Contemporary Breweriana and Personal Nostaglia
I am bit of a nomad at this juncture in my life. There is little room for collecting much of anything. Still, as a student of good beer and a collector of good stories, my breweriana inspires a more personal nostalgia- transporting me back to the experiences where I earned my gear.
My Yazoo T-shirt:
In the southeast, craft beer enthusiasm remains in its nascent stages compared to that of the west coast, but I’ll argue to anyone who’s listening (and please imagine a twang in my voice as I say this), the South will rise. The growing number of breweries and beer bars across the region, in Asheville, Nashville, Atlanta, and even my hometown of Chattanooga, TN, are stepping up as educators.
No bar really embodies in my mind this mandate to teach quite like my favorite place in Chattanooga, The Tremont Tavern. With something like, 200 beers sourced both locally and internationally at any given moment, beer geeks and geeks in training have plenty of quality beer to drink, but the place doesn’t stop at selection.
Tremont, as the locals call it, holds an extensive beer mug program in which trying 60 different brews earns a personal
Tremont tavern minus its constant crowd of regulars.
mug, trying 120 earns your picture and a plaque on the wall, and trying 200 distinct beers get you a larger engraved mug with the nickname of your choice to use every time you return. My mug number 84 remains on the wall waiting for me.
But I digress from the beer gear; be patient, I’m getting there. Every Wednesday is Free Beer Night. Just writing that phrase makes me thirsty. For free beer night, one of the local brewers sends a representative with a keg or two of a special brew. The first featured beer is free, and then its remains on special at the bar the rest of the night, $2 pints (I miss the South).
One such night, Yazoo Brewing Company, out of Nashville, TN came down to the tavern to debut their latest version of their ongoing “Hop Project.” Each new batch plays with styles and varieties of hops to create a whole new level of hoppy good times. That evening, after making friends with the Yazoo rep and enjoying a couple pints worth of the project, I was given a Yazoo t-shirt, the last in my size to commemorate the night.
To this day, whenever I wear it, I’m taken back to that moment sitting on my favorite bar table, learning about hop styles and talking to my favorite bartender/bar owner about beer and what makes it special.
Each of my beer items has a story like this. A moment in time when the things I love converge while I get to learn something new about beer. I have my old embroidered aprons from serving tables at Big River Grille and Brewery: my first job, where I first learned that there was more to beer than Bud. I have a Sweetwater Brewing Company (Atlanta) tank top from a road trip with my boyfriend to tour the brewery and see the Braves. I have mugs from my 24th birthday, which was celebrated at the Annual Beerfest on the waterfront in my hometown. And, I have glasses from Devil’s Canyon’s beer Friday, where I got to write a story about beer, family and community with a Bourbon Barreled Scotch Ale in hand.
So, while I don’t have a vast collection of unique rare beer labels or bottles, I have a living growing history of experiences that were made all the more amazing by the beer in my hand.
