, and Schlafly is sending some of their
brewers down here. So you get to hang out with these guys, drink their
beer, and raise money for the [Cooper-Young] all at the same time.What was attendance and the general reaction like last year?Last year, we sold around 400 tickets, plus all of the volunteers and designated drivers plus comp tickets, so we pro
ba
bly had around 500 people...and we sold out on festival day even though we were
brand new and kind of an unknown commodity. It really worked out well...most attendees were from Memphis, and a good portion of those were from Cooper-Young. So we decided to offer more tickets this year.It seems like just a
bout everything revolving around the festival is a cele
bration of all things regional.Exactly. We’ll have food from local restaurants: Sweet Grass will
be bringing homemade
brats which will
be made Friday, and freshly-made mustard as well as
bar
becue from Central. WEVL will
be there, and Goner Records will
be DJing and selling some of their merchandise. We really wanted to focus on promoting Cooper-Young as a community.Can you talk a
bit a
bout the
beer education tent?The
beer education tent, which we’re calling
Beer Tent Revival, gives
brewers and the
Bluff City
Brewers & Connoisseurs the opportunity to talk a
bout whatever they want: their products, the
brewing process, the industry. It was a huge success last year. The tent was almost overflowing, so we’ve provided more room for it this year. We want people to come away excited a
bout craft
beer in the same way we’re excited. You usually can’t really get that access to the people who really know
beer...I mean they’re the ones who
brew it.Which
breweries should we expect to see this year?Ghost River,
Boscos, Yazoo, Schlafly, Lazy Magnolia, Red
Brick from Atlanta (who just recently introduced their
beers to the Memphis market)..a lot of stuff that’s within a day’s driving distance. And that includes some stuff from some
breweries from Asheville like Green Man, French
Broad, and the Asheville
Brewing Company. Plus the
Bluff City
Brewers & Connoisseurs are
bringing some pretty exciting
beers [Check out a few of themhere.] It should all
be pretty fantastic.We want people to discover some new
beers that, next time they’re at a
bar or restaurant, they’ll ask a
bout. It’s a way of showing
breweries that don’t currently distri
bute here that there is in fact demand for their product in Memphis.Keep an eye out for pt. 2, in which Ash
by talks a
bout the local craft
beer scene.Cooper-Young Regional
Beerfest————
Beer BrewingI know I mentioned this in the last post,
but Raffe’s Deli will
be hosting a
beer tasting this evening featuring Yazoo and
brew-master, Ivan Chester, starting at 7 p.m., and Young Avenue Deli will
be hosting keep-the-glass cask night (also with Ivan) at 6 p.m. tomorrow evening...I
believe he’ll
be bringing a cask of Yazoo’s Sly Rye Porter instilled with Olive & Sinclair cocoa ni
bs.
Both events should
be pretty stellar, so check ‘em out!Edited: An earlier version of this story read that tickets for the
http://www.chinabeerbrewing.com/ Beerfest had sold out. Tickets can
be bought online at
beerfest.cooperyoung.orguntil midnight Friday or at
Boscos Squared, Mid-South Malts and the CYCA offices.
