steve cross loves music and science

Y’all. I’m slackin’ this week. I fail at blogging. So sue me. I should have mentioned on Monday or even over the weekend that this week is craft beer week in Nashville, and it all leads up to the 2nd annual East Nashville Beer Festival in East Park on Saturday. I went last year and got soused on some amazing beer, and I’m VERY much looking forward to it this year, mostly because I now live a couple blocks from the location and can casually stroll down to it with my girlfriend. They’ve expanded everything this year, and I’m very excited about some of the specialty brews- rare/limited run beers from well-known names that you’ll probably never see anywhere other than at beer festivals such as this. The festival tickets sold out in only 2 hours when they went onsale Feb. 10th, but I’ll be you can find some on craigslist if you try really hard.

While the ENBF is the main event, there have been other fun things going on around town this week as part of Nashville craft beer week. I stopped by the Brooklyn Brewery tasting session at Woodland Wine Merchant yesterday and had their Local #1, Local #2, East India Pale Ale, and Monster Ale Barleywine. All fantastic in their own way. Tonight from 5-7 they’ll be having a Green Flash free tasting session, and Friday New Belgium will be in the store for some free tasting. There are other tastings and events going on elsewhere, so check the schedule for today and tomorrow’s festivities.

I must also take this opportunity to mention how pleased I am that we have several new local breweries popping up here in Nashville. TN’s laws are literally some the WORST in the nation for small-scale craft breweries, but it’s very encouraging to see the huge success of Yazoo and the emerging breweries such as Fat Bottom, Black Abbey, Broacast, Nashvillion, Jackalope, and Jubilee. (All of which will have beers at the ENBF.) Bosco’s and Blackstone will be there as well, but they are in a class of their own in my head- they are restaurants with breweries inside them. Their beers are a force to be reckoned with, however small-scale they may be! And Blackstone has just recently expanded their brewing to a separate facility and are bottling/distributing regionally now. I highly recommend their Chaser Pale- a Kolsch-style ale which is very light and refreshing. You don’t see Kolsch as a flagship beer from many craftbrewers, so I applaud them for doing it!

Ok, off my beer soapbox. Hopefully you have tix to this awesome event- if not, get some to the much bigger Music City Brewer’s fest in July.