by Aaron McClain
Editor’s note: We are pleased to feature in the August 2021 issue the first piece in what will be a year-long series highlighting the most unique seasonal offerings brewed up by the wizards at Crafty Bastard and available at the business’s original and/or West Knox locations. Articles are provided by Crafty and (lightly) edited by BLANK. Cheers!
Crafty Bastard Brewery creates both traditional and mischievous beers carefully crafted with locally sourced ingredients, mad science and a middle finger to the mundane. This statement encapsulates Crafty Bastard and graces the labels of many of our more experimental brews. Each month, we will be featuring a new beer focusing on the procurement of locally sourced ingredients used in that specific beer, and occasionally we’ll be touching upon the mad science used to infuse these ingredients into our concoctions.
Crafty Bastard also creates a bevy of traditional beers for occasions when a walk on the wild side is not what you prefer. Knoxville Pride English Bitter, Marquis de Pils, Oktoberfest, Doppelbock etc. are accurate representations of classic styles. While these brews are delicious (and worthy of stories themselves), what we find to be the most interesting is chronicling the amazing diversity of tasty fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices and mushrooms (yes, I said mushrooms) found in our area and the fascinating people who grow and find them.
As you may already know, we have two locations: our OG downtown location at 6 Emory Place (which is quickly approaching its sixth anniversary) and our brand-new production facility and taproom at 9937 Kingston Pike in West Knoxville. There are many Crafty touches at the new location, but the most captivating is definitely the tapwall mural. Pawpaws, muscadines, pine sprigs, prickly pears, persimmons and chanterelle mushrooms were chosen for the mural for three main reasons:
1) They are all found locally.
2) None of these are available in gro cery stores; you have to go find and collect them yourself.
3) They all make damn tasty beer!
We look forward to sharing the stories of these distinctive, delicious and sometimes bizarre creations with you. Each month, a new brew with its own unique story will be featured, and the beer will be on tap for you to enjoy. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a pint of beer must be worth a million. To that end, we are offering a sneak peak into our project this month.
Chanterelle Mushroom IPA will be on tap at the West location, and the Spiritum Pawpaw barrel-aged sour will be on tap downtown while supplies last. Be sure to check our website (www.craftybastardbrewery.com) for an up-to-date taplist, follow us on Facebook and/or Instagram to stay in the loop for new releases, and visit one or both of our locations. Many of our beers are available to-go, and while that is a great opportunity to taste locally sourced ingredients and the mad science used to create them, we hope you’ll stick around for a pint or two, strike up a conversation with a stranger, drink something out of your comfort zone and give a middle finger to the mundane.
Special thanks to: Taryn Ferro for photography, inspiring this series and coordinating the mural project; Alice Holleman for working tirelessly on and beautifully painting the mural featured in the article; and Candace Lee for giving us the phrase (“middle finger to the mundane”) that describes Crafty as well as any.
