FuzzyBrew

Tickets are on sale for the 3rd annual River City Brewers Festival, a craft beer and homebrew tasting event in Handy Park on Beale Street.

More than 100 different beers will be available to sample at the festival, which is coming up March 31. Breweries include regional favorites Boscos, Ghost River Brewing, Yazoo Brewing Company, Schafly, Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company, Red Brick Brewing and others.

In addition, six homebrewers from the Bluff City Brewers & Connoisseurs will serve their brews.

There will be two sessions: Session A is from noon-4 p.m., and Session B is from 6-10 p.m. Tickets are $30 per session and can be purchased online.

Here’s more from the festival organizers:

Pouring more than 100 different flavors of beer, River City Brewers Festival will once again be the quintessential celebration of craft beer in Memphis, TN! There’s no better place to sip suds with friends, enjoy live music, and live it up than at the 3rd Annual River City Brewers Festival. Each ticket holder will sample fantastic beer that isn’t normally available in the area! Admission includes samples from the best local, regional, national, and import breweries in the world all in your handy souvenir mug.

Proceeds will benefit the Ronald McDonald House of Memphis.

I volunteered at the Rivers City Brewers Festival last year and, despite a lot of rain, had a really good time. Check out the FuzzyBrew recap here.

A new beer festival is coming to Tunica County in Mississippi next month.

The Double Down Beer-Rita Fest, part of the 2011 Smokin’ Aces Festival, will take place Sept. 16-17 at Harrah’s Tunica.

Samples of more than of over 100 beverages, including craft and international beers, margaritas and other frozen concoctions, will be served at two different sessions. Regional breweries at the festival include Ghost River Brewing, Schlafly Beer and Lazy Magnolia.

Session 1 is Friday (Sept. 16) from 5 to 9 p.m.; Session 2 (Sept. 17) is Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online.

The Smokin’ Aces Festival, which benefits Porter-Leath, also features a BBQ Championship, car show, cornhole tournament and live music.

If you wanna try to win tickets for the Beer-Rita Fest, the Bluff City Brewers & Connoisseurs homebrew club is giving away free tickets. Check out the Bluff City Brewers on Facebook for details.

Fans of St. Louis’ Schlafly Beer might soon notice a slight change in their bottles.

Schlafly is making a “subtle and simple addition,” adding some embossed letters to the shoulder of its bottles, according to a recent blog post by co-founder Dan Kopman.

Knowing that we were entering our 20th year we decided it would be groovy to add “EST 1991” to the bottle. We also found room to add an arc of the “SCHLAFLY” letters to the design,” Kopman wrote. “As we move closer to the 20th anniversary, the new bottle will serve as a gentle reminder that our mission has been to do nothing more than brew great beers since 1991.” [source]

The new design came about as Schlafly started work on a new contract for its glass bottles with  manufacturer O-I. Check out some video below of production of the new bottles at O-I’s glass plant in Lapel, Indiana. From July 11-13, O-I made 1.4 million bottles for Schlafly.

Schlafly and Blackstone breweries are forming "an alliance," says Schlafly co-founder Dan Kopman.

A decade ago, in the land of Anheuser-Busch, Schlafly Beer made just 9,383 U.S. barrels of craft beer.

In that same year, 2001, the St. Louis brewery took its first significant step to expand, buying an old grocery store in Maplewood, Mo., that would later open as the Schlafly Bottleworks in 2003.

With the increased capacity, Schlafly began to expand production. In 2010, it brewed about 35,000 barrels of beer, and is on pace to brew over 40,000 this year. Schlafly distributes in Kansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.

Schlafly is now quickly approaching capacity again. With that in mind, Schlafly has struck a deal to begin brewing beer in Nashville.

As part of a long-term agreement, Schlafly beer will be brewed at Blackstone Brewery’s new production brewery starting later this year. That’s according to a recent blog post from Schlafly co-founder Dan Kopman.

This agreement will allow for continued growth of Schlafly in Tennessee and the surrounding areas as well as free up some much needed capacity at Schlafly Bottleworks in St. Louis.” [source]

According to Kopman’s blog post, the deal came about through an old friend. Dave Miller was the first Head Brewer at The Schlafly Tap Room in 1991. Miller later moved to Nashville to be Head Brewery at Blackstone Restaurant & Brewery. Miller, along with Kent Taylor and Stephanie Weins, owners at Blackstone, started planning a few years ago to build a new production brewery in addition to their brewpub. As a result, they sought advice from the folks at Schlafly about starting a production brewery in Nashville.

We got together in both Nashville and St. Louis and realized that we could form an alliance that would benefit both of us. We’re now happy to announce that we have a long term agreement with Kent and Stephanie to access some of their capacity in order to produce some Schlafly Beer at their new Brewery in Nashville beginning later this year,” Kopman wrote. “… The exact timing still depends on the go-ahead from our Quality Team.”

Details of the arrangement were not disclosed in the post.

So what do you guys think about the expansion plans? Leave a comment below.