Yesssssss, Two New Beer Festivals in Memphis…

Life is good! We just saw that not one, but TWO new beer festivals are trying their luck in Memphis. Side note: this post is being written as a Yuengling Light is being consumed.

Though we can’t necessarily say that we’re beer aficionados, members of the Hit or Ms. team have definitely made the rounds to several beer festivals and enjoyed a wide variety of brews over the years. SO, hopefully, one of these beer festivals (if not both) will meet our high standards.

A few tips from the thirsty Hit or Ms beer drinkers that will surely be in attendance:

1. Have SEVERAL bathrooms. There’s nothing worse than drinking lots of fab ale and well, you know where we’re going with this.

Buzz kill

2. Microbrews are crucial… ideally, those hard to find microbrews. We know you need the big names (ahem, Sam Adams) to pay for the gig, but incorporate other favorites. Locally, Ghost River and Boscos, and luckily, they are slotted for at least one of the fests (phew). How about Lazy Magnolia? And though admittedly not local, Allagash White and Wachusett Blueberry are definite must-haves.

Allagash White

3. Have some decent food to complement all the beer. Ok, we’ll put it out there… pronto pups will be acceptable for this occasion.

4. Figure out some sort of DD situation. Maybe pull in AAA (anyone see their promo for New Year’s?) or bribe a couple horse and carriages to venture to East Memphis. Whatever you can do to eliminate drunk driving, but not damper the fun of sampling a lot of beer.

5. Live music (though we’re sure you have this covered being in Memphis). Lots of beer + live music = interesting, laughable dancing that will surely entertain your crowd.

You’re welcome.

Anyway, read below for all the details. See you in March?

Two New Beer Fests On Tap for Aficionados

ERIC SMITH | The Daily News

Anyone looking to try a good ale, stout, lager or porter should raise their pint glasses to a pair of inaugural beer-tasting festivals being introduced in Memphis this spring.

The River City Brewer’s Festival will be held March 13 at Handy Park on Beale Street and the Memphis Brewfest will be held April 24 at AutoZone Park. Both events are fundraisers for charities and will feature hundreds of brews from dozens of brewers.

The two festivals join the semiannual ZooBrew and annual Art on Tap on the beer-tasting calendar, giving thirsty Memphians plenty of opportunities to sample suds from around the country and the world.

The River City Brewers’ Festival, www.rivercitybrewersfestival.com, will have two sessions: one from noon to 4 p.m. and one from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., followed by an after-party at Primetime Sports Bar.

The event was the brainchild of Jim LoSapio, director of operations for River City Management Group, the company that operates such Downtown bars and restaurants as Primetime, the Mesquite Chop House, Pa Pa Pia’s, Rum Boogie Café, King’s Palace Café, Spindini and Pig on Beale.

LoSapio said he has seen increased demand for handcrafted local beers at his restaurants from locals and tourists alike. The way he sees it, Memphians’ thirst for good beer is growing, making the beer-tasting festival a timely event.

“People are definitely moving in that direction,” he said.

For what ales you

LoSapio said some of the biggest names in breweries will be attending, from Sierra Nevada in California to New Belgium in Colorado to Samuel Adams in Massachusetts. Local breweries Ghost River Brewing and Bosco’s also will be participating.

With more than 45 beers already slated for the event – a number that is growing every day with hopes of reaching 65 – LoSapio said companies from around the country are buying in to the idea of finding a new audience for their craft brews.

“We’re selling to these brewers as, ‘Hey, you’re going to hopefully get in front of 3,000 people and get them to sample your beer for the first time in this market and hopefully create a loyal customer,’” he said.

LoSapio said he had been planning this festival for about a year, but he had trouble pinpointing a featured charity for event proceeds. But last December, when LoSapio attended a breakfast before the St. Jude Memphis Marathon, he decided on St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The event, modeled after Nashville’s Music City Brewers Festival, is expected to draw 1,500 people per session. The large crowd and the local flavor of the festival were big draws for Ghost River co-owner Chuck Skypeck, who gets invited to participate in numerous beer festivals every year.

He said this one should be better than most because the people who make the beer – not just the salespeople who distribute it – will be pouring samples for festival goers.

“Who’s participating is breweries, not just distributors,” Skypeck said. “You get to talk to brewers, really see people from the brewery. I think that adds a lot of value to the festival for the person that’s coming there to learn about beer and try different beers.”

Consumer’s paradise

Although Martin Daniel has lived in Knoxville for a year and a half, he was born and raised in Memphis, so he knows the city well. One thing he discovered through events like ZooBrew was people are willing to spend $20 or so for a couple of hours sampling good beer.

“We felt like there was a need, so to speak, for this kind of thing,” he said. “From what I’ve read, I get the impression that the population generally wants to try different kinds of beers. There’s a lot more interest in beers these days.”

Daniel got the idea to launch a beer festival while frequenting beer-tasting events over the years, which is why he’s bringing the Memphis Brewfest, www.memphisbrewfest.com, to town in April. But this isn’t just any event for Daniel, a lawyer and owner of an outdoor advertising business.

When his 2-year-old son, Matthew, was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy last year, Daniel came up with the idea of having a fundraiser to fight the disease.

He said doctors and researchers are close to finding a treatment or a cure for the disorder, and 100 percent of the proceeds will go to charity – most of it for Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, plus some money going to the Redbirds Foundation.

While the festivals’ most important contributions will be the money they raise to fight childhood diseases, they also will introduce more Memphians to quality beer, an industry that has blossomed with the rise of microbreweries and craft brewers throughout the U.S.

