A Sampling of Local Craft Breweries

After a leisurely brunch at Balter Beerworks, one of Knoxville’s many craft breweries, our friends Norm and Linda led us ‘astray’, visiting a varied assortment of local breweries.  As you’ll see, they ranged from huge and fairly impressive to small and totally laid back.

We didn’t sample any of the Balter Beerworks’ beers when we stopped for our Sunday morning brunch…but that we did ‘go for it’ at each of our next 3 stops!

Our first stop for our short tour and sampling of beers brewed in the Knoxville area was at this faux ‘castle’ not far from downtown Knoxville.   This is the Schulz Brau Brewing Company.  They actually built this structure from scratch in order to evoke the feeling of being in a brewery in Germany…

Before we begin our tour, I would like to issue a disclaimer… I don’t drink much beer and my ‘go to’ brand is a US 'light' brand, so I do not offer opinions when it comes to types of beer.  At Schulz Brau as well as at our next 2 stops, I was happy because I told the barkeeps what I liked and they delivered beers that matched my bland beer taste buds…

This is a big place!  Even the outdoor Biergarten (beer garden) is huge.  It features an outside bar, fire-pits to provide warmth in winter months and a misting system to keep patrons cool in the summer.  The spacious courtyard with its large trees and the tall ‘castle walls’ are intended to make customers forget about what’s happening outside.  

As per Schulz Brau’s website, all of the tables, chairs and benches in the Biergarten were imported from Germany in order to provide their patrons the most authentic experience possible.  I did note that by the time we left, a couple of those fire pits were in use on this chilly day…

We entered Schulz Brau Brewing Company through the big doors under the tower.  The inside dining and drinking space is humongous!  Of course, when we arrived, it was just a little after Noon on a Sunday so there wasn’t much going on yet…

From my viewpoint, the ‘castle’ theme was hokey…an attempt to be something that it isn’t and can’t be.  The biergarten offered a more authentic venue for the serious beer drinkers… 

This is a very large craft brewery.  Schulz Brau Brewing Co. distributes their beer through 2 East Tennessee distributors as well as 1 each in Vermont and upper New York State.  The equipment used here to brew the beer is impressive and we did enjoy our sampling of 4 different types of Schulz Brau’s beers.  They do offer quite a number of their own craft beers to include hefenweizen, helles, black lager, dunkel lager, doppelbock and many more.

In my opinion, one positive for Schulz Brau is the fact that it does offer quite a spread of German food items through “Schulzes Schnitzel Kitchen”.  Schnitzel, a variety of sausages, sauerbraten, and fleischkase are all on the menu.  So are pizzas, one of which is a “Wurst” Pizza.  Sometime in the future we’ll have to return just to try their food. 

Schulz Brau Brewing Co. is located at 126 Bernard Avenue in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 800-245-9764.  Their website is found at: http://www.schulzbraubrewing.com/.    

It was a short drive to our next brew pub/craft brewery.  This is the Pretentious Beer and Glass Co.  As you can see, they took over an old building in Knoxville’s ‘old town’ area…and in comparison to our first stop, it is a very small venue.

Pretentious Beer and Glass does have a small covered and informal outdoor area for its patrons. 

As per their mission statement, the Pretentious Beer Co. wants to create a unique experience for craft beer enthusiasts.  Their focus is the profitable production and service of craft beer and soda in hand-blown glassware.  Yes…hand-blown glassware.  Laurie did take a photo of a glassed in wall displaying a wide variety of their hand-blown glassware, but with the glare it just didn’t come out well.

In any case, I’ve perused their beer (and bourbon) glasses on-line store and I’ve decided that I’m not a serious enough lover of the suds to indulge in the glassware despite their obvious quality.  Prices range from $30.00 for a “Da ‘Wobble” up to $66.00 for a Nuevo English Beer Mug (aka. Sparkles).  You can check out the variety of beer glasses at: http://www.pretentiousglass.com/store/c3/Beer_Glasses.html.

Indoor seating at the Pretentious Beer Company is fairly limited as it isn’t very big.  The brewing tanks/vats have a long narrow table alongside them on one wall with a number of stools for patrons.  Seating is available across the aisle at the bar as well.   However, when we were there, there wasn’t room for all 4 of us at the bar.

The owner of Pretentious Beer Company got into the business as a glass blower.  He’d decided to make custom beer glasses for a small drinking club he belonged to.  Then he started home brewing.  That eventually led to this brewery.  They serve the beers here in handcrafted glass…so it hurt when one of the patrons knocked one off the bar while we were there.  Sometimes, patrons can check out a live glass blowing demonstration while quaffing a brew…

I did appreciate the signs above the bar that colorfully listed the available brews for the customers to consider.  I informed the bar tender of my limited beer ‘likes’ and he correctly served me a “Chuggish Ruggish Bone”, a Munich Helles.  Other choices listed on the signs were brews such as “Fairy Floss”, “Hall and Oated”, “New Kids on the Floc”, “Smoki Bois” and, “Nude Beach”.  At our first stop we’d all sampled small beers but here I didn’t think before I ordered for everyone…and they were big enough brews that finishing them almost shut down the remainder of our tour…

Pretentious Beer Company is located at 131 South Central Street in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 865-851-7693.  To view what’s currently on tap, just go to https://www.pretentiousbeerco.com/on-tap.html.

For our next (and last) stop of the day, Norm drove us across the Henley Street Bridge to the Printshop Beer Company.  The Printshop brews a range of American-style craft beer that range from the very ‘hoppy’ to seasonal and small batch releases. 

FYI, Laurie and I realized that this was the first time in the over 10.5 years that we’ve lived in the area, that we’d actually crossed on the locally famous Henley Street Bridge… Built in 1931, its completion linked Knoxville with the newly created Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

It’s easy to visualize why this craft brewery is called the Printshop Beer Co.  Apparently they occupy a former print shop.  This is truly a basic former production/factory building with concrete floors and bare-bones décor.

However basic the Printshop Beer Company’s facility is, it is also obviously very popular with its fan base.  In the end, all of these pubs are much like a new version of the corner bars in many areas of the country.  Folks gather, gossip and relax while sipping a brew or two.

Some of the brews on tap included “Southie”, “Hand Crank”, “Karmic Rap Sheet” (2 varieties) and “Scattering Flock”.  We sensibly limited ourselves to small “sampler” size beers during our visit.

Printshop Beer Co. doesn’t offer food other than bags of pretzels and chips.  I did note that there is a food truck schedule posted behind the bar.  I’m sure that business is really good when the food trucks stop by.  A couple of folks also set up tables selling hemp products, silk screened t-shirts and this gal looked like she was setting up soap products for sale.

This dog was really enjoying all the attention he was getting.  He sat so nicely on the stool…but I don’t think he ordered a beer.  Laurie knows her dog breeds but she had to ask what type of spaniel this dog was.  His name is 'Dunker" and he's a Boykin Spaniel, the state dog of South Carolina.  They were bred to hunt turkeys and ducks in the delta areas of the state.  This is one of only 2 US dog breeds that were named for the family that developed them.

In any case, this dog was just one of about 4 that visited the Printshop Beer Co. while we were there.  There couldn’t be a more relaxed or less pretentious brew pub unless it was hidden away in the mountains. 

Printshop Beer Co. is located at 1532 Island Home Avenue in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 865-474-9591.  To review a list of their current brews and to learn more about the Printshop Beer Co., they are on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/printshopbeer/ and their website is at: http://printshopbeer.com/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by! 

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave