Music City Beer Festival a brewin'

In the 11th century, officials in what is now the Polish city Gdansk reportedly delivered to the citizenry this harsh edict:

“Whoever makes a poor beer is transferred to the dung-hill.”

Not that the beer-makers participating in Saturday’s Eighth Annual Music City Brewers Festival would need to heed such words, as these are skilled craftspeople masterfully concocting the nectar of grains.

With no fear of a dung-heap banishment, the two-session beer fest at Hilton Park (a.k.a. Hall of Fame Park) in downtown’s SoBro district should prove the best yet. From its modest start in 2002, when about 1,200 thirsty folks attended, the festival now ranks as one of the city’s most popular and high profile, drawing attendees from across the nation.

“The goal of the festival is to get people to try and compare different beers — maybe beers they haven’t heard of,” said Candace Price, the festival’s director since Year One. “So when they see those beers in the grocery stores and markets, they’ll say, ‘Oh, yes, I’ll get that beer.’”

Price said that because last year’s event sold out five days in advance, the 2009 version will offer two sessions, each with 3,500 tickets. The 6 to 10 p.m. time slot is already sold out. However, tickets remain for the noon to 4 p.m. session.

“Our plan it to have 7,000 people attend,” said Price, adding that the 2008 Music City Brewers Festival all-day event drew about 5,000 attendees.

The festival focuses on craft and micro-brewed beers, with Jim ’N Nick’s Bar-B-Q serving as primary sponsor. Fifteen percent of net ticket sales will go to benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee. On the specialty beer theme, attendees can quaff their favorite ales, bocks, hefeweizens, porters and stouts from local brewery favorites Big River, Blackstone, Boscos and Yazoo.

The out-of-town craft/micro breweries and beers represented include a who’s who collection of obscure (at least to mainstream brewski drinkers) and cleverly named entities. They include the following: Atlanta Brewing Co., Avery, Boulder, Boulevard, Chimay, Diamond Bear, Dogfish Head, Ghost River, Good People, Harpoon, Highland, Kona, Lazy Magnolia, Left Hand, Magic Hat, New Belgium, Old Towne, Oskar Blues, Rogue, Schlafly, Shmaltz, Southhampton, Starr Hill, Stone, Strongbow, SweetWater, Terrapin, Victory and Widmer Brothers.

That’s a lot of beer. Then again, as beer is the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage and the third most consumed liquid (trailing only water and tea), such volume should be well appreciated on a steamy Saturday.

Chuck Skypeck, founder of Memphis-based Boscos, described the festival as a “great venue” in which to showcase the brewery’s handcrafted beers to “discriminating Nashville beer connoisseurs.”

"Boscos will be bringing a special beer to the festival, our Tennessee Cream Ale,” said Skypeck, whose company has participated in the festival every year since its inception. “This was the very first ‘pub-brewed beer’ in Tennessee, the original product we brewed when we opened the first brew pub in Tennessee in 1992. Although we no longer brew this beer on a regular basis, it is always a customer favorite when we offer it seasonally."

Steve Johnson, treasurer, membership director and founding member of the Music City Brewers (founded in 1996 and Nashville’s longest standing home brew organization), said the festival provides attendees a fine chance to “learn about all that is excellent in the beer world.”

Music City Brewers’ members volunteer at the festival offering education and information, particularly related to home brewing.

Johnson said highlights from the past years have included visits to the festival by notables such as Kid Rock (in tow with his entourage) and Steve Winwood.

“And of course our own Hop Tyrant (Tom Vista) in his burlap sack and hop crown” has attended, Johnson added. “True hopheads have a chance to enjoy some of the hoppiest beers available that are stepped up a notch with the help of some unusual dispensing devices named Marvin the Organoleptic Hop Transducer and his cousin Randall (hint: get to the Boscos tents early). Of course, even the brewers often end up at our tent so that they can try something completely different.”

That “trying something different” theme is a key to the Music City Brewers Festival. Attendees tend to be daring in their efforts to sample non-mainstream beers. Though there is nothing wrong with an ice-cold PBR on a fire-hot day, a refreshing craft beer offers its drinker an interesting change-of-brew pace.

“Craft beer is not just a beverage; it is not just another product to sell because it makes money today,” said Derek Petrella, Lipman Brothers’ festival representative serving as on-premise market manager and a participant in the event since it started. “It is a state of mind, a way of life. A way to reward yourself and your friends for a job well done.”

The story behind the festival partly involves a defining moment.

About 10 years ago, Petrella was running a bar in town when his Lipman Brothers rep visited with a “little brown bottle with a bright green label.”

“I wasn’t sure what she was trying to sell me on, and then she told me the story about how Lipman Brothers got into the craft beer business about five years earlier,” he recalled. “She told me that craft beer was the next hot segment of the beverage industry. She poured the beer into a glass and told me to try it. I was hooked immediately. I didn't know why at first. I just knew I wanted more.”

So do others. Many beer drinkers now crave craft beers, support micro breweries and follow the happenings of the non-mainstream beer culture. As their numbers increase, so, too, does the profile of the Music City Brewers Festival.

“It takes a while to grow an event,” Candace Price said. “But the demand [to attend] has grown so much, I hear people say it’s the hottest ticket in town.”

And that success is worth the toasting of a cold beer.

What: Eighth Annual Music City Brewers Festival
When: noon to 4 p.m. and 6 to 10 p.m. (sold out) Saturday
Where: the lawn of the Hilton Nashville Downtown, 121 Fourth Ave. S.
Cost: $30 in advance, $40 day of event, $15 for designated driver tickets
Info: musiccitybrewersfest.com
• Tickets can be purchased at various Jim ’N Nick’s Bar-B-Q locations