Let's take a field trip!

After we finished up our usual weekend walk at Willow Springs Park this past Saturday where we had great mountain views like this: I said to Sparky, "Hey, let's drive to Jonesborough and see if that new brewery is open." With the prospect of cold locally brewed beer dangling in front of her like a Christmas ornament, Sparky quickly agreed to my plan.

So off we drove in the Sparkymobile until we reached our destination in Tennessee's oldest town:

I was worried that they may have been closed by the time we got there but one quick glance at the hours of operation told me we made it in plenty of time, we got there around 3:30 PM in fact.
From the outside the brewery doesn't look like much:But once you get inside it's another story. We walked in and we were ushered back and the nice young fellow asked us if we wanted to taste their wares. Not being ones to turn down free beer we quickly agreed to sample the locally brewed ales and lagers. And yes, at one point the young man told me the difference between an ale and a lager but I was too busy enjoying the free beer to pay attention.
Once he checked our ID's, we have a new state law that says all persons wishing to buy any alcohol must show ID, the young man started pouring from the taps pictured above. We sampled the house brew, which was very good and was the kind we ended up buying later, a caramel tasting dark beer, a dark Scottish ale that is also currently for sale in local grocery stores in 12 ounce bottles, a beer so dark that it almost sucked the light from the room and that tasted too much like coffee for my tastes, a fruity lager which I liked but Sparky didn't, and one other ale which was really good but the name of which I forget now.

After sampling all those beers on a nearly empty stomach, I must admit I got a buzz. It reminded me of my old college days when we'd get drunk in the afternoons on the weekends. Now that I think about it, maybe all those times I got drunk on weekend afternoons contributed to my C minus average, all well, that's water, or in this case, beer under the bridge now.
Even though the sign outside said tours by appointment, the young man gave us one without an appointment, finally we are getting the respect and perks we deserve! Blogging pays off kids, stick with it!
The young man took us on a guided tour of the joint and we saw many tanks like the ones above and the ones below.

We also got to see their delivery van!

Our guide told us that the owner, Michael Foster, invested quite a chunk of change to get his brewery open and that things were currently looking up for them. They have several restaurants and pubs in the area selling their beer on tap and now they are branching out to local grocery stores. One can also buy kegs, mini kegs, and bottles of their beer direct from the brewery. I did not inquire as to the price of a full keg but I did ask about their mini keg system. They said that the mini keg system was $160 for everything including the tap and when you ran out of beer you bring the little keg back and get it refilled for $45. That was out of our price range so instead we bought what they call a "growler," which is a glass jug that has half a gallon of beer in it.
Mmmmm, locally brewed beer in the fridge.

*****

As I said before we got a growler of the house brew. The only problem with this size container is that it's kind of like a two litre of soda in that once you open it the natural fizz of the beer starts to leave it. So to combat the loss of fizz we were advised that once we opened it we should drink it all. Despite Sparky's reservations when we finally got home later that evening, I opened that bad boy. I ended up having 4 glasses to Sparky's 2. All in all the beer was great but that's actually a little too much beer for me in one night. Ideally since my heart attack I should have only one a night, two at the most. Luckily for me though they are going to start shipping one of the lighter ales in 12 ounce bottles to local stores soon, until then however I may have to wait until we have guests that will help us drink a growler of beer, so all of you should consider that an invitation to come on over, wink wink.

You can visit the brewery yourself if you like. They are located at 904 Depot Street in Jonesborough, TN. Or you can visit them on the web here. I'm thrilled we have a local brewery that makes such good beers and I'm hoping people around here and from all over the world discover this great new small business.