“We’ve been trying to get people to drink better beer since 1992. And it has been nothing but an upward curve,” Skypeck said. “It’s still an uphill battle, so anytime you can take a step forward … events like this really do help in terms of making people realize that craft beer is really the new American beer.”

Restaurants Embrace New Normal / via Memphis Daily News

Memphis Daily News reported yesterday that though Memphis restaurants are feeling the effects of the economic downturn, they are not rolling over so easily. They are simply learning to do more with less. Whether they are lowering prices or creating smaller portion menu items, local restauranteurs are being smart about their efforts in order to regain business that once was so abundant. Take a look at what some local chef/owners are doing to fill the seats and get you dining out again.

And, let us know how your habits have changed with the economy.

Restaurants Embrace New Normal

By FREDRIC KOEPPEL | Special to The Memphis News / January 4, 2010

LOOKING UP?: Jeff Dunham, chef and owner of The Grove Grill in the Laurelwood Shopping Center, is hopeful for business in 2010. — PHOTO BY BOB BAYNE

“For 2010, I’d like to see a 20 percent increase in revenue,” said Jeff Dunham, owner and chef at the popular Grove Grill in East Memphis.

For Dunham, that goal might be attainable, but for many others, a rough 2009 has carried into the New Year.

From September 2008 through September 2009, the restaurant industry in America suffered one of its most intense downturns since the late 1980s.

Yet as much as the economic recession brought major banks to their knees and hurt the country’s dining-out segment, this dismal period appears to be the culmination of a steady decline in the public’s interest in eating out at every price level and style of cuisine.

Where bread is buttered

Over the past five years, the percentage of lunches and dinners eaten away from home declined from 53 percent to 45 percent, according to a report released in December by The NPD Group, a marketing research company in Port Washington, N.Y. Traffic for such ubiquitous national chain restaurants as Chili’s fell for 21 consecutive quarters.

The Current Situation Index, part of the Restaurant Performance Index issued by the National Restaurant Association, has registered below 100 for two years, indicating a contraction in business activity. It stands right now at 96.

Will the situation improve in 2010?

“I think we can go into 2010 with optimism tempered by a sense of reality,” said Mike Miller, owner of Patrick’s Steak & Spirits on Park Avenue and president of the Memphis Restaurant Association. “Coming from the end of 2008, when the economic situation started to get bad, and into 2009, it was a tough year. But everything I’m hearing for the last four to six months sounds better in every price range, from burgers and family restaurants to fine dining. From a pure business standpoint, we have a little momentum.”

Karen Carrier’s optimism is tempered.

“January is going to be really bad,” said Carrier, owner of Do Sushi, the Beauty Shop Restaurant and Lounge, Mollie Fontaine Lounge and the catering company Another Roadside Attraction.

“By the beginning of 2009, things fell apart,” she said, “and 2010 may still be a little rough. I don’t think things will start to ease up until the summer,” an assessment that agrees with The NPD Group’s report, which estimates the restaurant industry “will remain weak, at least through the first half of 2010.”

“First, I think the days of $28 to $32 entrees in this town are over, except for very special occasions,” Carrier said. “Second, your waiters represent the restaurant, and they can’t be rude or pretentious or argumentative. You can’t act like a celebrity, either in the kitchen or the dining room. The customers pay us, not the other way around. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make them happy.”

A strategy Dunham uses at Grove Grill is the “small plate” concept, in which a dish is more generous than an appetizer but smaller than a main course.

“We introduced this in September, and it’s done very well,” Dunham said. “The concept offers a great opportunity for customers to spend less and to eat less.”

The point, said Dunham – and this includes good-quality wines at lower prices – “is not to cut staff or reduce service at any level, but to make things as affordable as possible for the customer.”

He cited the difficulty independent restaurants have in competing with chains: “They have money to put into marketing that we just don’t have. We rely on word-of-mouth and reputation.”

Still, Dunham said, “barring the other shoe dropping, I don’t see why the circumstances won’t get better sometime next year.”

‘Open to change’

The latter months of 2009 saw several surprise local restaurant closings, primarily Jose Gutierrez’ Encore in Peabody Place, which folded in September and, just before Christmas, the closing of the long-running Jarrett’s, owned by Rick and Barbara Farmer.

Then, just last week, The Kitchen on West Brookhaven Circle closed after being open since April. It had replaced Caspian, a Persian restaurant that lasted a couple of years.

Angie Kirkpatrick, who talked to The Memphis News a week before closing The Kitchen, seemed optimistic at the time, but did express frustration.

“We’re affordable. The menu doesn’t break the bank,” she said. “But it hasn’t turned out as I expected; it’s much harder.”

After a hiatus of more than a decade before launching The Kitchen, Kirkpatrick worked as manager of The Half-Shell during the 1990s, owned Maxwell’s and In Limbo, in Cooper-Young, and Ithaca in the Holiday Inn Select at Union Avenue and Second Street.

“I’ve never been in a situation that was so unpredictable,” she said.

What seems to be predictable is the restaurant industry, which, despite how society idealizes its sybaritic qualities and prestige at some levels, is, after all, a consumer product business. It’s affected by not only economic factors, but cultural and social influences.

Nationally, the rate of personal savings is slowly rising – from 2.8 percent in August to 3.3 percent in September, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis – meaning Americans are more reluctant to spend money during a recession that’s not over yet.

“Restaurants have to be accountable,” said Carrier. “They have to keep the doors open to change.”