Tag Archives: tennessee

Big-Ass Beers & the American Way

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You don't get much more American than this Tennessee native

You don’t get much more American than this TN native

I love America. Goddammit, I really do. And I love that I come from the same country as the blues, baseball, Patti Smith, candy corn, and the Double IPA. I love the Jumbotron cam and I love Spencer Tunick (nsfw). I love Dolly Parton’s…hair. At the same time there’s this over-sized American pride makes me really uncomfortable; the kind I associate with monster truck rallies, super-sized grease fests, and SUVs the size of my living room.

Why is it then that the same bigger-is-better attitude I roll my eyes at is precisely why I like American beers so damn much? Because please, throw an obscene amount of hops in my beer — I’ll take two.

The state is conveniently shaped

Brunch!

This contradiction was evident on Sunday, July 3rd at 11:30 in the morning, when I found myself in the Nashville’s Farmers’ Market with two flights of Tennessee beers sitting in neat rows on boards the shape of their state. I had suffered a panicked moment of almost-Millennial FOMO and had to try all of the beers. Of course, I didn’t drink them all by myself; my ever-eager, ever-thirsty father was across the table from me, ready to take whatever I handed him. Some families go worship God together every week; me and Pops, we share a sacred brew of our own. Continue reading →

Batten Down the Hatches, Eatbox: Shannon’s Brief Return to Food Service

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eatbox

Jonathan, posing with his food truck empire

When Jonathan Coffman took over command of the Eatbox food truck and moved it to Jackson, Tennessee, nothing could have fully prepared him for the Sisyphean effort it would take to feed twenty thousand hungry Bonnaroovians at the Food Truck Oasis. First of all, festival organizers threw him a bit of a curve ball by asking him to fill the gourmet meatball niche at the festival, when he was more used to serving kebabs and burritos at much smaller events around Jackson.  Undaunted, Coffman built a trailer filled with chest freezers. He rallied a small army of friends and family to staff the truck. He rolled thousands upon thousands of meatballs. And then he allowed me, a food truck novice, to wander into the middle of all of it, just because I asked.

My previous experiences in food service are dark-night-of-the-soul kind of material; I was truly one of the worst waitresses to ever spill a drink or drop a dessert at the Big Boy and TGIFridays of Mansfield, Ohio, and my tips usually reflected it. But Bonnaroo is all about new experiences, and I thought that working behind the scenes of one of the food trucks, preparing the food itself, might help to erase the memories of those old disasters.

Elbow room in a food truck is limited, but even so, there are a number of people working behind the scene at any given moment to get your food to you. I by-passed the grill and assembly positions (though, bless their sweet Southern hospitality, I think the Eatbox workers were prepared to let me do whatever I wanted in there) and apprenticed myself to Maria (non-Bonnaroo job: fourth grade teacher; favorite summer hobby: teasing Zeke, who was working next to her) at the topping station, where I figured I would do the least damage. Continue reading →

Yazoo Brewery: Teaching Us to Embrace that Tennessee Funk

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yazoo hefeweizen

Our regular beer columnist, the incomparable Big Lla, is rambling the country in newly-wedded bliss at the moment, and though I am a poor substitute, I was pleased at the chance to write about Yazoo Brewery, a happy discovery that I made at Bonnaroo last weekend. Yazoo first caught my eye because it was the only Tennessee brewer slated to be in the Brooer’s Fest (Bonnaroo’s collection of yummy microbrew booths), and I always like tasting the local nectar. But my interest was further piqued when my brother-in-law Andrew called Yazoo’s Dos Perros “the most awesomest tastingest beer in Nashville.” Sold.

While sampling the Hefeweizen and Gerst Amber that were on tap at the festival, we caught up with Adam Jones, who, in addition to marketing the fine brews at Yazoo, has eyes so kind that he reminded me of a koala. Here’s more from Adam on hoppy experiments and Yazoo’s efforts to put the sour back into beer:

yazoo hop projectWhat’s your favorite Yazoo brew?
Honestly, the first one that I really fell in love with was the hefeweizen. It has such strong banana notes that it really grabbed me, and then when I started to work with them, I realized there’s no banana in it; it’s all the yeast. That really intrigued me and made me want to learn more.
I’m a big fan on the Hop Project IPA, too. The recipe of the hops changes with each batch. They use a little different combination, a little different hops each time, which gives it a different character and keeps you guessing—something new and fun each time.

Anything new coming up for Yazoo this summer?
We’ve actually just started a sour and wild ale program. It’s a series of beer called “Embrace the Funk.” Sour ales are brewed with a different strand of yeast that you usually want to keep out of your beer. But combined with other things—one of ours has cherries and currants—you get the sour initial taste and end with a malty finish, and it’s a big spectrum of flavor. We’ve got two on tap in the taproom now, and we’re bottling it soon. They’re pretty awesome.